H. G. Parsa

• MS, MS, PhD, FMP
• Endowed Chair Professor at University of Denver

Purpose The Lodging Shared Economy (e.g. Airbnb) has emerged in the past two decades. It was thought that generations participate differently in the Lodging Shared Economy (LSE) and their requirements for LSEs are different for hotels. The current study compares business travelers from three generations (Baby Boomers, Generation X and Generation Y)...

The chapter explores the online marketing strategy of five countries including Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam due to their geographic proximity. It explores how these countries are trying to capture the online customers.

The Lodging Shared Economy (LSE) has recently become a dominant force in the lodging industry. Airbnb is a well-known example of LSE and has become a favorite for business and leisure travelers. However, research in the lodging industry is limited regarding business travelers’ preferences for staying at an LSE property while traveling for business....

This study investigated the differential effect of economic recession and recovery on restaurant failures by location, type of cuisine, restaurant density, level of service and number of health code violations. Secondary data were used from a major metropolitan city in the US from 2007–2013. Economic recession and recovery were found to affect the...

Can hoteliers take the possibility of disasters such as COVID-19 into account? We think so. However, it does require a paradigm shift, a different approach to the strategic decision-making process. A shift is required from optimism to paranoid optimism or cautious optimism with the premise that (a) success is always seen as temporary (to avoid opti...

College athletic competitions draw spectators increasing demand hotel stays during home games. The current study focuses on demand for hotel rooms generated from home games for college football. The current study uses ten-year hotel revenue data from STR for a major campus town with a nationally ranked NCAA football team. This study followed a two-...

In epistemological domains, classification systems play an integral part as tools of discovery and systematic exploration. Classifications are essential for the integrity and validity of any academic research and application of the research findings to that particular research context. Absence of classification systems limits the ability of a disci...

Limited attention has been given to the drivers of customer behavior that originate from less direct factors, such as weather. Weather is known to significantly alter consumers’ moods and consequently their behavior. Building on the theoretical alignment between weather, mood, and consumer behavior, this research examined how specific weather facto...

This study’s purpose was to assess the impact of temporal, seasonal and calendar effects, on guests’ comments in hospitality. The current study analyzed the differences in food and service quality using guests’ comments collected by a national restaurant firm over a period of one year. Comments were analyzed for season of the year, weekend versus w...

Concerns related to the environment have become more central in our societies; however, environmental concerns and awareness may not necessarily lead positive changes in consumer buying behaviors toward green products (Hanas 2007). Most of the consumers often endorse environmental protection, but only a few of them put it into practice. Interesting...

Weather factors have been shown to affect human behavior and mood. On the other hand, mood has a strong effect on total demand and demand for specific products. In this study, we have tested the effect of 17 different weather factors on the demand for specific restaurant menu items. We have also tested the effect of weather factors on the demand fo...

In response to increasing obesity rates among Americans, foodservice operations are doing their part by helping consumers make wiser choices by providing nutritional information on menus and offering healthy and low-density menu offerings. The current study examines the relational effects of consumer health consciousness and perception of restauran...

Editorial and content page of Special Issue

Effectively capturing consumer feedback can help organizations swiftly react and improve the quality of their service processes and delivery systems. In most organizations, frontline employees are a vital source of customer feedback as they interact with customers frequently and intimately. Thus, the current paper seeks to understand the factors in...

With the advance of learning technologies, computerised simulations are finding a more prominent place in the learning environment. Previous research has shown the usefulness of internet-based hospitality simulations and the positive effect they have on the course performance. This study demonstrates that the use of computerised simulations has a p...

Utilising secondary data, the present study investigated the effect of operational attributes and product type (cuisine) on the price that consumers paid in restaurants. Contrary to the commonly held belief, food quality generally had the lowest impact on price. High-end restaurants differed significantly from low-end restaurants on the effect of f...

Although location is a significant factor in a restaurant’s survival chances, contrary to the commonly held belief, the presence of nearby homes did not help in lowering failure rates between 2000 and 2010 for restaurants in Boulder, Colorado. Instead, having a substantial population of apartment dwellers and transient residents (notably, universit...

Hotel cancelation policies (CancPols) are designed to minimize losses for the lodging companies. Liberal CancPols have resulted in revenue forecasting errors and eventual loss of revenues. The current study investigates the effect of different CancPols on consumer patronage and willingness to pay. In addition, the effects of distributive and proced...

The relationship between firms' environmental initiatives and financial performance continues to generate considerable interest. Despite the progress made in the study of this relationship, there is a paucity of research addressing tourism sector firms’ simultaneous environmental and financial performance. This research sheds light on the link betw...

Assessing hospitality faculty-research output has become a subject of research in its own right. Unfortunately most of the currently available assessment instruments are limited in their ability to consider consistency, productivity, originality, and longevity of productivity in hospitality research. Thus, this article introduces a new research pro...

The landmark legislation known as the Labeling Education and Nutrition Act is set to take effect soon as a part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Healthcare Act passed into law in 2011. As a part of the Affordable Care Act of 2011, all restaurant chains with 20 or more units are required to post calorie counts on menus inside the restaurants...

Purpose – This research aims to propose a model that may be used to classify product attributes according to their effect on customer satisfaction within the services industry. It also aims to apply the model to vacation ownership products and to explore attributes related to both the purchase and use of the product: an owned luxury product. Desig...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper was to investigate the relationships between restaurant quality attributes and customer behavioral intentions. Design/methodology/approach – An experimental design was chosen to provide a high level of internal validity. Three separate 3 × 2 factorial design experiments were conducted through 18 separate vignett...

Protection of the environment has become a global issue which businesses can’t overlook. In addition, generation Y (also called the Millennial Generation) is becoming a significant part of lodging consumer segment in the Unites States. Previous studies have indicated that current image of the industry influences future consumer behavior. The purpos...

Two studies investigate consumer awareness of and response toward socially and environmentally responsible practices in the hospitality industry. Results suggest that consumers exhibit more positive response toward establishments exhibiting higher levels of social responsibility, although many are uninformed of the extent to which the organizations...

Research indicates that 65% of Americans over the age of 20 years old are considered overweight. To address this public health issue, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has proposed new nutritional guidelines for restaurant menus. This study includes development and redesigning of drive-thru menus to comply with the FDA guidelines. An experiment...

The relationship between tipping and the service provided is not always linear. Factors such as demographic profile of the consumer, industry norms, and social norms affect the amount of tip. Results from the current study reveal that tipping varies when service failure occurs due to servers’ fault or organizational failure. Consumers with prior pr...

Consumer patronage and consumer willingness to pay are the two most important criteria for business development. The current study investigates the changing preferences of consumers in a developing economy with respect to three major service attributes from the restaurant industry: food quality, service, and ambiance. Results indicated that consume...

Convention hotels with large kitchens and dining facilities contribute significantly to culinary sciences as laboratories for product and service innovations. In foodservice operations, services are intricately interrelated with tipping. However, the nature of tipping, rate of tipping, and effect of external and internal factors on tipping vary sig...

This article reports the results of a study to develop a demographic profile of the American restaurant franchisees and record their performance (satisfaction) during the maturity stage of the restaurant industry lifecycle.

Edgar Waldo “Billy” Ingram is an American entrepreneur that built White Castle into one of the most successful quick-service restaurant chains in the history of the United States. He is acknowledged as the first restaurateur to offer this now universally accepted product “the hamburger” as the primary menu item. As a pioneer in the sprawling quick...

This research provides a comprehensive review of literature related to the Kano model of satisfaction measurement. Based upon the declaration that performance on certain product attributes produces greater consumer satisfaction than others, Kano Seraku, Takahashi, and Tsuji (1984)19. Kano , N. , Seraku , N. , Takahashi , F. and Tsuji , S. 1984....

With the traditional research-based view approach to entry mode that examines the firm's strategies from its resource endowment and deployment (i.e., an inside-out view of the firm), which is different from the earlier paradigms (i.e., an outside-in view of the firm), this article investigates intangibles at the firm level and their impact on the c...

The purpose of the paper is to explore the relationship between restaurant attributes and consumers' willingness to patronize. Current research shows that the most common factors affecting restaurant guests while making this decision are: food quality, service quality and overall restaurant environment. The present paper explores these three factor...

The purpose of the paper is to explore the relationship between restaurant attributes and consumers’ willingness to patronize. Current research shows that the most common factors affecting restaurant guests while making this decision are: food quality, service quality and overall restaurant environment. The present paper explores these three factor...

The use of “just-below” pricing (such as pricing an item at $6.99 or $6.95, rather than $7.00) has been common in some segments of the hospitality industry (such as quick-service and mid-scale dining). The results of a detailed survey of the price-ending beliefs of hospitality managers show that many believe that just-below prices connote good valu...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to determine the relationship between QSC (quality, service and cleanliness) inspection scores and financial performance in quick service restaurants. Design/methodology/approach Restaurant QSC inspection data were collected from 25 quick service restaurants of an international chain over a period of 18 months....

It has been suggested that changes in organizational populations are shaped by a natural (biological) selection process. Industries and businesses evolve through standard and identifiable phases throughout their lifespan. This study analyzed organizational mortality in the restaurant sector based on restaurant location, affiliation (presence/no pre...

The primary goal of this study was to develop a theory-based model of relationship commitment in an online travel context. Leaning on the foundations of marketing literature and the two theories of relationship commitment (organizational commitment theory, and investment model), this study develops a conceptual framework that explains how Generatio...

Purpose The purpose of this research is to understand the effects of self‐monitoring, dining companions and industry segments on the usage of alternate currencies while dining out. Design/methodology/approach An experimental design using frequent consumers of restaurant services is being used with a scenario approach with a sample size of 471. Fi...

Online travel commerce has evolved significantly from the initial sales of less-complex products such as airline tickets, accommodations, and car rentals, to include more complex products like vacation packages and cruises. Many online travel portals, however, have fallen behind in terms of creating a compelling online environment for customers. On...

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of price discount frames and price discount levels on consumer perceptions about the quality of the service product, the value of the discount, their purchase intentions and their willingness to spread the word of mouth about the discount savings across different types of services. De...

This study specifically discusses the relationships between consumers’ knowledge of a restaurant’s sustainable practices, environmental concern, and ecological behavior and their intention to patronize a “green” restaurant. The results revealed that consumers’ knowledge of sustainable restaurant practices and environmental concerns were important d...

Despite the prevalence of microfluidic-based heterogeneous immunoassays, there is incomplete understanding of analyte capture parameters. This study presents computational results and corresponding experimental binding assays of analyte capture. Our results identify: 1) a ¿reagent-limited¿ regime, under constraints of finite sample volume and assay...

Price promotions play a crucial role in enhancing value and creating an economic incentive for consumers to purchase products and services. Results from this study clearly demonstrate that different discount levels and discount formats have a significant impact on consumers' perceptions. Non-hospitality services differed significantly from hospital...

Employee turnover and its effects on business have been the topic of many research articles and the concern of businesses in all industries. The traditional method of measuring employee turnover ratio (ETR) includes a ratio of number of employees leaving the firm compared to the total number of employees. Unfortunately, this method assumes that all...

Hospitality is one of the oldest professions and is regarded as a powerful economic activity that touches many aspects of human life. On the other hand, hospitality is a relatively new academic discipline that has no consensus on its scope and exposure. This obvious absence of consensus on the scope of the hospitality field has been a limiting fact...

This study utilizes data collected from Greece and the United States to examine consumer attitudes and behavior intentions toward the environmentally responsible practices (ERP) of hotels. Specifically examined is the impact of ERP on consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) for such hotel practices. The results indicate that consumers in both countries...

The proliferation of branded products and services within the last decade has made it increasingly difficult for consumers to distinguish and choose amongst various brands. To reduce the complexity when choosing one brand over another, consumers may focus on a small set of a few brands in which they contrast and compare. This study examined the con...

By considering differences in culture and economic conditions in two different countries, India and the United States, this study investigates the psychological factors (consumers' attitudes, behavioral intentions, and involvement) in relation to Green practices (GP) in the restaurant industry as measured by three concerns (health, social, and envi...

Many e-commerce service providers have failed to identify specific dimensions of website quality that result in improved customer satisfaction. In addition, the importance of hedonic and utilitarian functions in improving customer satisfaction is not well understood. Thus, this study has two goals: 1) to investigate the specific website quality dim...

Purpose The purpose of this research is to explore the reasons for service failure in restaurants. The paper aims to give insights into customers' perceptions and response regarding service failure and recovery and to try to draw a parallel between consumers in a developing economy like India and the same in a developed society, such as USA. Desig...

Hospitality literature is deficient in empirical research that specifically focused on human resource information systems (HRIS) in hospitality. To fill this gap in literature, this research has proposed a model, based on a review of previous research, to serve as a starting point toward building an empirical research agenda in the hospitality disc...

“Green Practices” (GP) have become a major concern in the restaurant industry as a means of increasing social benefits and for sustaining business in the long run. Applying Stakeholder Theory to managers' GP orientations, this study examined managers' attitudes, preferences, and involvement with regard to GP and assessed the relationship between th...

Price-ending strategies may be utilized by hotels to signal value or quality. The current study presents that there is a directional relationship between room rates and price-ending strategies. It demonstrates that as average room rates decrease, the price-ending strategies change from whole dollar practice to dollar and cents practice. Results fro...

Purpose The aim of this paper is to understand the price‐ending strategies in European restaurants and make practical suggestions to the managers. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from restaurant menus in three European countries. Results were compared with those of USA and Taiwan. Findings The price‐ending strategies of European r...

Past research on restaurant failures has focused mostly on quantitative factors and bankruptcy rates. This study explored restaurant ownership turnover rates using qualitative data, longitudinal data (1996-1999), and data from Dun and Bradstreet reports. In contrast to frequently repeated statistics, a relatively modest 26.16 percent of independent...

The current study investigates odd-even psychological pricing with the aid of a Price endings and Consumer Behavior (PCBM) Model for the hospitality industry. The PCBM proposes that a reciprocal relationship exists between hospitality marketers and consumers with reference to 00 and 99 price ending practices. Theoretical support for the posited mod...

In the hospitality field, pricing research is mostly limited to economic implications of pricing decisions (yield management), choices in pricing practices, and reference pricing. Price presentation and its impact on consumer preference, however, is another aspect of pricing research that has not been as well developed. The current study makes an e...

Consumers who cross national borders potentially participate in multiple consumption experiences. This study focuses on one of the most common—the dining experience. It examines the variables that motivate or inhibit crossing national borders to dine and profiles motivational segments of cross-border diners. A sample of 466 cross-border diners livi...

Menu price endings communicate more than economic worth. Restaurateurs encourage consumers to attribute intrinsic meaning to specific price endings, such as quality and value, but these derived meanings are not universally accepted. This study indicates that Taiwanese restaurateurs use price-ending digits in varying frequencies and may attribute di...

Increased airline spending on foodservice has not resulted in an increase in the perception of food quality by airline passengers. Airline co-branding with popular branded restaurant concepts is a strategy for positively increasing the perception of in-flight meal quality. Using a structural equation modeling approach, this research effort proposed...

This paper investigates the extent to which restaurant marketers use the price endings .00 and .09 to communicate quality and value images, and whether consumers use those price endings as information cues when choosing where to dine out. The experimental data shows that marketers probably rely on price cues and that consumers use those cues. Moreo...

In spite of the high level of independence that exists in a franchise system, franchisees and franchisers are extensively dependent on each other. Because of this greater interdependence that exists in the system, financial success of one depends on the financial performance of the other. Therefore, any strategic choices made by a franchisee must a...

Consumers’ brand selection process, purchase behavior, and their impact on brand management are least understood in the hospitality literature. This problem is complicated further by the fact that many hospitality companies prefer to develop and manage multiple brands for growth purposes. This study explores the selection process adopted by consume...

Although some studies have been done on supplementary services in the service industry, very little has been explicitly done in the travel and tourism industry. This paper focuses on adding value to core services in the travel and tourism industry, which Lovelock (1996) referred to as “supplementary services.” Supplementary services can be used as...

FRANCHISE ORGANIZATIONS. Bradach, Jeffrey L.Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1998, $29.95, hardcover Reviewed by Thomas George.

Franchise systems contain legally independent and economically interdependent organizations that are capable of politically affecting each other. In this unique context, impact of sources of power (economic and noneconomic) on franchisees’ strategy implementation process and eventual performance (satisfaction) was investigated in this study. Result...

This study has profiled the cultural heritage of American food habits. American food habits remained predominantly European until the middle of the 20th century, and became distinctly American by late 20th century. This study indicates that the relationship between the culture and the food habits is bi-directional. Analysis of changes in the family...

As the quick-service-restaurant market matured, the relationship between franchise firms and their franchisees stabilized, allowing power and control issues to surface. The balance of power in the relationship, as perceived by the franchisees, affects both the franchisees' satisfaction with the arrangement and their financial results. When franchis...

The quick-service restaurant (QSR) industry is increasingly becoming global. Cooperation over conflict (a state ofinterbeing) is expected to be the order of the 21 st century. Service will be the primary tool of strategic advantage in the QSR industry. Successful firms may gain competitive advantage through segment diffusion, em ployee empowerment,...

For many years both researchers and practitioners have attempted to learn why some organizations achieve higher level of performance than other organizations. There are two main streams of research that try to explain why and how firms succeed, survive, and decline: economic perspective and behavioral perspective. The economic perspective assumes t...

The primary objective of this study was to trace the menu trends that were dominant during various stages of quick service restaurant industry's life cycle. The product life cycle (PLC) is the foundation upon which numerous strategic-planning concepts are based (Sirkis & Race, 1981). Analysis of the menu trends, past and current, and the contributi...

An events approach to investigating business failure is presented in this study. The study identifies events in the bankruptcy process that characterize restaurant companies that have filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11. Based on a sample of 12 matched bankrupt and non-bankrupt companies, events that were unique to the bankrupt companies were: ne...

The development of fast food industry is critically dependent upon the main product it offers. At the end of growth phase, responding to the first shake out, fast food organizations experienced menu diversification, leading to the differentiation of the "core menu" from the "secondary menu. "Better understanding of various menu trends, past and pre...

Functional inequality constraints are omnipresent in optimization-based engineering design. They are generally handled through some kind of discretization scheme. In this paper, we show how computational efficiency can be improved by modifying the position of the mesh points at each iteration of the optimization process, based on information collec...