Multi-Modal-based Emotional Contagion from Tourists to Hosts: The Dual-Process Mechanism

Abstract

Emotional reactions and transmissions are crucial to host-tourist interaction yet lacking in research, particularly from the host viewpoint. To deepen understanding of host-tourist interaction, this study took a host perspective to examine emotional contagion from tourists to hosts. By adopting video-vignette based interaction scenarios and cutting-edge techniques (e.g., FaceReader), a real-time multi-modal investigation was undertaken to reveal mechanism underlying emotional contagion of Hong Kong residents from Mainland Chinese tourists. Results theoretically consolidated the dual-process mechanism underpinning automatic emotional contagion and empirically verified an Emotional Contagion Model (ECM) from tourists to hosts. The compelling effects of mimicry, interaction context and stereotypes explained the emotional convergence and divergence between hosts and tourists. The study extended the knowledge boundary of host-tourist interaction to micro-level interpersonal emotional connection. Moreover, the verified ECM theoretically advances emotional contagion mechanism in the social psychology literature. Practical guidelines for host-tourist relation management and sustainable destination development were provided.

How Do Voice Characteristics Affect Tourism Interpretation Purchases? An Empirical Study Based on Voice Mining

“…Furthermore, this study extends the auditory data and voice mining techniques to tourism studies. Various big data, including text, images, and videos, have been applied to tourism research (e.g., Bui et al, 2022; Filieri et al, 2021; S. Zhang et al, 2022).…”

“…Advances in big data and artificial intelligence analytic methods permit analyzing massive amounts of structured and unstructured data, which was not previously possible (Bharadwaj & Shipley, 2020; Li et al, 2018). Tourism studies have used various big data, including text, images, and videos (e.g., Bui et al, 2022; Filieri et al, 2021; S. Zhang et al, 2022).…”

“…Regarding methods, advances in big data analytic methods permit analyzing massive amounts of structured and unstructured data (Bharadwaj & Shipley, 2020; Li et al, 2018). Supported by these developments, researchers have applied various unstructured data, including text, images, and videos, to tourism research (e.g., Bui et al, 2022; Filieri et al, 2021; S. Zhang et al, 2022).…”

Emotion regulation research in hospitality and tourism

“…(2) examining the effects of customer/employee emotions on their experience, satisfaction and loyalty (Prayag et al, 2017); and (3) evaluating the exchange of emotions between employees/hosts and customers from the emotional labor (EL) perspective (Lan et al, 2022) or within the emotional contagion paradigm (Ustrov et al, 2016;Zhang et al, 2022).…”

“…Most tourism studies of emotion have been conducted from the perspective of customers, while the majority of hospitality studies on emotion has focused on the perspective of employees (for review, see Hosany et al , 2021; Lee and Madera, 2019; Tuerlan et al , 2021). In general, H&T researchers have made tremendous efforts under three themes: understanding the elicitation and display of customer/employee emotions (Lechner et al , 2020; Ma et al , 2013); examining the effects of customer/employee emotions on their experience, satisfaction and loyalty (Prayag et al , 2017); and evaluating the exchange of emotions between employees/hosts and customers from the emotional labor (EL) perspective (Lan et al , 2022) or within the emotional contagion paradigm (Ustrov et al , 2016; Zhang et al , 2022). …”