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In the prevailing COVID-19 pandemic, organizations now are expected to serve customers who are highly conscious of safety and sanitation. Among others, the hospitality industry is significantly and negatively influenced by this pandemic. Given the unique characteristics of services, using advanced technology is not enough to create a memorable experience without physical interaction between service providers and customers. Thus, this study aims to define the “new normal” for service customers and to explore the “new service design” for the hotel industry.

As most of the Southeast Asian countries heavily rely on the tourism industry, this study focuses on one of the emerging tourism destinations in this region, Malaysia. The data is collected through in-depth interviews with 17 potential national and international tourists.

The results suggest that considering the “new normal” for customers, there is an immediate need for the hotel industry to revamp their service design by mainly practicing disinfection and sanitation activities, re-designing overall infrastructure and introducing promotional offers.

This study is novel in its kind as it provides useful guidelines for both practitioners and academicians/researchers. Under this crucial time, very few research is conducted specifically focusing on the hotel industry and tourists’ behaviors amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The study will provide in-depth knowledge about tourists’ expectations from the hotel services, especially in their own voices.

In the service industry, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is considered a strategic valuable resource. Although previous studies emphasized CSR activities in the service industry, a limited number of studies have examined the combined effect with the service experience. Thus, this study aims to examine the potential antecedents of cruise customers’ positive responses toward the cruise company.

The proposed model includes CSR activities, service experiences, satisfaction and revisit intention. The model is tested using samples of cruise customers from the USA. Tests of the proposed model produce significant results for path coefficients from two-dimensional service experience (i.e. physical quality and staff behavior) and not from CSR activities (i.e. environmental and philanthropic).

Hypothesis testing indicates that among cruise customers, perceived physical quality and staff behavior are more relevant for creating satisfaction and revisit intention than environmental and philanthropic CSR support.

The results provide important implications for scholars concerning the effects of CSR activities on customer behavior for efficaciously managing customers’ positive experience with facilities and employees.

There has been a paradigm shift in the cruise industry. The recent trend shows an increasing number of cruise businesses leading to intense competition. Yet, researchers have not adequately examined the impact of service experience and CSR experience simultaneously. Thus, this study contributes to the existing CSR literature by identifying the important determinants of cruise customers’ behavior.

The advent of COVID-19 was followed by an increased demand for organic products along with newfound customer interest in healthy consumption habits. This study aims to explore the impact of multidimensional consciousness on consumers’ attitudes and purchasing intentions toward organic food brands.

Given the importance of culture on customers’ decision-making, data were collected from the USA and India to examine the potential cultural differences with respect to organic products. A conceptual model is derived and tested using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The results indicate that organic consciousness (e.g. for organic standards) is the most important predictor of attitudes, whereas environmental consciousness appears to be the prime motive in the formation of purchase intentions. Multidimensional (i.e. organic, environment, health and social) consciousness can predict attitude and intention. However, organic standards and social consciousness fail to directly influence customers’ purchasing intention. The impact of each dimension of consciousness varies between USA and Indian customers.

This study provides an understanding of customers’ sustainable consumption behavior by clarifying the relative impact of multidimensional perceived values. Also, because of the growth of organic food market globally, the findings of this study offer valuable insights by identifying the cultural difference between Western and Eastern customers’ behavior.

In this study, the authors examine the impacts of two facets of retail employees' cognitive support and affective commitment on emotional labor-related outcomes.

To test the study hypotheses, 521 retail service employees participated in the survey. By using the structural equation modeling, the results show that employees' perceived organizational support directly and positively employees' affective organizational commitment and emotional exhaustion.

By using the structural equation modeling, the results show that employees' perceived organizational support directly and positively influence employees' affective organizational commitment and emotional exhaustion. The extent of employees' affective organizational commitment directly and negatively influences emotional labor and exhaustion. Furthermore, employees' emotional exhaustion exerts an influence on retail employees' propensity to leave.

Drawing on social exchange and conservation of resources theories, this study contributes to emotional labor research and practices by examining factors that potentially influences employees' propensity to leave. For future studies, researchers can expand the proposed framework of the current study to other retailing settings.

Findings of the study suggest that retail organizations need to manage employees' support and commitment concerning to understand emotional labor.

The current study found that employees' affective commitment influences key emotional labor constructs including emotional labor and emotional exhaustion. Employees who have a high level of identification, involvement and emotional attachment toward the organization, they are less likely to feel of overload and inefficiency. Given the importance of emotional labor in the retailing setting, the proposed model and findings of this study contribute the existing knowledge of retail employees' behavior.

Although the characterisation of intrinsic and extrinsic attribution is pervasive and important, this concept is yet to be explored in the corporate social responsibility (CSR) context. Thus, this study aims to study these CSR attributes and examine its influences on hotel customers’ behaviour.

This study explores and attempts to distinguish the varying roles of intrinsic and extrinsic CSR attributes. Framed in context of CSR in the hotel industry, the characteristics of CSR practices (e.g. sympathy or rewarding) are hypothesised to lead customers’ motivation to engage in a specific behaviour based on the attribution theory.

The target population of 150 hotel customers was surveyed, and the results exhibited that the intrinsic and extrinsic attributes of hotel CSR activities increased customers’ purchase intention by improving their level of perceived authenticity. The impact of intrinsic motivation on brand authenticity was found to have a greater influence compared to extrinsic motivation. When customers perceive the authenticity of hotel brands, there is a tendency to exert a positive behavioural intention. However, it was identified that for the hotel industry, only extrinsic motivation had a direct influence on customers’ positive behavioural intention.

The varying roles of the intrinsic and extrinsic attributes of CSR and its impact on customers’ brand authenticity and behavioural intention were identified. Hence, this study conceptually contributes to the existing CSR literature by determining and incorporating the variables that measure the intrinsic and extrinsic attributes of hotel CSR activities.

This study contributes advancements to the hospitality and tourism industry, by expanding the literature to include the identification of significant CSR attributes and strategies that are beneficial, and can be used by companies for their development.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of customers’ socio-demographic characteristics on the formation of behavioral intention toward green hotels in Malaysia.

The current study used partial least square-structural equation modeling to analyze a sample of 400 green hotel customers in Malaysia. Further, multi-group analysis (MGA) is conducted to examine whether a significant difference exists across demographic groups.

Attitude and perceived behavioral control exert positive effects on desire, which in turn considerably influences behavioral intention. Results of MGA indicate that attributions have varying effects on the desire and behavioral intention with different socio-demographic characteristics. In particular, negative anticipated emotion negatively predicts desire among the customers of the older group, whereas positive anticipated emotion and subjective norm positively influence desire among the customers of the low educational level group.

The study examines green hotel customers’ behavior in Malaysia, and further research is needed to determine whether the impact of the proposed determinants across different industries. As the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has started to influence customers’ behavior, the findings may be changing over time. Thus, a further longitudinal study would be beneficial to monitor the performance hotel CSR activities.

Although there is an increasing interest in CSR activities among Malaysian customers, there is a lack of information regarding customers’ motivation in the green hotel context. Furthermore, limited studies examined the role of customers’ demographic characteristics in the CSR literature. There is a need to understand green hotel industry and customers’ responses toward CSR activities.

From the perspective of relationship theory, customers tend to build a positive attitude toward a company with a strong connection. While previous tourism and hospitality studies acknowledged the strategic importance of a strong relationship between customers and brands in enhancing company performance probability, the potential benefits derived from mobile commerce experience deserves further investigation. Thus, this study aims to examine how multidimensional relationships between customers and service providers affect brand performance.

Using a sample of food delivery application customers in the USA, the structural equation modeling (SEM)-partial least squares (PLS) path modeling is used to examine the impact of economic exchange, social exchange, mutual-interest and self-interest, on brand equity and loyalty intention.

The PLS-SEM results indicate that customers’ perceived economic exchange, social exchange and mutual interests with food delivery applications influence their perceived equity, which, in turn, enhances their loyalty intention toward brand applications. However, self-interest does not enhance customers’ perceived brand equity.

Accordingly, food delivery service providers must value their relationship with customers to achieve sustainable organizational growth and develop appropriate promotion activities to enhance economic exchange, social exchange and mutual interests.

The current study contributes to the literature by empirically demonstrating the consequences of customer-brand relationships in the emerging service context (i.e. food delivery applications).

This study aims to examine the effects of cruise attributes on impulse buying of service customers through impulsive buying tendency. Specifically, this study investigates whether service attributes (variety of selection and price) influence the impulsive buying behavior of customers by stimulating their impulsive buying tendency.

Partial least squares-structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothesis using a sample of 143 cruise customers. Mediating analysis was conducted to examine whether customer personal traits (impulsivity) mediated the relationship between service attributes and impulsive buying behavior.

The findings showed that price attributions had a significant positive direct impact on impulsive buying tendency and behavior, while a variety of selections had a significant direct effect on impulse buying behavior. The results revealed a significant mediating role of impulsive buying tendency in the relationship between price attributions and impulse buying.

Although studies on the decision-making style of service customers have been widely discussed, a limited number of studies has examined customers’ impulsive buying behavior in the service sector. Considering the importance of impulsive purchasing as a valuable marketing tool, the results of this study can help service providers and researchers enhance their knowledge of the mechanism of impulse buying behavior.

Although small businesses are important to the economy, few studies have examined how the small restaurant experience influences customer behavior. Thus, the purpose of this study is to develop a model and examine the influence of small restaurant attributes (i.e. authenticity) on customers’ positive attitudes and behavior.

Using 181 responses from customers of small restaurants, this study examines how the dimensions of authenticity (i.e. continuity, credibility, integrity, and symbolism) affect customers’ positive behavioral intentions through emotional attachment.

The results of partial least squared–structural equation modeling demonstrate that customer perceptions of symbolism, credibility, and integrity in their experience at a small restaurant influence their attachment, which in turn influences both their word of mouth and revisit intentions. However, continuity has no significant effect on customers’ emotional attachment to service providers. Also, the effects of authenticity on customer behavior vary across demographic categories.

With increasing competition in the small business context, service providers seek to understand how to create positive customer patronization behavior. This study provides guidelines for small business owners who are developing marketing strategies.

Despite the fact that fit positively influences customers’ attitudes toward companies, previous research reveals differing roles of fit in the domain of corporate social responsibility (CSR) based on criteria and degree. Because the impact of fit between customers and service companies in the domain of CSR remains unclear in the hospitality context, this study aims to examine the effects of different CSR types on customer–CSR fit, attitude and behavioral intentions in hospitality settings.

A total of 219 usable hotel customer responses were collected and analyzed using SmartPLS software.

Results show that companies’ demonstration of CSR toward social/nonsocial stakeholders is most effective for increasing perceived fit by customers, followed by CSR toward employees and toward customers. Also, this study identifies perceived fit as an indicator of customers’ positive attitudes and revisit intentions. This study enhances our understanding of relationships among three dimensions of CSR activities and customers’ responses.

This study provides guidelines with which hospitality companies can create sustainable growth by engaging the welfare of communities, employees and customers.