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Expected benefits of people People

interactions
interactions and guest experiences and guest
experiences
Ya-Ling Chen
Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies,
State University of New York at Brockport, Brockport, New York, USA 187
Joseph Chen Received 13 April 2020
Department of Health and Wellness Design, Indiana University Bloomington, Revised 24 June 2020
30 June 2020
Bloomington, Indiana, USA Accepted 30 June 2020
Wan-Yu Liu
Department of Forestry, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan, and
Tanmay Sharma
Department of Health and Wellness Design, Indiana University Bloomington,
Bloomington, Indiana, USA

Abstract
Purpose – This research aims to grasp hotel guests’ motives and potential benefits sought when interacting
with other guests, service personnel and residents and examines how these benefits can contribute to the total
guest experience.
Design/methodology/approach – Mixed methods are adopted for the purpose of this study comprising
individual interviews and a questionnaire survey.
Findings – Five groups of advantages emerge from individual interviews, including friendliness in
interaction, social benefits, information acquisition, curiosity gratification and hospitality services. In the
survey, which gathers 326 questionnaires, this study reveals that the five types of benefits derived from hotel
guests’ interactions could be further categorized into two dimensions: civility (e.g. friendliness and social) and
utility (e.g. information, curiosity and service). The study confirms that four out of five potential or expected
benefits from this personal interaction is significantly associated with the total hotel experience.
Research limitations/implications – Respondents of this study are culturally homogenous; as a result,
multi-cultural settings should be considered for future research.
Originality/value – Tourism and hospitality literature on people’s interaction is mostly center around social
aspects of interaction. The current study comprehensively explores all expected utilities of interaction,
occurring in all sorts of interactions (e.g. customer-to-resident and customer-to-service personnel). Specifically,
the findings of this study uncover the underlying factors which prompt the tourists to interact with other
people in a lodging setting and examine the relative importance of those underlying factors to the total lodging
experiences.
Keywords Benefits sought, People-to-people interaction, Guest experiences, Mixed method
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
Seeking an optimal experience is an integral part of a tourist activity. Hence, it is not unusual
that considerable attention has been paid to the conceptualization of the tourist experience.
Seminal experience studies in sociology explored the phenomenon of individuals’ trip

© Ya-Ling Chen, Joseph Chen, Wan-Yu Liu and Tanmay Sharma. Published in International Hospitality
Review. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative
Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create International Hospitality Review
Vol. 34 No. 2, 2020
derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full pp. 187-202
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2516-8142
creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode. DOI 10.1108/IHR-04-2020-0010
IHR engagement. In sociology, two schools of thoughts emerged during the early stages of
34,2 experience studies: the first relates to MacCannell’s authenticity concept (1973) that discusses
tourists’ aspirations regarding authenticity in their expeditions and Cohen (1979) represents
the second sociological camp that delineates tourist behaviors via a typology approach that
illustrates five experience continuums. Further, the psychological literature (e.g.
Csikszentmihalyi, 1990; Csikszentmihalyi and LeFevre, 1989; Mannell and Iso-Ahola, 1987)
has revealed the subjective nature of tourist experience. Mannell and Iso-Ahola (1987)
188 described tourist experiences as an interplay between the need to escape routine or stressful
environments and to seek intrinsic rewards. One of the rewarding experiences is to mingle
with tourists who have never met and learn new refreshing perspectives via the conversation.
Indeed, such people interaction could engender a positive tourist experience (Papathanassis,
2012). Nevertheless, the hospitality and tourism literature on people’s interaction is sporadic,
as presented in Table 1, and those studies seemingly center on social aspects of interaction.
Since the purpose of people-to-people interaction is more than social function, it is plausible to
examine the underlying benefits of people interaction in a systematic way.

Purpose of the study

In the spirit of advancing current theories and professional practices, it seems advantageous
to expand the investigative horizon of people’s interaction by comprehensively exploring all
expected utilities of interaction occurring in all sorts of interactions (e.g. customer-to-resident,
customer-to-service personnel). From this viewpoint, this study posits to examine the
underlying utilities of people interaction, based on concepts derived from the tourist
experience driver model by Chen et al. (2014), embracing tourist-to-tourist (5 customer-to-
customer), tourist-to-service personnel (5 customer-to-service personnel) and tourist-to-
resident (5 customer-to-resident) interaction. Consequently, two research objectives are
developed to accomplish the study’s aim: (1) to uncover the underlying factors which prompt
the guests to interact with other people in a lodging setting and (2) to examine the relative
importance of those underlying factors to the total guest experiences. The first objective
attempts to build a theoretical battery of expected benefits of people interaction, which may
be further utilized in theory development. The second objective strives to assess the

Year Author Typology of interaction Setting

2006 Zhang et al. Customer-to-resident Destination city

2007 Wu Customer-to-customer International
travel
2009 Huang and Hsu Customer-to-customer Cruise ship
2010 Huang and Hsu Customer-to-customer Cruise ship
2010 Levy Customer-to-customer Cultural heritage
tour
2011 Armensk et al. Customer-to-resident Destination city
2012 Papathanassis Customer-to-customer Cruise ship
2013 Wu et al. Customer-to-customer Leisure trip
2014 Choo and Petrick Customer-to-customer, customer-to-service personnel Farm
and customer-to-resident
2016 Chen et al. Customer-to-customer, customer-to-service personnel Attraction
Table 1. and customer-to-resident
Hospitality/tourism 2018 Capistrano and Customer-to-resident International
literature covering Weaver travel
people interaction in 2018 Kriwoken and Customer-to-customer Cruise ship
the last decade (from Hardy
2006 to present) 2019 Lin et al. Customer-to-customer Day trip
underlying relationship between the expected benefits of interaction and customer service People
experiences. The outcomes of the study may allow industry professionals to strategize plans interactions
for service delivery and product development.
and guest
experiences
Literature review
Tourist experiences
From a management perspective, Otto and Ritchie (1996) discovered that tourist experiences 189
might be represented by four domains: hedonics, peace of mind, involvement and recognition.
Even though service quality has been established within its conceptual and empirical
foundation to support service marketing in the tourism industry (Carman, 1990; Parasuraman
et al., 1988), Otto and Ritchie (1996) categorized service quality and experiences under different
measurements and frameworks due to the subjectivity of the tourism experience.
Likewise, in the context of experience in marketing management, Schmitt (1999)
suggested experience marketing as an emerging phenomenon outside of goods and services
marketing, using “strategic experiential modules” that includes (1) sensory experiences, (2)
affective experiences, (3) creative and cognitive experiences, (4) physical experiences,
behavior, and lifestyles and (5) social-identity experiences that result from being related to a
reference group or culture, which allows managers to create different types of customer
experiential opportunities when incorporating new services or products.
Evaluating the various dimensions of the tourist experience, Pine and Gilmore (1999)
added a framework for experience economy for understanding and assessing experiential
consumption. These realms of tourist experiences conveyed the rise of consumer demand for
exalted or beneficial service experience. Moreover, scholars have developed quantitative
assessment tools to measure individuals’ experiences and touch on this notion of the
experience economy. The Consumer Experience Index (Knutson et al., 2006; Kim et al. (2012)),
for example, utilizes seven experience dimensions (i.e. environment, benefits, convenience,
accessibility, utility, incentive and trust) to gauge the service experience.
Beyond the conceptualization of tourist experiences, some studies have focused on
specific experiential consumption such as backpacking (Uriely et al., 2002), sports (Bouchet
et al., 2004), food (Quan and Wang, 2004) and culture (Prentice, 2001). Additionally, studies
also explored methodologies seeking to reveal tourist experiences, for instance, Volo (2010)
proposed online travel blogs as a valuable data source for experience research, and Matteucci
(2013) utilized photo-elicitation as a creative way to capture tourist experiences. Researchers
have also touched on scale development to measure trip experiences, wherein Kim et al. (2012)
examined recallable trip experiences to determine how a tourist experience evoked positive
and negative memories.
Most recently, a new stream of literature investigates what constitutes the creation of
memorable experiences (e.g. Kim and Chen, 2019; Kim et al., 2012) and how to engage tourists
to collaborate in the cocreation of such experiences (Prebensen et al., 2014). As part of the
cocreation literature, a model of factors that impact tourist experiences proposed by Chen
et al. (2014) depicts the processes involved in tourist experience formation. This model, titled
“Tourist Experience Driver Model” (TEDM), consists of trip-partaking experiences (before
and during the trip) and trip reminiscing experiences (after the trip). It argues that three types
of drivers could affect the trip-partaking experience: personal, environmental and interactive.
The model further categorizes the reminiscing trip experience as being part of nonrecallable
or recallable experiences, where the recallable experience can be placed into five typologies:
disastrous, regretful, monotonous, memorable and extraordinary experiences. Chen et al.
(2014) postulated that interactive drivers could augment tourists’ excitement about a
destination and potentially lead to a positive trip experience, such as when engaging in
tourist-to-tourist interactions and tourist-to-service staff interactions.
IHR People-to-people interaction
34,2 Empirical studies on tourist experiences have sufficiently supported the significance of the
people interactions. For example, studies by Kim et al. (2012), Morgan and Xu (2009) and Kim
and Chen (2019) indicated that encountering locals is one of the components promoting
memorable tourist experiences. Meng et al. (2008) identified friendliness of personnel as one of
the critical factors affecting the tourist experience, and Mossberg (2007) claimed that
encounters with service personnel and other tourists serve to modify the tourist experience. In
190 service encounter research, a plethora of studies have touched on issues relevant to customer
interactions, including parties involved in the interaction such as customer-to-customer (C-to-
C) (Grove and Fish, 1997), the moderator of interaction such as customer homogeneity (Levy,
2010; Wu et al., 2013), the mediating effects (i.e. cohesion and intimacy) on tourist experiences
(Lin et al., 2019) and satisfaction and dissatisfaction as an outcome of interactions exemplified
by the customer-to- customer relationships in service encounters (Martin and Pranter, 1989).
As adequately established in the literature, service encounters, involving the customer,
service personnel, physical environments and other customers, are considered temporary,
discrete activity (Surprenant and Solomon, 1987) and could shape customer’s evaluation of
service experiences (Martin and Pranter, 1989).
Focusing on the social aspect of interaction, Liu et al. (1987) suggested that interactions
between tourists and residents bolster the residents’ positive attitudes toward tourism
development. Similarly, in their examination of value perception in relationship-to-people
interaction, Chen et al. (2016) discovered that social value affects people’s interaction. Zhang
et al. (2006) pinpointed that resident’s attitudes toward tourist–host interaction may be
influenced by personality and ethnicity. Reisinger and Turner (1998) regarded cultural
background as another moderator impacting people interaction and acknowledged the role of
cultural differences between Asian tourists and Australian hosts as a predictor of their social
interaction and satisfaction. Furthermore, Armenski et al. (2011) proposed that tourist’s
interaction with locals also shapes tourist’s perceptions of the destination. Service encounters
allow buyers and sellers to negotiate the terms of exchanging relationships (Czepiel, 1990),
helping to open up a channel for establishing long-run relationships.
In addition to interactions between customers and service personnel, the phenomenon of
C-to-C interactions has recently been the focus of service encounter research in tourism.
Researchers have identified several vital variables that facilitate optimal service experience
encounters by promoting C-to-C interaction, such as customer compatibility and behavioral
conformity. Customers are more likely to interact with identical demographics and shared
value beliefs (Martin and Pranter, 1989; Martin, 1995). Wu (2007), in a survey of outbound
travelers, stated that during C-to-C interactions, customer homogeneity contributes to
customer satisfaction and that service evaluation from fellow customers has a positive
influence on customer satisfaction. Huang and Hsu (2010) further confirmed that the quality
of C-to-C interaction could influence trip satisfaction.
Even though people-to-people interaction is an essential part of the total tourist
experience, individuals may pose a different level of desire to interact with others in different
travel circumstances. Papathanassis (2012) discussed the barriers to interaction in a C-to-C
setting and suggested that presence (or absence) of cultural compatibility between socially
interacting consumers could impact the continuation of social interactions. For example,
Murphy (2001) found that backpackers are motivated to interact with fellow backpackers to
socialize and to undertake destination information inquiry and interpretation. These social
interactions result from the initial screening that culminates into an intentional identification
of a compatible cohort of travelers with shared routines and experiences, leading to
subsequent positive exchanges. Moreover, Choo and Petrick (2014) uncovered that tourists
entering different destinations, such as a farm, are inclined to interact with people living in the
surroundings to enhance their trip experience and satisfaction.
Methodology People
Since no existing scale measures the expected benefits of people interaction, this study interactions
deployed a mixed method approach, consisting of personal interviews and questionnaire
surveys, to construct measurement items. It is a sequential exploratory design that involves
and guest
two phases of data collection: qualitative methods (i.e. personal interview) followed by a experiences
quantitative tool (i.e. survey research). The second phase data collection builds upon the
results of the first qualitative results (Creswell, 2009). The purpose of the interview was used
to inform the questionnaire survey. Specifically, personal interviews attempted to determine 191
the underlying tourist’s expected benefits of people interactions, such as tourist-to-server and
tourist-to-tourist interactions. The mixed method approach has been an established design of
research in social sciences. For example, Kim and Chen (2019), probing the concept of the
memorable travel experience, deployed a mixed method which first evoked five dimensions
elucidating the memorable travel experience through personal interviews and subsequently
deployed questionnaire surveys to confirm/disconfirm the resultant dimensions by using a
confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).
The study site Hangzhou, China is ranked among the top-10 travel destinations due to its
historical and heritage attractions (Travel China Guide, 2015). The city is located in the
Zhejiang Province, which has 11 national-level scenic areas (e.g. West Lake, Fuchun River,
Xinan River and ThousandIsland Lake) and 35 province-level beautiful spots (China
Information Center, 2015). Hangzhou is the provincial capital and the region’s political,
economic and cultural center. For data collection, 16 personal interviews, including seven
hotel guests and nine hotel employees represented by hotel managers and staff, were
conducted at hotel lobbies with a timeframe of 15–25 minutes. As Creswell (1998) suggested a
sample number from 5 to 25 as adequate for a phenomenological stud, the 16 interviews were
deemed to be sufficient. During the interviews, participants shared their perspectives on
expected benefits derived from interacting with others by responding to the question of
“what kind of benefits do you expect from interacting with others at hotels?” Data analysis
followed the procedures suggested by Creswell (2009) comprising raw data transportation,
organizing and preparing data analysis, reading through all data, coding the data, generate
themes, interrelating themes and interpreting the meaning of the themes. After transcribing
the interview data, a thematic analysis was deployed, which revealed five expected-benefit
dimensions: (1) friendliness, (2), social (3) information, (4), curiosity and (5) service. It is
essential to distinguish between the dimensions of information and service benefits, which
involve information acquisition. However, as the service dimension deals with service-related
information acquisition, the aspect of information denotes the expected or potential benefits
derived from information searches not related to hotel services.
After the interviews, a structured questionnaire was developed, wherein each benefit
dimension was further assessed by five questions using a seven-point Likert-type scale from
1 (strongly disagreed) to 7 (strongly agreed). The questionnaire, thus, included a benefit scale
as the key research variable, explicated by 25 indicators. A pilot study was conducted on 30
hotel guests to screen the scale reliability. As a result, the Cronbach’s alpha score was
calculated as being 0.86, which showed that no item deleted from the scale would significantly
improve its reliability. Subsequently, a series of onsite surveys were conducted at seven
upscale hotels in the city of Hangzhou. In this questionnaire survey, the respondents
comprised hotel guests who were approached in the hotel lobby, cafe and restaurant.
Respondents were approached and either asked to complete a hard-copied survey or asked
questions verbatim by the researcher.
Mean analysis was used to determine the relative importance of benefit indicators. In the
process of validating the measurement scale concerning the expected benefits of personal
interaction, CFA was deployed. Brown (2006) indicated that higher-order factor analyses
could produce a more parsimonious account for the correlations among lower-order factors.
IHR The qualitative approach suggested that the five benefit factors may be further combined
34,2 into two second-order categories: civility and utility. The reason for this approach was that
the interaction benefits dealing with information, service and curiosity tend to be a function of
utility, whereas friendliness and social benefits are apt to be driven by a sense of civility. A
second-order factor analysis was performed to determine whether these two second-order
factors could be proved statistically. Lastly, this study conducted regression analyses to test
the effects of benefit factors on the total lodging experience, which was assessed by the
192 question of “the experiences of interacting with others (such as service staff, other guests or
local people) enhances my lodging experience in general.”

Results
Descriptive data analyses
Stemming from the 326 useful questionnaires collected, Table 2 shows the profile of
respondents. In total, 60.8% of respondents were female; 53.1% had a bachelor’s degree and
56.7% were aged below 26 to 45. The mean scores of all 25 benefit attributes (Table 3) showed
that the two highest means over 6.0 were (1) timely response (M 5 6.09) and (2) destination
information (M 5 6.05). Among the five dimensions, the information domain represented the
highest composite mean (M 5 5.86), followed by social (M 5 5.61), friendliness (M 5 5.59),
whereas curiosity (M 5 5.4) and service (M 5 5.4) showed the lowest two dimensions. The
results suggested that the guests’ reaction to information inquiry is a key driver for people’s
interaction. Although nowadays, a large amount of travel data can be quickly retrieved by
hotel guests via electronic devices, including cell phones, tablets and computers, hotel guests
fully appreciate face-to-face personal interactions as an effective channel to fulfill their
information need. Further, the lowest mean concerning the perceived benefits of personal
interaction is the guests’ desire to make complaints (M 5 4.90). The reliability of the benefit
scale is evident in the Cronbach’s alpha score of 0.95, wherein all 25 benefit indicators can
collectively assess the benefits of personal interaction.

Confirmatory factory analysis

A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed to determine if the 25 indicators could
accurately measure the perceived benefits of personal interaction in a hotel setting with a five-

Characteristics Sample
N %

Total 326
Gender
Male 123 39.2
Female 191 60.8
Education level
High school 43 13.3
2-year college 80 24.7
4-year college 172 53.1
Graduate school 29 9
Age
18–25 88 27
Table 2. 26–45 185 56.7
Demographic 46–65 50 15.3
characteristics Over 65 3 0.9
Beneficial factors Mean
People
interactions
Friendliness and guest
I feel at home when interacting with other people. (5home) 5.22
The environment encourages me to interact with other people. (5encouragement) 5.78 experiences
I feel it is necessary to interact with others when I am in a friendly atmosphere. (5necessity) 5.40
I feel it is beneficial to interact with others when I am in a friendly atmosphere. (5benefits) 5.66
A friendly environment excites me to talk with others. (5excitement) 5.90 193
Social
I want to approach people surrounding me. (5approaching) 5.65
I feel encouraged to talk to the people around me if they are nice to me. (5people) 5.67
I want to make friends when traveling. (5friend) 5.41
Interacting with others makes me feel happy. (5joy) 5.64
I want to get close with people and the environment surrounding me. (5closeness) 5.68
Information
I need information about destinations I have visited on this trip. (5destination) 6.05
I expect timely responses to problem I have faced when traveling. (5response) 6.09
I want to learn something new from others. (5learning) 5.47
I want to get familiar with the environment where I visit. (5familiarity) 5.87
I want to find the best answers as possible to resolve my uncertainty. (5uncertainty) 5.84
Curiosity
I am curious about the people I have encountered when traveling. (5encounter) 4.92
I want to know other people’s personal stories. (5stories) 5.13
I want to know what is happening within destination communities. (5community) 5.35
I want to get familiar with the artifacts, histories and people at the destinations. (5artifacts) 5.81
I want to learn local culture. (5culture) 5.79
Service
I am likely to make service related complaint(s) to others when traveling. (5complaint) 4.90
I like face-to-face interaction with service staff. (5contact) 5.27 Table 3.
Because there is a sufficient number of service staffs, I feel I could better utilize them by asking any 5.36 Mean scores of
questions of interesting. (5adequacy) expected benefits
Service staffs are generally able to resolve my service concerns immediately. (5concern) 5.91 derived from people
I want to have more personal attention given to my service problems and concerns. (5attention) 5.54 interaction

dimension solution, and IBM SPSS Amos 25 was utilized as an analysis tool. The significance
of the five-dimension model was determined by a chi-square ratio and the fit indexes of the
comparative fit index (CFI), adjusted goodness of fit (AGFI), and root mean square error of
approximation (RMSEA). The proposed model (Figure 1) contained five benefit dimensions
explained by 25 indicators. In the model (Model A) test, the results revealed an unsatisfactory
model fit (x2 5 871.72, df 5 265, x2/df 5 3.29, CFI 5 0.856, AGFI 5 0.798, RMSEA 5 0.084).
After deleting five indicators of necessity, encounter, stories, complaint and attention from
the initial model, a revised model (Model B) represented an improved model (x2 5 410.53,
df 5 158, x2/df 5 2.6, CFI 5 0.932, AGFI 5 0.840, RMSEA 5 0.07). Items were deleted due to
low regression weight, and concerns and attention were eliminated in consideration of
convergent validity.

The final CFA model

In sum, the final model included 20 indicators explaining five first-order benefit factors. Three
to five indicators, respectively, illustrated the five benefit dimensions. The structure of the
five-dimension model was categorized explicitly as (1) friendliness (e.g. home, encouragement,
benefits and excitement), (2) social (e.g. approaching, people, friends, joy and closeness), (3)
IHR e5
1
home
34,2 1
e4 encouragement
1
e2 benefits Friendliness
1
1
e1 excitement
194
1
e10 destination
1
e9 response
1
e8 learning Information

1 1
e7 familiarity
1
e6 uncertainty

1
e11 culture
1
1
e12 artifacts Curiosity

1
e13 community

1
e20 approaching

1
e19 people

1
e18 friend Social

1 1
e17 joy

1
e16 closeness

1
e24 contact 1
1
Figure 1. e23 adequacy Service
Original/
hypothetical model 1
e22 concern

curiosity (e.g. community, artifacts and culture), (4) information (e.g. destination response,
familiarity and uncertainty) and (5) service (e.g. contact, adequacy and concern) (Table 4).
This study examined the scale reliability involving (1) composite reliability (CR) and (2)
the percentage of average variance extracted by each construct (AVE). In the final model of
the study, all composite reliability scores were above 0.70, while the AVE measures ranged
between 0.48 and 0.66. Hatcher (1994) proposed composite reliability higher than 0.70 and
AVE over 0.50; hence, the results of this study indicated satisfactory scale reliability. A
validity test was performed to see if the underlying construct measuring the concept (benefits
of interaction) proposed by this study was accurate. The convergent validity of the scale People
(Table 5) was also acceptable, as evidenced by high path coefficient scores (>0.50) except the interactions
service dimension, which showed a marginal value (0.48).
and guest
experiences
Second-order factor analysis
A second-order factor analysis performed presented five first-order factors (e.g. friendliness,
social, information, curiosity and service) and two second-order factors (e.g. civility and 195
utility). The results (Table 6) showed a satisfactory model (x2 5 431.15, df 5 161, x2/df 5 2.68,
CFI 5 0.927, AGFI 5 0.829, RMSEA 5 0.072) indicating that friendliness and social
dimensions contributed to a second-order factor labeled as civility, while information,
curiosity and service served as the second-order factor utility (Figure 2).

Model x2 d x2/df CFI AGFI RMSEA

a
Model A 871.72 265 3.29 0.856 0.798 0.084 Table 4.
Model Bb 410.53 158 2.6 0.932 0.840 0.07 Summary of model-fit
Note(s): a Model A 5 the original model containing 25 indicators. Each benefit dimension has five indicators; indices from
b
Model B 5 a competing model, deleting indicators necessity, encounter, stories, complaint and attention from confirmatory factor
the original pool of indicators, with 20 indicators analyses

Dimensions and indicators Path coefficient CRa AVEb

1. Friendliness 0.83 0.56

Home 0.63
Encouragement 0.72
Benefits 0.76
Excitement 0.86

2. Social 0.84 0.53

Approaching 0.61
People 0.71
Friend 0.79
Joy 0.89
Closeness 0.84

3. Information 0.79 0.57

Destination 0.74
Response 0.68
Learning 0.59
Familiarity 0.83
Uncertainty 0.79

4. Curiosity 0.88 0.66

Culture 0.84
Artifacts 0.89
Community 0.46

5. Service 0.73 0.48

Contact 0.71 Table 5.
Adequacy 0.76 Reliability of the
Concern 0.59 resultant model on
Note(s): a CR: Composite reliability and b AVE: Average variance extracted benefits
IHR Regression analysis
34,2 Lastly, regression analysis (Table 7) was conducted to evaluate the degree to which the
benefit domains affect the total lodging experience. Concerning the high-order factors, both
utility and civility were found to significantly affect the overall lodging experience (p < 0.01),
where utility had a stronger impact on the total lodging experience. As for the five lower-order
factors, only one factor, i.e. information, was not a significant predictor of the total lodging
experience. Among the four benefit dimensions, service was the strongest predictor of the
196 overall lodging experience, whereas curiosity was the least powerful predictor.

Conclusion
Given the void in the current literature regarding the expected benefits of people interaction,
this study uses a mixed method approach to derive attributes that assess the benefits of
interaction. The study first deploys a qualitative approach, which results in five streams of
expected benefits associated with personal interactions; these consist of friendliness, social,
information, curiosity and service by using hotels as the study setting. The benefit dimensions
may be further grouped into two benefit categories: civility and utility. The results offer
comprehensive insights into the benefits of people interactions in terms of guest-to-guest,
guest-to-server and guest-to-locals. In brief, the revelation of the dimensions of the expected
benefits of people interaction may be viewed as the distinct contribution of the study.

Theoretical implications
Notably, this study identifies the particular functional benefits of people interactions (i.e.
utility and civility), which extends the coverage of Papathanassis (2012), who randomly
articulated a limited number of functional benefits of guest-to-guest interaction as an example
of interaction utility. Moreover, the presentation of the refined dimension labeled as civility
may be viewed as an essential contribution to the literature and the hospitality industry. The
existing research suggests that social interests serve as a vital aspect of the guest experience,
encouraging guests to initiate interactions with all parties. The results shed new light on the
subject, precisely, that beyond functional and social benefits, friendliness in terms of pleasant
exchanges and social warmth could be considered as a critical driver for personal interaction,
where friendliness and social factors seem to be intricately linked. For example,
demonstrating friendly behavior reflects a "civilized" manner that functions as social
mingling. From a holistic viewpoint, expanding upon the current literature that frequently
reports social factor as an essential motor for people interaction, it is wise to redefine such
intentions in the context of "civility," which seems to be an all-embracing descriptor in terms
of theorizing a beneficial pillar of people interaction based on cultural and behavioral norms.
In the provision of generalizable findings, this research employs a questionnaire survey on
high-end hotel guests resulting in a five-dimension model explained by 20 attributes. Also,
the five dimensions as lower-order factors are merged into two domains, regarded as higher-
order factors as presented in the structural model. In future research, the five-dimension scale
could be utilized as an antecedent or moderator of different types of psychological traits, such
as satisfaction and loyalty, for theory extension. For example, following the dynamic
experience model by Chen et al. (2014), new scholarly undertakings may further test the
extent to which the interactive drivers, such as people interaction, determine positive

Table 6.
Model fit indices from x2 df x2/df CFI AGFI RMSEA
second-order factor
analysis Second-order model 431.15 161 2.68 0.927 0.829 0.072
 e5 home e30
People
0.69 interactions
encouragement
e4 0.76
0.74
and guest
e2 benefits
0.84
Friendliness experiences
e1 excitement 0.94

197
e20 approaching
civility
0.65 e29
e19 people 0.84
0.74
0.79
e18 friend Social
0.88

e17 joy 0.83

e16 closeness

0.89
e28
e11 culture
0.84
0.89
e12 artifacts Curiosity
0.46

e13 community
0.85

e10 destination
e27
0.74
e9 response 0.67
0.89 utility
0.59
e8 learning Information
0.83

familiarity 0.80
e7

e6 uncertainty 0.83

e26

e24 contact 0.65

0.71
e23 adequacy Service Figure 2.
0.66 Resultant second-
concern order model
e22

reminiscing outcomes (e.g. memorable and extraordinary experiences). Nevertheless, it is

vital to recognize the constraints of this resultant model, wherein the dimension of service
indicates marginal discriminant validity. Further research on people interaction may draw
different samples or generate more indicators for the service dimension to boost up its
validity in measurement.

Managerial implications
Concerning the casual relationship between the interaction benefits and the lodging
experience, it appears that most benefits sought via people interaction could affect the overall
IHR experience. While the information search does not affect the total experience, this study finds
34,2 that it is the most critical driver for encouraging hotel guests to engage with people in
surrounding hotels. The following two facts led to these assumptions; first, the level of
tolerance concerning guest satisfaction may be broad, as needed information is absent and
that guests can retrieve relevant information on a destination via different avenues and
methods, such as using computer/cell phones and giving a call to someone for consultation.
Second, when engaging in personal interaction, the information that guests intend to search
198 primarily deals with the hotel and surrounding destinations. To better facilitate the guests’
information needs, hotel managers should offer high-speed, free Wi-Fi access to lobby areas
and Internet-ready terminals. For those lodging accommodations with complimentary
wireless access for their guests, it is essential to articulate how such a service should further
provide better efficiency and speed of access.
This study finds that making complaints is the least important attribute for prompting
hotel guests to interact with people. As the literature discloses (e.g. Kim and Chen, 2010), there
are several ways to make complaints about hotel services. Talking to the service providers/
managers is the most direct way to solve service issues. It is not clear why the respondents
weigh such an interaction benefit marginally, perhaps the cultural background of guests in
upscale hotels, where all study participants are Chinese, demonstrates a high level of
tolerance and risk avoidance (Hofstede, 1991). Alternatively, it could also be due to the
prevalence of information technologies, using a third party (e.g. travel blogs) as a venue for
making complaints that may be more productive and timely. The above discussions lead to
the following managerial implications: hotel managers may proactively interact with their
guests by offering some incentives (e.g. cash rewards and gifts), especially for those with a
high level of tolerance or risk avoidance, an approach that allows the managers to close the
potential service gaps in a timely, friendly and systematic manner.
Among the five dimensions generated from the model, service and friendliness emerge as
the two most reliable predictors of total lodging experiences than other types of benefits. The
result is in line with the current literature (e.g. Meng et al., 2008) articulating that guests
highly value the friendliness of service staff, which influences their overall experiences.
It again confirms that creating a friendly atmosphere for hotel guests ought to be a crucial
task for hoteliers. Besides, it is not surprising to see that service-related benefits strongly
affect the hotel guests’ total lodging experiences. Indeed, through face-to-face interaction,
guests are more likely to fulfill their service needs effectively.
Nevertheless, with the recent information technology revolution, consumers, especially
the younger generations, have adopted a new lifestyle that involves electronic appliances and
social media activities such as messaging, chatting and meeting conduits to foster people’s
interactions. What has transformed with respect to personal interaction is the change of
interaction location (e.g. from onsite to e-channel) and the frequency of interaction, such as by

B SE β t p

Second-order factors
Civility →experience 0.45 0.08 0.34 5.38 0.00*
Utility→ experience 0.51 0.09 0.36 5.66 0.00*
First-order factors
Friendliness →experience 0.38 0.07 0.31 5.17 0.00*
Table 7. Social →experience 0.41 0.07 0.35 5.93 0.00*
Effects of people Information →experience 0.13 0.08 0.07 1.54 0.12
interaction on Curiosity →experience 0.27 0.07 0.26 4.03 0.00*
experiences Service →experience 0.45 0.07 0.37 6.90 0.00*
e-messaging, for instance. It is important to consider incorporating information technology to People
promote customer-to-service personnel interaction. For example, a hotel service center may interactions
allow its guests to make an instant inquiry via text message or video call. The above
suggestion may lead to a viable direction for future study beyond continued scholarly
and guest
endeavors based on onsite people interaction investigations. This study shall focus on the experiences
impacts of communicative e-channels on people interaction. Above all, boosting consumer
relationships with service providers could depend on the providers’ interactions with
consumers at the most appropriate time and place. 199
The study findings indicate that the social dimension does not represent a significant
predictor of total lodging experience. This result is consistent with the study by
Papathanassis (2012), which mentions that social functions play a secondary role in
services functions in the case of the cruise experience. It is not surprising that social benefits
are less critical about other benefits, including friendliness, service, curiosity and information.
A hotel is viewed as a private, solitary, exclusive space in which the guests are not inclined to
reveal their personal stories. It is important to note that the lodging properties under
investigation were business hotels, and the primary purpose of staying at a business hotel
may relate to a basic human need (e.g. finding a shelter). However, the guest’s desire for social
benefits may depend on the characteristics of the hotel (e.g. resort, business and convention),
and it may be possible that guests staying at a family-friendly resort hotel would be more
eager to pursue social interactions.

Limitations and future suggestions

Finally, it is critical to consider the limitations of this study. The derived interaction-related
benefits are assessed on Chinese guests at upscale city hotels. In other words, considering the
potential cultural and language barriers between tourism professionals and foreign guests,
this study only focuses on the interaction between native staffs and guests. Therefore, culture
and other socioeconomic circumstances may be considered as essential factors impacting the
guests’ behaviors concerning interaction benefits that are anticipated or sought, where people
of different nationalities and backgrounds might impact research outcomes. While this study
can shed light on the benefits of people interaction in a hotel setting, it is prudent to evaluate
whether the expected benefits may be altered when a different hospitality-related
environment is in place. While the focus of the current study is on hotel guests, to future
explore the similarities and differences, future research could involve hotel employees.
Consequently, future research may look into people interaction benefits in other settings (e.g.
theme parks) or groups (e.g. employees).
Moreover, the present study focuses on people interaction in general rather than a
specified type of interaction (e.g. guests to guests and guests to residents), so it may be
worthwhile to examine further the expected benefits derived from different types of
interaction and making comparisons which could add further insights into assist service
strategy development. Lastly, in the face of global pandemic COVID-19, social distancing is
being followed as one of the effective ways to thwart the spread of the virus. The hotel
business is aspiring for alternative ways to stay connected with the guests while
implementing reduced human-to-human contact. Thus, it would be imperative to deploy
research to find the best solution to enhance the guest’s interaction experiences in a
postCOVID-19 era.

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Corresponding author
Joseph Chen can be contacted at: [email protected]

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