A Notebook Section

Research Articles

Articles on hospitality and tourism research worth reading: what the studies found and why it matters. Also bridging research and industry with straightforward insights for industry professionals.

Research Articles Sustainable Tourism

Keep It Simple: Why Theory-Derived Messages Do Not Outperform a Neutral Appeal for Tourist Water Saving

Two pre-registered survey experiments with Australian and UK tourists test five theory-informed water-saving messages in a farm tourism context, finding that none outperform a simple neutral appeal. The study extends the standard pre-testing protocol for behaviour change interventions by adding scrutiny of neutral control conditions and cross-cultural validation — two steps that materially change which interventions look promising before costly field deployment. Humour emerges as the one approach with a genuine supplementary advantage. Cultural differences between Australian and UK participants serve as a practical caution for international properties.

June 8, 2026

Research Articles Artificial Intelligence

Agentic AI in Hospitality and Tourism: A Typology, Six Risk Domains, and a Research Agenda

Most AI in hospitality responds to instructions. Agentic AI pursues goals autonomously, reasons across contexts, and coordinates actions across service systems with minimal human oversight. A conceptual paper proposes five functional agent roles — service, planning, monitoring, engagement, and meta-agents — and identifies six interconnected risk domains from algorithmic bias to legal ambiguity. Industry cases from Air Canada, Marriott, McDonald's, and Carnival Cruise Line anchor the governance argument in documented real-world evidence.

June 8, 2026

Research Articles Employee Well-being

Mental Health and Well-being of Hospitality and Tourism Employees: A Systematic Review of 184 Studies

A systematic review of 184 studies on hospitality and tourism employee mental health and psychological well-being maps the field's intellectual structure through bibliometric, network, and content analysis. Six research streams are identified — from descriptive studies of workplace stress through to COVID-19 impacts and cross-regional comparisons — alongside eight critical reflections and a future research agenda. The review confirms that the sector's mental health challenges are structural, that the existing literature over-concentrates on stress and neglects positive dimensions and technology impacts, and that significant gaps remain in measurement, theory, and cross-cultural evidence.

June 2, 2026

Research Articles Travel Live Streaming

Travel live streaming and tourist decision-making: Bridging virtual engagement and physical travel

Can watching a destination live stream actually get someone on a plane — or does it satisfy curiosity so completely that the trip never happens? This study examines how TLS shapes tourist decision-making, integrating the TPB with affordance theory to move past the theoretical fragmentation that has produced contradictory findings about whether TLS motivates, substitutes for, or suppresses physical travel.

May 21, 2026

Research Articles Accessible Tourism

What Makes a Hotel Stay Work for Families with Children with Autism: A Laddering Study

For families with children on the autism spectrum, hotel design is not about compliance — it is about survival logistics. A laddering study with 16 Italian families traces the connections from specific hotel attributes such as sensory modulation and trained staff through consequences such as avoided crises and parental relief to the terminal values actually driving their choices: serenity, relaxation, and the ability to rest. Trained and empathetic staff, not physical modifications, emerge as the highest-priority attribute. The study reframes ASD-friendly hospitality as a coherent design challenge with real commercial potential.

April 18, 2026

Research Articles Employer Branding

What Hotels Promise Talent: Employer Value Propositions in Asian Hotel Job Postings

A study of 4,603 hotel job postings from Indeed across five major Asian cities finds that three-quarters communicate at least one employer value proposition — but one in four miss the opportunity entirely. Chain hotels lean on functional and psychological attributes such as training, culture, and inclusive values, while independent hotels rely more heavily on economic appeals. Bangkok leads EVP communication frequency; Singapore trails. The study provides a city-level benchmarking framework and identifies what hotel employers are saying, not saying, and could be saying better.

April 15, 2026