Research Examines Social Media Impact on Hospitality Industry

Although it may seem counterintuitive, a recent study co-authored by a Western Carolina University professor of hospitality and tourism management indicates that employers may actually benefit if their workers take a few minutes to scroll through Facebook, send a quick Tweet or watch a brief video on YouTube.

In their study, Ethan (Yi-Sung) Cheng of WCU and fellow researcher Seonghee Cho of the University of Missouri found that allowing employees a few minutes of break from work to spend time on social media sites improves the ability of workers in hospitality-related businesses to cope with the stresses of their workday, leading to increased overall productivity.

The International Journal of Hospitality Management published their findings an article titled “Are Social Media Bad for Your Employees? Effects of At-Work Break Activities on Recovery Experiences.”

“Since social media has become a fundamental part of the daily activities of people, the purpose of this study was to explore social media use by focusing on job demands that may explain why employees perceive social media are vital for them at work,” Cheng said. “Further, this study seeks to understand how employees use social media at work to experience recovery.”

For their study, the researchers distributed questionnaires to frontline workers in the hospitality industry, including those in both managerial and non-managerial positions, with questions about personal and professional social media usage, job demands and responsibilities, activities taken during breaks from work time, and the impact of those break activities on reducing stress and improving productivity.

In addition to social media activity while workers were on break, the study also looked at non-social media break activities such as snacking, talking with co-workers, reading for personal pleasure, napping, exercising and meditation. The researchers then analyzed the data using a process called structural equation modeling, finding that at-work break activities including social and non-media break activities can be a channel for employees to experience recovery and deal with job demands.

“Since job demands are unavoidable, hospitality managers should be aware of why and when employees have a need to engage in at-work break activities. The present findings confirm that employees not only perceive social media are important at work, but also facilitate recovery experiences to avoid job stressors such as service interactions with customers,” Cheng said.

“This study believes that using social media will not be a waste of time and distraction at work. Instead, it will help employees deal with job demands, feel relaxed, detach from work, restore their energy spent at work and eventually perform better. Hospitality managers should be aware that mentally disengaging from work during break time helps to experience recovery,” he said.

The researchers said that, while they recognize that extended use of social media during work hours can have a negative impact on employee productivity, allowing workers a few minutes a few times a day to engage with social media – whether for social interaction, playing a brain-teasing game or obtaining and sharing information – can be beneficial.

A second study co-authored by WCU’s Cheng examined the impact of certain types of online reviews of service on the behaviors of customers of the hospitality and tourism industry. Called “online service recovery reviews,” these consumer-generated descriptions of how hospitality companies acted to compensate those who experience failures in the delivery of services are posted online, often on review websites such as TripAdvisor or Yelp or directly on the company’s social media platforms.

The study examined the relationship between online service recovery reviews and consumers’ individual personalities and preferences regarding whether they are promotion-focused and more interested in gains – that is, “looking for a good deal” or seeking a positive outcome – or prevention-focused, meaning they are trying to avoid a loss or an unpleasant experience.

“For many consumers, reducing potential losses is more important than increasing potential gains; therefore, negative reviews have a much greater impact than positive reviews,” Cheng said.

In the study, Cheng and colleague Kuo-Chien Chang of the Department of Leisure and Recreation Management at Chihlee University of Technology in New Taipei City, Taiwan, developed web-based questionnaires with responses to different types of service failure scenarios,

The scenarios included restaurant service activities that often appear in online consumer reviews; a corporate reputation scenario involving a restaurant’s initiatives in consumer orientation, good employer reliability and financial strength, product and service quality, and social and environmental responsibility; and service guarantee scenarios ranging from partial to full refunds.

The authors found that individual consumer personalities and preferences do have an impact on satisfaction with the service recovery efforts of hospitality-related businesses, and they suggest that hospitality companies maintain several strategies to deal with service failures and tailor them to meet the needs of individual customers.

For example, strategies such as refunds or other compensation are important to prevention-focused consumers, while prevention-focused and promotion-focused costumers alike respond well to strategies such as sincere apologies or simply responding to negative service reviews online.

“We recommend that hospitality managers focus on improving corporate reputation and service guarantee policies. The study found that positive assessments of corporate reputation and service guarantees strengthened the relationship between perceptions of online service recovery reviews and behavioral intentions,” Cheng said. “In other words, restaurants that have been reviewed positively online are characterized by a good corporate reputation and offer good service guarantees are more likely to enjoy an increase in customers, regardless of whether those customers are prevention- or promotion-focused.”

Results of the study appear in an article titled “How Online Service Recovery Reviews Influence Behavioral Intentions in the Hospitality Context: Regulatory Focus and Loss Aversion Perspectives” in the Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management.