Herstellung und Verlag:
BoD - Books on Demand GmbH, Norderstedt
ISBN 978-3-7448-5883-0
The 5th International Student Conference in Tourism Research (ISCONTOUR) was held at the campus of the University of Applied Sciences, Salzburg, Austria, on May 15-16, 2017. The annual ISCONTOUR was collaboratively founded by Christian Maurer, Professor at IMC University of Applied Sciences Krems, Austria, and Roman Egger, Professor at Salzburg University of Applied Sciences, Austria. Therefore, the conference is alternately held at both venues.
The aim of ISCONTOUR is to provide international students and graduates of Bachelor and Master Programmes with a platform where they can submit and present tourism related research papers based on their approved Bachelor and Master Theses. In particular, ISCONTOUR strives to encourage students and graduates to engage in academic research and foster the knowledge transfer between academic education institutions and the tourism industry. The first day of the ISCONTOUR 2017 starts with the IFITT Doctoral Summer School, which is a part of the ISCONTOUR this year and aims for early-career researchers, both at Master’s and Doctoral level who can familiarize themselves with various research methodologies and are introduced to the world of academic publishing. The first day continuous with the Research Methodology Workshop, the submitted research papers will be presented on the second conference day. In total 45 full research papers and additional 12 extended abstracts for the IFITT Doctoral Summer School by more than 60 authors were submitted to the ISCONTOUR 2017. Each submission went through a thorough double blind review process with at least two members of the ISCONTOUR 2017 Research Programme Committee assigned as reviewers. The authors then received the comments of the reviewers and had to revise the papers accordingly. Only papers of authors who adhered to this process were accepted for the conference. As a result, 30 full research papers were accepted for presentation at the conference and are included in these proceedings. The conference covered a wide variety of topics, ranging from consumer behavior, experience, augmented and virtual reality, marketing, information and communication technologies, and destination management. This does not only indicate the variety of the tourism system, but also how relevant and impactful applied research projects conducted by students and graduates can be for the further developments in tourism in particular and the society in general. We hope these proceedings will serve as a valuable source of information on applied tourism research for students, scholars and practitioners.
Above all, we want to thank all authors who submitted their papers for the conference. We further appreciate the considerable time put in by all members of the ISCONTOUR 2017 Research Programme Committee who helped us to ensure that the content of the research papers was of high quality. We are also grateful for the support we receive from the management board, rectorate and colleagues of both the IMC University of Applied Sciences Krems as well as the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences. We are also indebted to the conference keynote speakers, Anita Zehrer and Clemens Költringer and to the research workshop presenters Mattia Rainoldi, Valentini Kalargyrou and Martin Waiguny. Thank you also to our Doctoral Summer School Chair Barbara Neuhofer and Lidija Lalicic (Director of IFITT Next Generation). Last but not least, we want to express our gratitude to the sponsors and supporters of ISCONTOUR 2017, namely International Federation for IT and Travel & Tourism (IFITT), Stieglbrauerei zu Salzburg GmbH, Semantic Technology Institute Innsbruck (STI), TSG Tourismus Salzburg GmbH, Springer Verlag and Wirtschaftskammer Salzburg.
We hope that ISCONTOUR will continue to establish an international community that motivates more students and graduates to engage in applied research and submit papers to ISCONTOUR 2018.
Roman Egger & Christian Maurer
ISCONTOUR 2017 Conference Chairs
Salzburg / Krems, May 2017
ARIKAN Irfan, IMC University of Applied Sciences Krems, Austria
AUBKE Florian, Modul University Vienna, Austria
BAGGIO Rodolfo, Bocconi University Milan, Italy
BAUER-KRÖSBACHER Claudia, IMC University of Applied Sciences Krems, Austria
BAUMGARTNER Christian, IMC University of Applied Sciences Krems, Austria
BRUCKER Eva, University of Applied Sciences Salzburg, Austria
BUHALIS Dimitrios, University of Bournemouth, UK
BUSBY Graham, Plymouth University, UK
CANTONI Lorenzo, Universitá dell Svizzera italiana Lugano, Switzerland
EBSTER Claus, University of Vienna, Austria
EGGER Roman, University of Applied Sciences Salzburg, Austria
FENSEL Dieter, University of Innsbruck, Austria
FUCHS Matthias, Mid-Sweden University, Sweden
FURTMÜLLER Elfi, University of Innsbruck, Austria
GRETZEL Ulrike, University of Wollongong, Australia
HATAK Isabella, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria
JOOSS Mario, University of Applied Sciences Salzburg, Austria
KASTNER Margit, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria
LASSNIG Markus, Salzburg Research, Austria
LIEBRICH Andreas, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Switzerland
MAURER Christian, IMC University of Applied Sciences Krems, Austria
MURPHY Jamie, Murdoch Business School, Australia
NEUHOFER Barbara, Bournemouth University, UK
PETERS Mike, MCI Management Center Innsbruck, Austria
PIKKEMAAT Birgit, Institute for Innovative Tourism, Austria
PRISKIN Julianna, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Switzerland
PÜHRETMAIR Franz, Kompetenznetzwerk IT zur Förderung der Integration von Menschen mit Behinderungen, Austria
REINO Sofia, Cooperative Research Center in Tourism, Spain
ROMERO Alberto, Rey Juan Carlos University, Spain
SCHACHNER Max, IMC University of Applied Sciences
SCHEGG Roland, HES-SO Valais, Switzerland
SOMMER Guido, Cologne Business School (CBS), Germany
STANGL Brigitte, University of Surrey, UK
STECKENBAUER Georg Christian, IMC University of Applied Sciences Krems, Austria
TEICHMANN Karin, University of Innsbruck, Austria
TISCHLER Stephanie, IMC University of Applied Sciences Krems, Austria
TUSSYADIAH Iis, Washington State University, USA
VOLO Serena, Free University of Bolzano, Italy
ZEHRER Anita, MCI Management Center Innsbruck, Austria
Chan Ka Po
Institute for Tourism Studies, Macao
s130322@ift.edu.mo
Service with a smile is a service strategy commonly used by the hotel industry as it is believed to be able to enhance the perception of customer satisfaction on hotel service quality. However, there are few clear guidelines for employees to present an authentic smile to the customer. The present research aims to study the definition of the authenticity of a smile and thus indicate its impact on the perception of customer satisfaction. Hence, the purpose is to provide a better insight for hotel service trainers to implement clear instructions for presenting authentic smiles in service encounters. Eight types of smile are set to measure the perception of hotel customers of the authenticity of different types of smile. Furthermore, customer perception of hotel service quality and their intention to return are indicated according to the different types of smile. Lastly, the impact of the demographic information of customers on the perception of smile authenticity is demonstrated to study if the authentic smile can be purposely applied to a specific group of customer purposely. Quantitative data are collected through street intercept survey of the potential customers of Macau’s five-star hotels.
Keywords: service with a smile, customer perception, service quality, authenticity of smile
A genuine smile from hotel service providers may be the first message of welcome provided to their guests. It is welcomed by all consumers, enhances their satisfaction and loyalty to an organization (Andrzejewski and Mooney, 2016; Pugh, 2001; Söderlund and Rosengren, 2010) and is becoming a key success factor for sustainable competitive advantage (Yozgat, Çalişkan and Ürü, 2012). However, compared with other elements that may also influence consumer satisfaction such as food quality, environment, location and price, there are very few studies indicating the individual role of smiling in hotel service encounters. Moreover, it is difficult to find a clear guideline for presenting a genuine smile in the hospitality industry. Therefore, by utilizing a quantitative research method with survey questions to potential customers of Macau’s hotels, the present research aims to extend existing studies of the relationship between “service with a smile” and customer satisfaction. Moreover, it aims to provide service training insights to hotel service trainers by testing the effects of eight types of smile on customer satisfaction and highlighting the effectiveness and the mechanism of presenting a genuine smile. Last but not least, the study is purposely indicating the elements that might mediate the effect of service with a smile.
For constructing a model for the present research, we firstly hypothesize that the customer’s perception of the authenticity of a smile is able to be enhanced by H1.1: Smile with appearance changes of the muscles around eyes; H1.2: Smile with showing teeth; and H1.3: Smile with head canting is able to enhance the customer’s perception of smile authenticity. Meanwhile, we believe that H2: The smile with higher authenticity is more preferred by hotel guests. Moreover, according to various studies concerned with the effect of service with a smile, we assume that H3: Authentic smile will positively affect the satisfaction of hotel customers. We tested the result by a modified model of unweighted SERVPERF scales (Cronin and Taylor, 1992) Furthermore, in order to support the importance of smile authenticity in service encounters, we hypothesize that H4.1: Customer intention to return is positively influenced by authenticity of smile. However, some studies showed that the smiling behaviour does not make an impact on consumer satisfaction if a hotel’s physical condition is not acceptable (Grandey, Fisk, Mattila, Jansen and Sideman, 2005; Söderlund and Rosengren, 2010). Hence, we set another assumption: H4.2: If the quality of a hotel’s physical condition is not acceptable for customers, customer intention to return is not significantly influenced by the authenticity of a smile; and H4.3: If the quality of a hotel’s physical condition is acceptable for customers, customer intention to return is positively influenced by the authenticity of a smile. We hope to prove the null hypothesis of H4.2 in order to support that smile authenticity has a significant impact on customer perception of service quality in hotels with an unacceptable physical condition. Last but not least, the present study is concerned about the impact of customer demographic background on their perception of smile authenticity. Studies found that age and education level did have a significant impact on it but gender did not (Ganesan, Russelland and Dagger, 2008; Pooja and Kumar, 2016). Therefore, we hypothesize that H5.1 Age does have a significant impact on the customer’s perception of smile authenticity; H5.2: Gender does not have a significant impact on customer’s perception of smile authenticity; and H5.3: Education level does have a significant impact on customer’s perception of the authenticity of a smile. The finding is valuable for the application of “service with a smile” to customers.
Affective expression - Smiling
Krumhuber et al. (2007) found that humans are sensitive to facial expressions when they are judging other’s trustworthiness. Although some studies showed that smiling behaviour did not make an impact on consumer satisfaction if the required elements, such as technical service quality, were not acceptable (Grandey, Fisk, Mattila, Jansen and Sideman, 2005; Söderlund and Rosengren, 2010), Gountas, Ewing and Gountas (2007) found a strong relationship between sincere smiles and the perception of genuine care for the customers. This relationship can also be interpreted as the influence of sincere smiles on customer perception of service satisfaction. Furthermore, improvement of customer satisfaction can possibly be achieved by a simulated authentic smile from a well-trained service provider (Zhao, Costa and Badler, 2000). However, in some situations, the smile expresser may just follow a display rule or norm rather than smiling with their actual emotion. The inconsistency between an expresser’s actual emotion and their expression may be sensed by careful observers, and result in a negative impact on customer satisfaction (Andrzejewski and Mooney; Ekman, Friesen and O'Sullivan, 1988). Several reasons influence customer satisfaction through the enhancement of smile.
Smile with appearance changes of the muscles around eyes
There are two types of smile in service management, genuine (Duchenne: A widely-accepted definition of the authenticity of a smile) smile and non-genuine (non-Duchenne) smile (Ekman, Davidson and Friesen, 1990). Ekman, Friesen and O'Sullivan (1988) stated that a Duchenne smile is the smile obtained by the appearance changes of the muscles around the eyes. Different to other smiles, one’s Duchenne smile was found to be more likely caused by experiencing enjoyment. Moreover, when someone tried to express a Duchenne smile with negative emotion, the smile was more often recognized as a feigned smile.
Smile with teeth showing
The effect of smiling with teeth showing has been studied in past research about “service with a smile” and the smiles with and without teeth have been named as minimal smile: smile with upturned mouth but without showing teeth; maximal smile: smile with upturned mouth and showing teeth (Barger and Grandey, 2006; Tidd and Lockard, 1978). Moreover, according to the result of Barger and Grandey’s research, customers are more likely to recognize desired services from service providers who serve with maximal smile rather than serve with minimal or no smile. Furthermore, smiling with teeth displayed is able to enhance the beauty of the smile, thus, improving the self-satisfaction and self-perception of the smile. (Van der Geld, Oosterveld, Van Heck and Kuijpers-Jagtman, 2007).
Smile with head canting
Head movement is the most distinct form of body language during an emotional expression process. It is also the easiest action to be recognized for emotion receivers in communication interaction (Allison, Puce and McCarthy, 2000). Head canting is one of the widely studied head movements that has been found to be associated with human perceptions of emotion (Otta et al., 1994), the study also found that female smiles with head canting result in less reliable expressions to the observer. Moreover, Costa and Bitti (2000) found that head canting with a bigger angle affects more attributes than the one with a smaller angle. They also found that an individual with right head-tilt has a significantly higher average mean on the perception of trustworthiness than those with left head-tilt or without head-tilt. However, attractiveness has an opposite result in the research.
Emotional labour
Hochschild (2003) identified emotional labour: “This labour requires one to induce or suppress feeling in order to sustain the outward countenance that produces the proper state of mind in others.” (p.7). Emotional labour can be identified as surface acting and deep acting. For service with a smile, surface acting means an employee smiles with inconsistent emotion; deep acting means an employee smiles with correlated emotion (Hochschild). Employees are believed to smile more authentically if the organization can encourage them to have more deep acting. Furthermore, emotional labour (EL) has a significant relationship with employee’s emotional intelligence (EI), which is the sense of perceived emotions (Mayer and Geher, 1996). Moreover, the higher EI employees have, the more sensitive to EL they are (Petrides and Furnham, 2003). A previous study showed that EL had an important impact on the development of job attitudes and behaviours among job satisfaction, and service performance (Lee and Hwang, 2016). Besides this, “job burnout” (Söderlund and Rosengren, 2010), “working environment” (Pugh, 2001) and “personality” (Andrzejewski and Mooney, 2016) are other elements that might influence smile authenticity but they will not be indicated in this research because of the limitation of the research such as time and resources.
Consumer satisfaction
Consumer satisfaction is composed of service quality, the focused factor in this research, and customer value (Cronin, Brady and Hult 2000; Kim, Park and Jeong 2004; Oh, 1999). The expectancy-disconfirmation theory (Oliver, 1981) pointed out that consumer satisfaction is influenced by their subjective comparisons with their expectations and feelings of the services. The comparison of consumer expectations and perceptions is called “subjective disconfirmation”. From the result of Oliver’s study, we know that the scale and direction of subjective disconfirmation affects the level of consumer satisfaction. Therefore, SERVPERF, a model developed on the foundation of SERVQUAL, is adopted in this research to indicate the impact of service with smile on hotel service quality.
Service quality
Service quality is the key strategy for improving the performance of service providers (Cronin and Taylor, 1992). However, it is difficult to identify and measure service quality because of its inherent feature (Cronin and Taylor, 1992; Jain and Gupta, 2004; Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry, 1985). Hence, SERVQUAL and SERVPERF are the two measurement scales that are widely adopted in the industry. SERVQUAL is a quality basis measurement scale (Jain and Gupta, 2004). 22 items are categorized and indicated in five dimensions: Tangibles, Reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance and Empathy (Oh, 1999). SERVPERF is a performance-only measurement scale based on the foundation of SERVQUAL. Cronin and Taylor showed that expectation of customer (E) measured in SERVQUAL may not be the significant variable affecting customer perception of service quality. Therefore, SERVPERF scale takes away (E) in the measurement and the equation of unweighted SERVQUAL scales (Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry, 1985) and unweighted SERVPERF scales (Cronin and Taylor, 1992) are shown as below:
SERVQUAL: 
SERVPERF: 
Notes.*SQ = the perceived service quality of respondent “r”
*k = the number of items
*P = the perception of respondent “r” with the performance of service “j”
*E = the expectation of respondent “r” with the performance of service “j”
In general, an unweighted SERVPERF scale is more efficient than an unweighted SERVQUAL scale because of the 50 percent reduction of the number of items that need to be indicated. Moreover, it is able to explain a greater variance of each item scale (Jain and Gupta, 2004).
Demographic information
Although McCarty and Shrum (1993) stated that human behaviour is too complex to explain the perception of customer satisfaction by their model, various other findings have studied the impact of an individual’s demographic background on their perception of service quality. For example, Ganesan, Russelland and Dagger (2008) found that among age, income and gender, only age has a significant relationship with customer perception of service quality. Pooja and Kumar (2016) found that age, gender and education level are associated with the level of an individual’s emotional intelligence and thus influences the customer perception of the authenticity of smile. Nevertheless, Williams et al. (2006) found a linear tendency in that young people have less sensitivity to happiness expressions than older people.
Research Design
A quasi-experimental design was used in the study to indicate the relationship between hotel service providers’ authentic smiles and guest satisfaction with the hotel industry in Macau. The study utilized a quantitative research method with right non-equivalent groups of respondents to generate considerable data to support the hypothesis of the present study.
Data Collection
Primary data were collected through questionnaires to the potential hotel guests in Macau by purposive sampling. According to Hair et al. (1998), the rule of thumb, supported by Wilson Van Voorhis and Morgan, (2007) is that 30 respondents are needed for each version of the questionnaire, which is 240 surveys in total to be done for all eight versions of the questionnaire in this research. The survey was done at the bus station near the Outer Harbour Ferry Terminal in Macau, which is one of the places in Macau where many tourists gather. Moreover, tourists are more likely to accept doing a survey while they are waiting for transportation. Therefore, it could enhance the rate of success of the survey. These surveys were conducted by a team of two students from the Institute for Tourism Studies (IFT) including the researcher of this study.
Question Design
A screening question (HE1) and a warm-up question (HE2) were set at the beginning of the questionnaire, part A, to identify whether the interviewee was a repeated hotel guest in Macau. Then part B of the questionnaire included eight types of smiles in pictures, which were taken from a professional hotel service provider, who had agreed and been well informed that her pictures were going to be exposed to public respondents, were shown to the respondents. In order to indicate if hotel service providers were able to present effective genuine smiles to hotel customers by surface acting (Hochschild, 2003), the professional hotel service provider, who had taken sample pictures of a smile, was presenting each smile slightly differently by receiving the instructions based on 3 factors of facial expression:
smile with/without the appearance changes of the muscles around the eye;
smile with/without showing teeth;
smile with/without head canting.
Table 1. Eight types of smiles by the combinations of 3 factors
| Factor “T” | Factor “H” | Factor “E” | Smile no. (code) |
| Smile without “T” | Smile without “H” | Smile with “E” | Smile 1 (Smile_E) |
| Smile without “E” | Smile 2 (Smile_None) | ||
| Smile with “H” | Smile with “E” | Smile 3 (Smile_EH) | |
| Smile without “E” | Smile 4 (Smile_H) | ||
| Smile with “T” | Smile without “H” | Smile with “E” | Smile 5 (Smile_ET) |
| Smile without “E” | Smile 6 (Smile_T) | ||
| Smile with “H” | Smile with “E” | Smile 7 (Smile_ETH) | |
| Smile without “E” | Smile 8 (Smile_TH) |
Notes. *E = smile with appearance changes of the muscles around the eye;
*T = smile with showing teeth;
*H = smile with head canting;
*None = smile with none of the factors above
Respondents were asked to indicate the authenticity of each smile as shown in Table 1. They were required to identify the most authentic smile (AS1) and the most preferred smile in the hotel industry (AS2) in order to indicate the relationship between the authenticity of a smile and how a smile was preferred in the hotel industry. Hence, respondents were asked to rate the service quality of the hotels in part C according to the provided smile (C1 to C8).
The questions of service quality were based on the model of unweighted SERVPERF scales (Cronin and Taylor, 1992), which has shown alpha to be above 0.7 in past studies, because it was more efficient and it performed better than SERVQUAL in terms of the variance of single-item scale (Jain and Gupta, 2004). The scales were modified to a more simple design in order to suit this research. Only Responsiveness: “Employees willing to help”; Assurance: “Employees are trustworthy”, “Customers feel safe in dealings”, “Employees are polite”, “Employees have support to do their job well”; Empathy: “Employees provide individualized attention”, “Employees understand customer needs” and “Employees have the best interests of the customer in mind” were used to indicate the impact of a smile on the service quality of hotels in Macau. By filtering the questions from SERVPERF, the research was able to focus on the factors that might be affected by service with a smile. Question C9 was asked to indicate the relationship between the overall result of the modified SERVPERF questions and the overall customer satisfaction with the hotel experience. Questions C10 to C12 were indicating the impact of smiles with different authenticity on the customer’s intention to return. Questions C11 and C12 assumed different physical conditions of a hotel, not good and good, and respondents were asked to adjudge whether they would like to return to the hotel with the provided service smile under these situations. Demographic information was asked at the end of the questionnaire (DE1 to DE4). The response format of the scales employed in the present study was a Five-point Likert-type scale ranging from (1) strongly disagree to (5).
Data Analysis
8 types of smile are tested by a paired-sample t-test to compare the average means of smiles with and without the three factors “E”, “T” and “H”. Meanwhile, descriptive and frequency statistics were used to find out the most authentic and preferable smile for respondents. Moreover, ANOVA Test was applied to indicate the impact of smile authenticity on a customer’s satisfaction and their intention to return. It is also used to find out the influence of respondent’s gender, age and education level on their perception of the authenticity of a smile.
Overview of the collected data
The surveys were done by 240 respondents over 18 years old, 90 (37.5%) were male and 150 (62.5%) were female. 83 (34.6%) respondents were aged 18 to 24 years old; 80 (33.3%) were 25 to 34 years old; 41 (17.1%) were 35 to 44 years old; 11 (4.6%) were 45 to 54 years old; 25 (10.1%) were 55 years old or above. Moreover, over 70% of the respondents were undergraduates. Furthermore, over 40% of the respondents came from Mainland China, over one quarter of them came from Hong Kong and the other quarters were local residents.
H1: How customers identify the authenticity of smile?
In order to find out whether the factors “E”, “T” and “H” had impact on the customer perception of authenticity of smile, a paired-sample t-test was applied. It showed a statistically significant difference between the average mean of the authenticity of smile with factor “E” (M = 3.76, SD = 0.68) and smile without factor “E” (M = 2.66, SD = 0.67), t (239) = 19.77, p < 0.001 (two-tailed). The mean increased 1.10 with a 95% confidence interval ranging from 0.99 to 1.21. Similar to the result of factor “E”, the authenticity of smile with factor “T” (M = 3.38, SD = 0.64) is significantly higher than the smile without factor “T” (M = 3.05, SD = 0.59), t (239) = 7.79, p < 0.001 (two-tailed). The mean increased 0.33 with a 95% confidence interval ranging from 0.25 to 0.41. In contrast, the average mean of the authenticity of smile with factor “H” (M = 2.89, SD = 0.72) is significantly lower than the smile without factor “H” (M = 3.53, SD = 0.53), t (239) = -13.49, p <0.001 (two-tailed). The mean was decreased 0.64 with a 95% confidence interval ranging from -0.73 to -0.54.
H2: Does the most authentic smile equal the most preferred smile of hotel guests?
Present finding showed the smile with factors “ET” had the highest average mean of 4.29 (SD = 0.78) amount eight types of smile. The smile with only “H” had the lowest average mean of 2.10 (SD = 0.89). Average mean of 3.88, 3.50, 3.38, 3.13 and 2.82 represented smiles with factors “E”, “ETH”, “EH”, “T” and “None” from high to low respectively. Furthermore, smile with factor “ET” was the most authentic and preferable smile voted for by 102 (42.5%) respondents. The statistical number of Smile_ET was distinctly higher than the second most voted smile, Smile_ETH, which had been estimated by 47 (19.6%) voting for “the most authentic smile” and 41 (17.1%) voting for “the most preferred smile”. On the contrary, Smile_TH had 1 (0.4%) supporters in “the most authentic smile” and Smile_H had 2 (0.8%) supporters in “the most preferred smile”, those were the smiles with the least supporters in this research.
H3: Does the authenticity of a smile affect the satisfaction of hotel customers?
The result of a one way ANOVA showed that smile with “E” (n = 120, M = 3.88, SD = 0.58) and smile without “E” (n = 120, M = 3.34, SD = 0.79) were statistically significant, F (1, 238) = 36.02, p < 0.001. Moreover, the impact of smile with “T” (n = 120, M = 3.78, SD = 0.69) and smile without “T” (n = 120, M = 3.44, SD = 0.76) on customer satisfaction were also significantly different, F (1, 238) = 12.72, p < 0.001. However, smiles with factor “H” did not shown significant influence on enhancing customer satisfaction, p = 0.055.
H4: If authentic smiles can enhance the satisfaction of hotel customers, can it lead to higher customer intention to return?
For general customer intention to return, the result of a One Way ANOVA showed an improvement on smiles with “E” (M = 4.26, SD = 0.75) compared to smiles without “E” (M = 3.26, SD = 1.104), F (1, 238) = 67.36, p < 0.001. Another improvement was found in the smiles with “T” (M = 3.78, SD = 0.69) compared to smiles without “T” (M = 3.44, SD = 0.76), smiles with “T” (M = 3.78, SD = 0.69), F (1, 238) = 12.72, p < 0.001. However, only the factor “H”, either smiles with or without this factor, there was no significant effect on customer intention to return, F(1, 238) = 3.73, p = 0.055. For the situation where a hotel had an acceptable physical condition, compared to smiles without “E” (M = 3.89, SD = 1.06) and smiles without “T” (M = 4.01, SD = 1.02), both smiles with “E” (M = 4.47, SD = 0.67), F (1, 238) = 25.91, p < 0.001, and smiles with “T” (M = 4.36, SD = 0.81), F (1, 238) = 8.72, p = 0.003, had significant improvement on customer intention to return. However, compared to smiles without factor “H” (M = 4.32, SD = 0.85), smiles with “H” (M = 4.05, SD = 0.10), F (1, 238) = 4.99, p = 0.026, had a significant decline in customer intention to return. For the situation where a hotel had an unacceptable physical condition, only the smiles with factor “E” (M = 2.79, SD = 1.11) made significant improvements on customer intention to return compared to smiles without “E” (M = 2.48, SD = 1.10), F (1,238) = 4.91, p = 0.028. Smiles with or without factor “T”, F (1,238) = 2.64, p = 0.106, and “H”, F (1,238) = 3.036, p = 0.083, did not make a significant difference on it.
Does demographic background affect the hotel customer perception of the authenticity of a smile?
By applying the ANOVA test, we found that age made a significant difference between the group of smiles without “E” (M = 2.66, SD = 0.67), F(4, 235) = 4.027, p = 0.004, the group of smiles without “T” (M = 3.05, SD = 0.59), F(4, 235) = 2.65, p = 0.034, the group of smiles with “H” (M = 2.89, SD = 0.72), F(4, 235) = 2.63, p = 0.035. Tukey’s HSD tests showed that age group “18-24” (M = 2.81, SD = 0.69) had a significantly higher average mean than age group “25-34” (M = 2.53, SD = 0.61) and “35-44” (M = 2.47, SD = 0.68) in the perception of authenticity of smiles without factor “E” respectively. However, there was no significant difference found in the result of age group. Moreover, the present result found that females (M = 3.44, SD = 0.63) had significantly higher average mean than the males (M = 3.27, SD = 0.64) in the perception of authenticity of smiles with factor “T”, F (1, 238) = 4.009, p = 0.046. Furthermore, both ANOVA test and Tukey’s HSD test showed no significant difference between any education levels on the perception of the authenticity of a smile.
Introduction of the chapter
This chapter aims to discuss whether the statistical finding supports hypotheses 1 to 5. In general, it is going to discuss how factors “E”, “T” and “H” influence the customer perception of the authenticity of smiles, thus, the impact of authenticity of smiles on a customer’s satisfaction and their intention to return. Nevertheless, the relationship between customer perception of authenticity of smiles and their demographic background in terms of age, gender and education level will be discussed as well. To summarize the present findings, hypothesis 1.1, 1.2 and 2 are valid; hypothesis 3 and 4.1 are partly valid as only factor “E” and “T” showed significant positive results but factor “H” showed no significant results on it; hypothesis 1.3, 4.2, 5.1, 5.2 and 5.3 are void.
The relationship between authenticity of smile and hotel customer satisfaction
A smile is known as one of the most important emotional expressions in human social interaction for presenting various positive characters such as happiness, enjoyment (Ekman, Davidson and Friesen, 1990; Ekman, 1992; Maringer et al. (2011), attractiveness, generosity, care and support (Lemay, Clark and Greenberg, 2010). Hence, it is able to make a person more likeable and approachable by providing a positive impression to others (Lau, 1982; Lemay, Clark and Greenberg). The present findings support the idea that smiles with factor “E” (the smiles with the appearance changes by orbicularis oculi muscle, the muscle around the eyes and control the facial expression around eye), factor “T” (the smiles with showing teeth), and factor “H” (the smiles with head turning sideways) are able to influence customer perception of the authenticity of the smile. It is important to note that the authenticity of a smile is a significant factor for humans to sense and judge the level of those positive emotions (Maringer et al.). Interestingly, the effect of service with a smile is able to be improved by mimicry of authentic smiles (Kim and Yoon, 2012). Furthermore, the effect of presenting an authentic smile is possibly enhanced by the halo effect (Nisbett and Wilson, 1977; Thorndike, 1920), which is a cognitive bias in psychology where an individual tends to use global evaluation to judge another individual’s general image by their specific attractive signature. In other words, by training (Thibault, Levesque, Gosselin and Hess, 2012) and displaying the most or more authentic and preferable smile to customers, it is believed to improve the effectiveness of delighting customers in a service encounter and thus enhancing the satisfaction of hotel customers.
Although it is arguable that the perception of authenticity of a smile and the impact of the halo effect might be influenced by a customer’s personality and their typical concept based on their past experience with smiles, this research showed that, in general, the smiles with factor “E” and “T” possibly emphasize the positive impressions of service providers, and then enhance customer satisfaction. For factor “E”, it coincided with the theory of the Duchenne smile. Moreover, a smile displaying teeth is able to enhance the facial attractiveness and self-confidence of the smile presenter (Van der Geld, Oosterveld, van Heck and Kuijpers-Jagtman 2007). However, the result of head canting contradicted the results of Costa and Bitti,(2000) which is an individual with left or right head canting has more positive impact on both attractiveness and trustworthiness than without head canting. This contradiction could be explained by the finding of Otta et al. (1994). As the sample smiles were presented by a female hotel professional, the reliability of the smiles with “E” is possibly decreased by the gender of the smile presenter. As a result, less authenticity of the smile is felt by the customer.
Relationship between authenticity of smile and customer intention to return
The present finding is shown as expected that, compared to smiles without factors “E” and “T”, smiles with those two factors have a significant improvement on the customer’s intention to return in general and when the physical condition of hotel is acceptable. However, smiles with factor “H”, as a negative factor for customer perception on the authenticity of a smile, significantly lower the customer return intention in general and even in the hotel with an acceptable physical condition. However interestingly, smiles with factor “E”, more precisely the smile with factor “ET”, made a significant difference to customer intention to return when the physical condition of hotel is not acceptable. It is another contradiction to some of the past studies (Grandey et al., 2005; Söderlund and Rosengren, 2010). Although the present result is not likely to explain the reason for the improvement of customer return intention by the smile with factor “ET”, it could be reasonably demonstrated by other research. Robinson and Clore (2002) have mentioned an Accessibility Model of Emotion Self-report that studying people’s judgement on whether a smile is presented by genuine emotion. They found that people are more likely to judge the emotion by their conceptual imagination if they are not able to apply their past experience on the judgement. Therefore, a smile with factor “ET” is possibly the most successful expression of a smile to match with the most authentic and preferable smile according to customer experience or the best smile they have imagined by using their conceptual knowledge. Hence, a smile with factor “ET” is good enough to break the barrier and become the most influential smile.
Relationship between demographic background of customers and their perception of the authenticity of a smile
For age, significance differences exist in all three comparatively less authentic smile groups especially in the group of smiles without factor “E”. The age group 18-24 has a significantly higher average mean than age groups 25-34 and 35-44. Although a past study (Williams et al., 2006) had related results to support the present finding, the result of this study is only able to present the types of smile that may or may not be influenced by age. It is relatively difficult to explain the tendency of perception on authenticity by age in this research due to the uneven and relatively small size of age group 45-54 and age group above 54 years old. This issue needs to be examined in future studies with enough well allocated data collection. Furthermore, for gender, by considering the case of a smile with factor “T”, Krys et al. (2014) found that women are more sensitive to an individual’s smile and feel it is more honest than men do. However, a previous study by Krys et al. (2013) has stated the opposite finding, which is that gender does not have a significant difference on the perception of a smile. It seems arguable but Krys et al. also explain that the gender difference in perception of smiles may not only be influenced by women’s general positive attitude to smiling faces, but also due to communal traits. In the significant case of present results, female respondents seem to be more sensitive to the smiles with teeth displayed. Although it only results in a relatively weak significant (p = 0.046), it can be recognized as a factor that significantly attracts female customers more than male customers. Lastly, Kohler et al. (2009) have mentioned that education levels did not have a significant impact on the perception of emotional expression. It concurs with the present result, as education level represented the recognized degree of academic knowledge, which is not a direct factor for identifying the meaning of emotional expression. Social cognition and experience are believed to be the key factors to distinguish the implication of emotional expression.
Discussion on future research
Customer perspective is used in this research to study the effect of authenticity of the smile on their satisfaction of hotel quality. Therefore, future research may aim to study the impact of emotional intelligence and the personality of a smile presenter on the presentation of an authentic smile. As a result, it is able to complete the study about the authenticity of smiles on the enhancement of hotel customer satisfaction from the perspective of the service providers.
Recommendations for hotel service trainers
It is suggested that hotel service providers should be trained to present the smile type 5 (Smile_ET) to customers. It is the smile presenting the most authentic perception to customers which is also the most preferred smile for customers. Smile 5 can be a kind of surface acting presentation which means it does not require employees to have consistent facial expression and emotion. In general, it is the smile that employees can learn and present to customers in order to enhance customer satisfaction most significantly even if employees are suffering from negative emotional issues, which may be due to the effect of job burnout, employee personality or an unsatisfying working environment.
Limitation of the research
First of all, authenticity of smiles is a comparatively subjective topic to study. Hence, a number of factors that were not indicated in this research may also affect the final result. For example, the model chosen to present an authentic smile and shown to respondents may affect the result in terms of gender, appearance, age and the model’s own emotional intelligence, these factors may affect the ability of the model to present the level of authenticity of the smile. Moreover, the perception of respondents on the authenticity of a smile may be influenced by their own personality. Moreover, the modified satisfaction model was not proven by authoritative studies. Although it is modified according to the SERVPERF model, the overall effect of the modified model, compared to the original SERVPERF model, cannot be guaranteed. Furthermore, the scope of the research survey is limited in terms of time, budget and human resources. As mentioned, the personality of the smile presenter and customers are critical to the results of the research, and it is too complex to indicate in the simple model of research with limited time. Moreover, the scope of the collected data is not equally distributed in terms of demographic information. It is difficult for a street intercept survey to collect an equally distributed amount of data in terms of demographic information. For example, tourists from mainland China are more difficult to approach for survey purposes.
Serving with an authentic smile is commonly applied by the hotel industry. However it is always arguable what kind of smile is authentic, more importantly, what kind of smile is the most preferred by hotel customers? This study has indicated a significant relationship between the authenticity of a smile and the most preferred smile in the Macau hotel industry. Moreover, eight smiles with a combination of three factors are set to test the customer perception of authenticity of smiles. The most authentic smile and the less authentic smile stand out from those eight types of smile. The most authentic smile is the smile with appearance changes of the muscles around the eye (E) and showing teeth (T) but without head canting (H); the less authentic smile is the smile only with factor “H”. Moreover, the three factors indicated their significant impact on the customer perception of the authenticity of smiles. Furthermore, smiles with factors “ET” are tested to be authentic and able to significantly benefit hotel customer satisfaction. Non-authentic smiles are well-identified by respondents and decrease hotel customer satisfaction. Furthermore, the customers return intention varies with the authenticity of the smile, the most authentic smile can even improve a customer’s intention to return significantly in a hotel with an unacceptable physical condition. In other words, a well-trained hotel service provider with an authentic smile carrying factor “ET” is able to enhance the general customer satisfaction and their intention to return. Last but not least, customer age and gender might influence the effect of service with a smile. However, if hotel service providers are able to serve with the most authentic smile in a service encounter, it is believed to significantly improve customer satisfaction in general compared to other types of smile.
Allison, T., Puce, A. and McCarthy, G. (2000). Social perception from visual cues: role of the STS region. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4(7), pp.267-278.
Andrzejewski, S. and Mooney, E. (2016). Service with a smile: Does the type of smile matter?. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 29, pp.135-141.
Barger, P. and Grandey, A. (2006). Service with q Smile and Encounter Satisfaction: Emotional Contagion and Appraisal Mechanisms. Academy of Management Journal, 49(6), pp.1229-1238.
European Psychologist