Celebrating 30 years of excellence amid the COVID-19 pandemic — An update on the effects of COVID-19 pandemic and COVID-19 vaccines on hospitality industry: overview of the current situation and a research agenda

Volume 30 of the Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management marks an important landmark for the Journal amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The Journal has entered its 30th year with Volume 30. The first issue of the Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management was published in 1992 under the title of Journal of Hospitality & Leisure Marketing. It was the only journal dedicated to publishing studies that examine marketing issues in the leisure and hospitality fields. In 2009, the title of Journal of Hospitality & Leisure Marketing was changed to Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management to reposition the Journal as a premier hospitality marketing and management journal (Gursoy, 2009).

During the last three decades, Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management published outstanding and insightful research papers written by renowned hospitality researchers, junior up-and-coming scholars, and Ph.D. students. Close to 900 research articles authored by about 1,500 scholars have been published since its inception. A large portion of those scholars and institutions are located in the USA, followed by Australia and United Kingdom. Groundbreaking contributions made by those scholars to the conceptual and theoretical development of knowledge in the field and the insightful implications provided to hospitality marketing and management practitioners over the years have made the Journal to go resource for the most-up-to date theoretical and practical knowledge. As a result, the journal is now ranked as one of the top journals in the field of hospitality. While we celebrate three decades of dedicated and successful service to hospitality management and marketing researchers, we also recognize the challenges the hospitality industry is facing due to COVID-19 pandemic.

Overview of the current situation

Hospitality industry has been one of the hardest hit industries by the COVID-19 pandemic (Gursoy & Chi, 2020). The Covid-induced lockdown and travel restrictions have evaporated the demand for hospitality services almost overnight (Bartik et al., 2020), causing many hospitality businesses to temporarily or permanently shut down (Gursoy & Chi, 2020). While the hospitality industry is slowly recovering, the pandemic continues to take significant toll on the hospitality businesses (Gursoy et al., 2021a). The recovery is likely to accelerate due to the approval and increasing availability of COVID-19 vaccines for emergency use.

Effects of COVID-19 vaccines on hospitality customers’ attitudes and behaviors

Approval of COVID-19 vaccines for emergency use was expected to exert positive impacts on individuals’ dining out intentions and their willingness to travel to a destination and stay at a hotel. However, the findings of a longitudinal study conducted by the editorial team of the Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management suggested otherwise. After the approval of COVID-19 vaccines for emergency use, in January 2021, the percentage of individuals who were planning on dining out or willing to travel to a destination and stay at a hotel in the near future decreased from the previous month. More specifically, around 35% of the respondents indicated that they were planning to dine in at a sit-down restaurant within a month, about 16% lower than the previous month, before the approval of COVID-19 vaccines for emergency use. About 22% indicated a willingness to travel to a destination and stay at a hotel within a couple of months, also down by 12.42% compared to the previous month. At the meanwhile, more individuals expressed willingness to wait to dine out at a sit-down restaurant until COVID-19 vaccines become widely available, increased by 7.40% compared to the previous month. However, the vaccine approval did not have any significant impact on individuals’ intentions to travel to a destination and stay at a hotel (Gursoy et al., 2021a).

The February 2021 findings further proved that most customers are not eager to go back to their pre-pandemic level of dining out and travel. Only around 40% of respondents indicated that they dined in at a sit-down restaurant once or more during the previous month and even less (23.53%) indicated that they traveled to a destination and stayed at a hotel during the last 2 months. While about 40% of respondents indicated that they are planning on dining in at a sit-down restaurant within the next 30 days, the majority would delay dining out until they feel more comfortable to do so. Specifically, around 10% said that they would wait for around 1–3 months and about 7% would wait even longer (over 3 months). About 20% indicated that they will only feel comfortable to dine in at a sit-down restaurant when their communities’ ability to test, trace and isolate COVID-19 cases are significantly improved. Another 23% will only feel comfortable to do so when the COVID-19 vaccine becomes widely available. Overall, consumers who responded to the survey in February indicated a lower (about 16% lower) likelihood to patronize sit-down restaurants within the next 30 days compared to those who responded to the survey in January (Gursoy et al., 2021b).

In February, a large portion of respondents indicated that they would delay traveling to a destination and staying at a hotel until they feel more comfortable to do so. Specifically, around 17% said that they would wait for around 1–2 months and about 35% would wait even longer (>3 months). Another 17% indicated that they will only feel comfortable to travel and stay at a hotel when the destination’s ability to test, trace and isolate COVID-19 cases is significantly improved. A good 27% indicated that they will only feel comfortable to do so when the COVID-19 vaccine becomes widely available (Gursoy et al., 2021b).

Consumers’ perceptions of the COVID-19 vaccines

The rather unexpected lower customer intention for hospitality services in January and February might be a reflection of customers’ patience in consuming hospitality services – now that the vaccines are available, why not just wait to have fun until the population is largely inoculated? On the other hand, this suppressed customer demand could also be caused by individuals’ hesitancy toward the vaccines. Findings of another study conducted by the editorial team of the Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management suggested that a fairly large proportion of US residents are hesitant about taking any of the COVID-19 vaccines. Respondents indicated an overall 66.63% likelihood of getting vaccinated once the COVID-19 vaccine is available to them, suggesting that there are still quite some individuals who may not be willing to get vaccinated. When asked about their opinion of the chance that someone who is vaccinated against COVID-19 could still catch the virus, respondents indicated a 43.41% chance. Furthermore, when asked about the percentage chance that the COVID-19 vaccines could cause serious side effects or long-term health problems, they indicated a 38% chance.

Trust in the COVID-19 vaccine development process, measured on a 5-point Likert type scale (1 = Not at all Trusted, 5 = Fully Trust), indicated that respondents somewhat trusted the process. Specifically, findings indicated a moderate level of trust in the COVID-19 vaccine development process (M = 3.48) and the vaccine approval process in the United States (M = 3.36). Respondents perceptions of COVID-19 vaccines were also measured using a 5-point Likert type scale (1 = Strongly Disagree, 5 = Strongly Agree). Respondents perceived the possibility of COVID-19 vaccine leading to death (M = 2.13) or having harmful side effects (M = 2.73) to be relatively low. They also indicated positive perceptions about the possible benefits of the COVID-19 vaccine, including its effectiveness against the virus (M = 3.82), and providing important health benefits (M = 3.97) and economic benefits (M = 3.87) to the society.

A research agenda

Findings presented above suggest several directions for imminent research efforts. Due to the crucial role the vaccines play in ending the pandemic-induced recession in our industry, we are in urgent need of behavioral and attitudinal research that focuses on individuals’ vaccination intentions and the factors that can influence their attitudes toward the COVID-19 vaccines and their vaccination intentions. Figuring out whether limited availability of COVID-19 vaccines or the perceived safety of those vaccines are influencing customers’ dine-out and travel intentions is critical. Findings of these studies can provide important insight that can help hospitality marketing and management practitioners guide their hospitality operations during and post COVID-19 pandemic.

Longitudinal data collected by the editorial team suggested that customers still consider the following safety precautions to be the most important: visible sanitizing efforts, implementing social distancing, limiting the number of customers served, employee temperature checks, and employee training of health and safety protocols (Gursoy et al., 2021b). The longitudinal data also suggested that customers’ safety precaution expectations are evolving over time. For example, in recent months, a significantly larger percentage of customers expect other customers to take more safety precautions compared to in the earlier months. Findings also suggested that technology integration and adoption trend will sustain – customers expect business to provide various technology solutions to minimize human-to-human contact, such as self-check-in/check-out and keyless entry, contactless payment options, digital menus that can be viewed on personal mobile devices, etc. Since the longitudinal data consistently suggest that customers are willing to pay more for increased safety precautions, it is worth examining the effects of these evolving expectations on customers’ attitudes and behaviors and whether customers are indeed willing to pay for those safety precautions and by how much more.

During the pandemic, businesses have significantly modified their operations to overcome the challenges presented by the pandemic. Businesses are expected to continue to be flexible in the post-COVID-19 business environment. Operational changes needed to survive in the post-COVID-19 environment are likely to be a top item on the research agenda of hospitality marketing and management scholars since hospitality businesses are going to navigate uncharted waters post-COVID-19. Hospitality scholars will need to shift their research focus to address the uncertainties associated with the new normal and evolving customers’ expectations, such as changes in customers’ priorities, needs, and wants. The scholar will also need to investigate changes in employees’ priorities, needs, and wants, and their expectations in the post-COVID-19 environment.

While using existing knowledge and theories may be beneficial in studying these issues, it is crucial to develop new knowledge, conceptual frameworks, and theories that can be used to investigate hospitality marketing and management issues in the post-COVID-19 business environment. Such new knowledge and theories will enable the hospitality scholars to generate urgently needed insight and guidance to the industry to address ever-evolving needs and wants of the customers and employees. The editorial team of the Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management welcomes studies that promote new ideas, models, approaches, and paradigms that contribute to the development of knowledge and theory of hospitality marketing and management in the post-COVID-19 business environment. It is crucial that studies submitted to the journal makes significant theoretical and/or practical contribution to the hospitality theory and practice in the post-COVID-19 environment. Furthermore, studies submitted to the Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management must offer something new and original, make an important contribution to the field, develop/propose a better/more efficient way of solving a problem, have good science and a sound methodology, offer sound conceptual and theoretical framework, and provide sound theoretical and practical implications.

The Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management owes its success to the devoted engagement of a large number of authors who publish their cutting-edge research in the Journal and the editorial board members. As the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal, I am grateful to the referees who review and provide critical and constructive comments to the authors of hundreds of papers submitted every year. I am also thankful to the outstanding scholars who submit their best work and entrust us to judge their high caliber research. I am also thankful to the editorial staff at Taylor and Francis for their unconditional support over the years.