Experimental design studies in hospitality and tourism research: constructive recommendations

Abstract

Purpose This study aims to systematically review a total of 513 papers using experimental methods in hospitality and tourism research and then proposed new recommendations to address approaches that have been confusingly adopted or ignored in the current literature. Design/methodology/approach An extensive literature review was conducted. Together with critiques on previous studies, four recommendations were proposed to help carry out future experimental studies using more rigorous and exact approaches. Findings Multiple experimental studies can provide stronger evidence for theoretical arguments. Demonstration of the theoretical underlying mechanism using evidence based on mediation and moderating methods is required. The adoption of complementary methods can mitigate the generic weaknesses of experimental methods. In addition, enhancement of the realism of experiments is required to obtain stronger empirical evidence with internal and external validity. Research limitations/implications This study proposes four constructive recommendations which help researchers to conduct future experimental design studies correctly. Valid and exact research outcomes can help practitioners to carry out new useful marketing strategies. Originality/value After reviewing 513 previous papers that used experimental design in the hospitality and tourism fields, this study proposes four new recommendations to facilitate a better understanding of experimental design. The original and innovative nature of this study will help future investigations to adopt more accurate statistical approaches.

Effects of AI ChatGPT on travelers’ travel decision-making

“…Finally, even though we used several underlying mechanisms in theorizing, we did not provide direct empirical evidence for them. Future studies need to measure the mediators and conduct mediation analysis to support the theoretical arguments (Kim et al , 2023c).…”

What makes experimental research publishable in leading hospitality and tourism journals? Perspectives of editorial board members

“…They suggested the use of data partitioning to resolve the problems of data and budget constraints. In hospitality and tourism literature, reviews of issues in experimental research and offering suggestions on conducting experiments are also not scarce (Fong et al , 2016; Kim et al , 2023; Mattila et al , 2021; Sun et al , 2020; Viglia and Dolnicar, 2020). Taken together, the existing papers in experimental research, regardless of the disciplines or fields, were written based on observations in previous studies.…”