Connecting and Communicating with the Customer: Advertising Research for the Hospitality Industry

Research on the advertising of services emerged after Lovelock (1981, 1983) and Zeithaml, Parasuraman, and Berry (1985) published seminal articles on services marketing that distinguished between goods and services. The key argument is that services and goods require different marketing strategies. Numerous papers on the topic followed, and in 1997 a special issue of the Journal of Advertising was published on the advertising of services, acknowledging the need for empirical, rigorous, and relevant research in this area. While a number of different services were investigated in this body of literature, several articles explored such contexts as hotels and restaurants (e.g., Day and Stafford 1997; Stafford 1996; Stafford and Day 1995; Stafford, Stafford, and Day 2002; Siu and Fung 1998), recognizing the importance of hospitality services as a key sector needing guidance in marketing communications. Moreover, the hospitality industry is vast and contributes significantly to the global gross domestic product. In fact, the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) names the hospitality industry’s importance as a main driver in global value creation. Recent figures published by the WTTC suggest a contribution of 8.9 trillion USD to the global economy in 2019, representing 10.3% of the world’s total gross domestic product (WTTC 2020).

Despite the vast nature of the industry, a Hospitality and Leisure Trends report recently noted that communication and connection with its customers has not been as powerful as in the past. Specifically, they stated:

The hospitality and leisure (H&L) industry is big and diverse; it has traditionally claimed some of the closest relationships with global consumers of any sector. People eat, sleep, play games, cement friendships and seek cures in H&L facilities. Given this dynamic, it isn’t surprising that the ability to create brand awareness campaigns that feel like one-on-one communication with potential customers—that is, campaigns that speak directly to customers’ preferences and desires—has always been a keystone of success for H&L companies. But recently, for many parts of the hospitality and leisure industry, that connection to consumers has frayed. (Hospitality and Leisure Trends 2019)

Hence, enhancing connectedness through improved communication with customers in the hospitality industry is ripe for investigation and was one impetus for this special section.

Unfortunately, the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and the resulting pandemic have put a damper on the industry, as restaurants, hotels, casinos, airlines, tourist attractions, and other services have closed or decreased their operations significantly in the wake of the crisis. In 2019, the travel and tourism sector experienced 3.5% growth, outpacing the global economy growth of 2.5% for the ninth consecutive year. Although the World Tourism Organization projected that tourist arrivals worldwide should cross 1.5 billion by 2020, the current pandemic has significantly altered that prediction with flight cancellations and government lockdowns just two of several factors affecting the worldwide tourist industry.

Although many hospitality businesses have started reopening across the globe, the continued spread of the virus—particularly here in the United States—signals continued uncertainty. Several restaurants and hotels have shuttered permanently. Given the prolonged economic challenges facing the industry, it is more important than ever for hospitality businesses to understand effective marketing and advertising strategies to help in their recovery. Moreover, hospitality services are experience services, which by definition require special consideration in their marketing and advertising strategies.

While this special section was conceived before COVID-19, its publication date provides an opportunity for the research in this section to have a significant influence on the recovery of hospitality businesses. In fact, the genesis of the initial call for papers was motivated by the need to provide hospitality professionals with effective advertising strategies and tactics to succeed in an already dynamic, and increasingly uncertain, business environment. The ever-evolving landscape of the hospitality industry is buoyed by unparalleled access to digital platforms and ecosystems that are literally transforming the future of hospitality, tourism, and travel. These new tools and capabilities facilitate the delivery of separate experiences in the same property or destination for different types of customers all over the world. However, at its core, hospitality advertising continues to be about crafting impactful and integrated communications that speak directly to customers’ preferences and desires.

Twenty-six papers were submitted to the special section, and five were selected for inclusion. The result is a unique array of articles that provides meaningful implications for the effective use of advertising to engage global consumers of any hospitality sector. Specifically, these studies explore the contours of various tactics and methods against the backdrop of a shift in decision making and buying power that is changing the hospitality industry. All five laudable contributions highlight the importance of participation by, and connection to, consumers at a local level in an effort to differentiate service offerings within the experience economy.

In the first article, “When the Unknown Destination Comes Alive: The Detrimental Effects of Destination Anthropomorphism in Tourism,” Hyokjin Kwak, Marina Puzakova, Joseph Rocereto, and Takeshi Moriguchi investigate anthropomorphism in the context of tourist destinations. Specifically, the authors investigate destination anthropomorphism and find that the use of anthropomorphism in advertising influences intentions to travel to the destination. When used in culturally distant tourist destinations, anthropomorphism results in lower intentions to travel to a culturally distant location; however, anthropomorphism leads to more positive intentions when the destination being marketed shares the same culture as the viewer. In addition to offering insight on the effects of anthropomorphism in in-group versus out-group entities within the context of tourism, the authors provide managerial implications for advertising and communication effectiveness when using destination anthropomorphism.

The second article, “Stronger Together? Tourists’ Behavioral Responses to Joint Brand Advertising,” by Dimitrios Buhalis, Ali Selcuk Can, Yuksel Ekinci, and Giampaolo Viglia, also examines advertising in destination tourism. This article, however, uses collaboration theory to investigate how tourists respond to joint versus single brand advertising. Through both a field study and an experiment, the authors find that the use of joint brand advertising produces positive effects, but they also demonstrate when these effects are diminished. These first two articles both examine behavioral intentions in response to advertising messages; together, they offer managerial implications on advertising effectiveness in tourism.

Maria Ek Styven, Marcello Mariani, and Carola Strandberg also examine behavioral intentions in “This Is My Hometown! The Role of Place Attachment, Congruity, and Self-Expressiveness on Residents’ Intention to Share a Place Brand Message Online.” However, the third article in this special section considers local residents of the tourist destination as stakeholders and place-brand ambassadors to examine what influences them to share video messages online. Using attachment theory, congruity theory, and identity theory, the authors offer insights on the role of place attachment, place–ad congruity, and self-expressiveness on residents’ intentions to share a streaming video. They also looked at differences between current and past residents.

Restaurant messages are the focus of the fourth article, “How Color Affects Persuasiveness of Taste- versus Health-Focused Advertising Messages,” by Bin Wang, Stephanie Q. Liu, Jay Kandampully, and Milos Bujisic. Specifically, their research investigates how color, as a design element, affects consumer persuasion in taste-focused versus health-focused restaurant advertising messages. Two experimental studies demonstrate a message–color congruency effect: taste-focused messages with color imagery and health-focused messages with black-and-white imagery produce more positive attitudinal and behavioral intentions. Managerial implications related to the design of advertisements are offered.

The final article in the section, “The Moderating Role of Hotel Type on Advertising Expenditure Returns in Franchised Chains,” by Liwu Hsu, Jie Zhang, and Benjamin Lawrence, examines financial returns from hospitality services advertising. The authors use a data set from more than 9,000 franchised hotel properties in the United States to evaluate the influence of unit-level advertising expenditure allocations. The authors propose and test a model that posits differential returns from advertising for franchised hotel properties targeting distinctive segments. Their findings show that, compared to traditional full-service units, outlets focused on destination-driven and price-sensitive customer segments benefit less from franchise advertising assessment, loyalty programs, and local media advertising investments. They also report that destination hotels moderate the return from local sales force expenditures. Managerial implications focus on advertising practice in both hospitality and franchising.

This set of five articles offers both theoretical implications for advertising and hospitality scholars and managerial implications for hospitality marketers. Collectively, they provide insight into message strategy, advertising design, and financial investments. They also speak to the different consumer groups that are part of the experience economy and provide guidelines to reach these different groups. It is my hope that this special section will prompt additional inquiry from advertising and hospitality researchers that will help guide the hospitality industry as it emerges from one of the most difficult economic times in history.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Marla Royne Stafford

Marla Royne Stafford (PhD, University of Georgia) is Executive Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and William F. Harrah Distinguished Chair at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.