Servicescape Effects on Hotel Guests’ Willingness to Pay Premiums at Different Stages of Pandemic: A Multi-Phase Study

Abstract

Drawing on servicescape theory, this research investigates guests’ perceptions of and responses to the protection and prevention practices launched by hotels at different stages of the pandemic. The research finds that hotel guests’ general response-efficacy beliefs positively influence their perception of the effectiveness of the protection and prevention practices adopted in hotels’ physical and social servicescapes, and such positive relationships also show a significant increase from 2020 to 2021. The servicescape effects’ downstream results show that hotel guests are willing to pay premium prices for safety servicescapes manifested as protection and prevention practices implemented at the private space or related to employees. This research sheds light on servicescape theory by deconstructing the overall hotel servicescape concept into multiple dimensions, particularly in a health threat situation such as the pandemic, and empirically examining each dimension’s effects on guests’ monetary response at different timepoints. From a practical perspective, this study provides managerial insights into which servicescape dimensions warrant operational investments by hotels.