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Travel decreased dramatically during the initial wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, only to return rapidly to prepandemic levels once the degree of fear toward the virus began to diminish among potential travelers. This USA-based 16-month repeated-measure cross-sectional survey study aims to explore the degree to which fear of COVID affected people’s decisions to stay home rather than to travel during the pandemic.

The research used survey data. An extensive data set, composed of over 9,500 respondents, collected through Mechanical Turk over a 16-month time period, was used to compare respondent fear of the pandemic both with their attitudes toward future travel and with Smith Travel Research data reflecting actual pandemic travel patterns.

The results demonstrate how fear of COVID was closely and negatively linked to both travel intentions and travel behavior.

Data were collected from US respondents only.

The findings significantly extend earlier studies and provide guidance for those studying travel consumer behavior regarding trends that should be monitored in the case of a future pandemic or other fear-inducing crisis. For hospitality and tourism managers and marketers, understanding fear as a leading indicator of future travel behavior can result in more timely promotional efforts and staffing and training decisions.

Measuring and understanding consumer fear levels as this relates to travel decisions can help in the future to adjust the message that is sent to the public, perhaps reducing the amount of travel taken during periods when this is unwise and or unsafe.

This paper extends previous work that had been based upon cross-sectional reviews, providing a broader and more valuable study of an important and timely consumer behavior travel topic.

The purpose of this paper is to review the impact electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) has had on the hospitality and tourism industry and discuss the changes that will affect its future. The paper’s touchpoint is the authors’ earlier paper (Litvin et al., 2008), which proposed that eWOM was to become a major influence as a conduit of travelers’ views and opinions.

The paper summarizes the arguments of the authors’ earlier paper, describing ways in which eWOM has evolved into the influential system it has become, with special emphasis on the growth of mobile media as a platform for eWOM dissemination.

The authors conclude that eWOM has fulfilled its promise to become a major influence on the hospitality and tourism industry and will continue to play an essential role in hospitality marketing for the foreseeable future.

The authors provide examples of successful media campaigns and propose strategies for hospitality and tourism businesses.

eWOM has emerged to become a highly influential element of modern marketing strategy. This look back at an early eWOM paper, with reflection on changes that have occurred and a view to the future, is of value as validation of an often cited article that set the stage for much subsequent hospitality research.

The purpose of this paper is to determine how festivals allocated their funds among various expense categories.

Festival managers from across North and South Carolina were asked to specify the percentages of their expense budgets allocated to each of the following categories: marketing, administrative, entertainment and operations.

It was found that “smaller” festivals spend a significantly greater proportion of their budgets on marketing (23 percent) and a far smaller share on administrative expenditures (5 percent) than do their “larger” counterparts that spend only 15 percent on marketing and triple the “smaller” festival's administrative costs (15 percent). The differences related to their spending for entertainment (35 versus 28 percent) and operations (36 versus 41 percent) are not as dramatic in relation to their proportion of total spending. The data herein suggest that festival size plays an important role when it comes to such allocations.

The paper has provided benchmarks that hopefully will assist festival directors' budget‐decision‐making strategies as they allow a measure with which to evaluate those decisions. While the research needs to be interpreted with great care due to its relatively small sample size and broad budgetary categorizations, the findings provide a guide to assist festival organizers as they manage their events for the benefit of their stakeholders and the communities that support them. The paper also provides a starting point for future research in this area, much of which is needed.

The accurate measure of the economic contribution of festivals and special events is a challenge. Using a case study, the purpose of this paper is to demonstrate a previously un‐captured economic contribution from increased hotel rates during the period of festival or event; the “rising tide” effect.

This paper uses a case study on Charleston's hotel occupancy changes, and how the changes coincide with the occurrence of festivals and events in the community, to demonstrate the increased tourism income due to rising accommodation prices during festivals and events.

The study validates the increased tourism income due to rising accommodation prices during festivals and events, which can provide a significant boost to the economy of a local community.

Festival organizations, as well as hoteliers and other beneficiaries of tourist spending during festivals and events, should note how this additional contribution benefits them and their communities.

Many economic contributions of festivals/events overstate their values. The current study first demonstrates a previously un‐captured economic contribution using a case study approach.

The purpose of this paper is to motivate hospitality leaders and local festival and special event management to grow their events from simply local events to those that attract tourists and tourists' dollars to the community.

Previous research is discussed but no new research is offered.

This commentary challenges event managers to elevate their local events into attractors bringing tourists and tourist spending to the community.

Festivals and special events should consider growing their events such that they attract new monies to the community, put heads in beds, and generate revenue for tourism providers and other merchants across the local economy. The article offers suggestions to tourism officials for the distribution of public support funding to help local festivals successfully grow their events.

Readers will find the Charleston model discussed herein of value as they consider the politics of funding festivals and special events in their community. The paper offers suggestions and warnings for the growth.

The purpose of this research is to study the impact of the Spoleto, USA festival on the Charleston, SC hotel industry. Anecdotal evidence indicates that, while the highly successful event has benefited the community as a whole, hotels have not shared in the good fortune festival organizers and university‐sponsored economic studies indicate should have accrued.

Secondary data, obtained from Smith Travel Research, spanning four festival periods (2000‐2003), have been analyzed, comparing festival‐period hotel occupancy rates and average daily rates (ADRs) with non‐festival periods.

Neither Spoleto‐period hotel occupancy nor ADR were enhanced by the festival. Analysis indicated that local hotels are not receiving the expected festival‐driven benefits. The numbers indicate that Spoleto has caused more potential visitors to avoid the city than it has attracted.

On a micro‐level, Charleston hotel and tourism officials learn about a festival's impact on their city. On a macro‐level, other cities and festival organizers may be encouraged to review their events to determine whether they are contributing to their local economy as expected. There is no suggestion that what has occurred in Charleston would necessarily occur elsewhere.

The paper is quite practical and should be of significant value to industry and governmental officials. The most significant contribution is making the stakeholders aware of an issue of importance that is easily overlooked.

This research offers a fresh look at an issue not previously specifically addressed. While a healthy body of research speaks to the positive benefits of festivals and special events, looking at the potential shortfalls from the hotel's perspective makes this paper of significant value.

One of the most well-known, seminal models in the tourism field is the one proposed 50 years ago by Stanley C. Plog. His venturesomeness model has been widely cited in journal articles, textbooks, and has also been used as a reference for planning and designing tourism marketing projects. However, empirical research using Plog's psychographics has yielded varied results, some of which have corroborated his model, while others have found partial or no support for some postulates. Therefore, the purpose of this chapter is to offer an exhaustive review of 47 studies in the literature which have employed Plog's venturesomeness concept to examine travelers' personality traits, attitudes, and behavior, synthetizing empirical findings and drawing conclusions from the cumulative results. A discussion of the model's contribution to the current body of knowledge, managerial implications for tourism practitioners, and directions for future research are presented.

One of the most well-known, seminal models in the tourism marketing field is the one proposed more than 40 years ago by Stanley Plog. His venturesomeness model has been widely cited in journal articles, textbooks, and has also been used as a reference for planning and designing tourism marketing projects. However, empirical research on Plog’s psychographic model has yielded varied, inconclusive results, and the postulates of his conceptual framework are still subject to academic scrutiny. While some empirical investigations have corroborated the model, others have found partial or no support for it. Therefore, the purpose of this chapter is to offer an exhaustive review of 26 studies in the literature which have employed Plog´s venturesomeness concept to examine travellers’ personality traits, attitudes, and behaviour, as a way to synthetise empirical findings and draw conclusions from the cumulative results. A discussion of the model’s contribution to the current body of knowledge and managerial implications for tourism marketing practitioners are presented.

Companies are interested in engaging consumers in spreading the word about their products or brands. Although more and more studies are analysing word of mouth marketing (WOMM), the topic is still very recent, thus very little is known about how to develop a WOMM campaign effectively. This chapter develops a literature review on WOMM in social media for better understanding on how to manage WOMM.

The studies reviewed have allowed us to identify the main decisions that should be taken when planning a WOMM campaign: the selection of the seed, the type of message and the inclusion of incentives.

We identify the two types of objectives that companies can follow with WOMM: information diffusion or consumers’ persuasion. Depending on the campaign objectives, the strategy to be used in order to be successful is different.

This chapter can be useful to both, marketers, by showing them how to develop a WOMM campaign effectively; and researchers, by showing them the main gaps on WOMM that should be addressed in future studies.

This is one of the first attempts to review the literature and organize knowledge on WOMM. Concepts that have been treated as synonymous by many researchers such as opinion leaders, market mavens, innovative consumers, and hubs are clarified and distinguished one from the other which may help in improving previous knowledge on this field.

While the importance of social media will continue to grow, the purpose of this study is to provide a retrospective systematic literature review of the social media research published in major hospitality and tourism journals over a specific time period.

The study conducted a bibliometric analysis to review the literature of 439 social media articles published in 51 hospitality and tourism journals over a 15-year time span (2002-2016).

Ulrike Gretzel authored the highest fractional citations. The results indicated that social media-related research was mostly published in top-tier journals. The International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management was amongst the four leading journals in terms of the percentage of published social media articles. While inter-country social media research collaborations were relatively modest, interestingly, inter-country collaborations have been steadily increasing in the past five years. Another finding indicated that social media research in hospitality and tourism journals has been predominantly quantitative. The results revealed six new areas within the consumer behaviour research theme, namely, eWOM, service recovery, customer satisfaction, brand/destination image and service quality. Finally, it is important to note that four new trends in social media research appeared between 2011 and 2016, namely, big data, netnography, Travel 2.0 and Web 2.0.

While this study made significant contributions to the social media literature, some limitations do exist. For example, the current research excluded publications from major conferences, books, book chapters and dissertations. Additionally, it is not within the scope of this paper to take into account issues related to self-citations.

The results obtained from analysis contribute to a comprehensive understanding of social media research progress in hospitality and tourism. For example, evaluating the performance of individual scholars helps educational institutions to compete in the global university ranking system. Additionally, to compete for funding opportunities on the topic of social media, institutions can use citation counts to demonstrate their competitiveness. Furthermore, due to the expected future growth in the number of social media platforms, practitioners need to understand motivating factors and tourists’ needs in different countries, target market segments, age groups and cultures to create highly engaging communities around their brands.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the sample of this study synthesized the largest selection of social media articles published in hospitality and tourism journals. This is the first study to apply the fractional score at the author level, the adjusted appearance score at the university level and the average citation score at the journal and inter-country levels in the analysis. In addition, prevalent research orientations and research trends in social media made significant contributions to existing literature.