Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management

📣 Expressions of Interest Now Open: Associate Editor – Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management (JHTM)
The CAUTHE Executive Committee invites applications for two Associate Editor positions with its official journal, the Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management (JHTM).
With more than 30 years of history, JHTM continues to grow and has recently achieved a major milestone, earning an A* rating on the 2025 ABDC Journal Quality List. This recognition highlights its standing as a leading international journal in tourism, hospitality, and events research.
As submissions continue to rise, CAUTHE is seeking experienced and qualified scholars to join the editorial team. Applicants who can contribute diverse geographical perspectives and/or disciplinary expertise are especially encouraged to apply.
🗓 Term: 2 years
🚀 Start: As soon as possible
👥 Support: Editor-in-Chief Professor Marianna Sigala, Associate Editors, and an international editorial board
📌 Deadline: 17:00 AEDT, 31 May 2026
🔗 Apply here: https://cauthe.org/expressions-of-interest-associate.../
Please share with colleagues who may be interested.

⚠️ New JHTM paper just out!
“Why does tourist risk perception differ from actual risk? A social construction theory perspective”
📝 Wan-Qing Lv, Ju-Cheng Zhang, Wei Wang & Ming-Hsiang Chen

This study examines why tourists’ risk perception often diverges from objective conditions, arguing that risk perception is socially constructed rather than purely rational.

🧠 Drawing on social construction theory and the Social Amplification of Risk Framework (SARF), and based on 47 in-depth interviews with Chinese tourists in Thailand, the study develops a two-way construction and feedback loop model.

🔍 Risk perception is conceptualised as a cyclical four-stage process:
• Media
• Institutionalization
• Internalization
• Externalization

Unlike unidirectional amplification accounts, the findings show that tourists’ interpretations feed back into societal discourse through communication and behavior, shaping subsequent narratives and perceptions.

📌 The study extends SARF by theorising risk perception as recursive meaning construction and offers insights for destination risk governance and crisis communication.

🔗 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhtm.2026.101405

🌄 New JHTM paper just out!
“From stress to strength and fulfilment: Lasting impacts of peak experiences on professional tour leaders”
📝 Tatiana Iretskaia, Daniel McCole & Elizabeth Perry

This study explores how peak experiences shape the professional lives of tour leaders.

🔍 Experienced tour leaders identified three defining peak experiences:
• Managing high-stress situations
• Forming deep connections with others
• Moments of nature-induced awe

These experiences were associated with lasting impacts, including growth in confidence, fulfilment, and professional identity.

📌 The study highlights how transformative moments in tour leading contribute to resilience and long-term professional meaning.

🔗 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhtm.2026.101406

🏛️ Fresh JHTM research just published!
“Interdependent struggles of cultural heritage generativity”
📝 Zhe Chen, Lianping Ren, Cora Un In Wong, Tianqi Yu, Chris Ryan & Xiaoyu Zhang

Cultural heritage sites sustain traditions and intergenerational knowledge, yet residents often face struggles in cultural inheritance and generativity. This study explores these interdependent struggles in the cultural heritage site of Lin’an, China.

🎙️ Drawing on 27 semi-structured interviews and qualitative content analysis, the research identifies three generative levels in cultural transmission:

• Familial level: parents’ transmission of values and knowledge, and reciprocal feedback from younger generations
• Societal level: reliance on government-led preservation, often overshadowing active citizen engagement
• Digital level: tensions in virtual-physical integration and expectation-practice alignment

📌 The findings advance culture-sensitive understandings of heritage generativity and offer practical implications for sustaining intergenerational cultural transmission.

🔗 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhtm.2025.101384

🍽️ New JHTM paper just out!
“Gastro-nostalgia and cultural familiarity shaping tourists’ perceptions of food attributes and future behaviors in culinary tourism”
📝 Ishani Sharma, Weng Marc Lim & Arun Aggarwal

Travel food is not just about taste, it can evoke powerful memories. This study shows that authentic and well-presented local cuisine generates gastro-nostalgia, shaping tourists’ perceptions and influencing future behaviours.

🔍 The findings indicate that:
• Authenticity and presentation of local food trigger emotional memories
• These memories strengthen revisit intention and recommendation intention
• Emotional food experiences deepen cultural connection and foster loyalty in culinary tourism

📌 The study highlights how food experiences can influence future behaviours in tourism through nostalgia and cultural familiarity.

🔗 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhtm.2026.101412

🚨 New JHTM paper just released!
“Tourist safety management: The role of risk reminders in highly aggregated environments”
📝 Xingqin Qu, Jie Yin & Yensen Ni

This study examines how risk reminders influence tourists' safety behavior intention in increasingly crowded destinations.

🔬 Grounded in the knowledge-attitude-practice (KAP) framework and supported by five experiments, the study compares loss-oriented and benefit-oriented safety messages.

🔍 The findings identify:
• The mediating roles of perceived noncompliance cost and cognitive empathy
• The moderating influence of tourism activity type

📌 The study advances research on crowd safety by clarifying the psychological mechanisms behind risk-related decisions and provides evidence-based insights for designing safety communication strategies in high-density tourism environments.

🔗 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhtm.2026.101410

👁️👂 New JHTM paper just out!
“Inspiring differentiated imaginative process in tourists: Sensory experiences and advertising language congruency effect”
📝 Lujun Su, Yong Yang & Xuehuan He

This study examines how sensory experiences (proximal vs. distal) and advertising language (concrete vs. abstract) interact to influence the effectiveness of online tourism advertising.

🧠 Drawing on construal level theory and mental simulation theory, the research includes a pilot study, three online experiments, and a field experiment measuring actual liking behavior.

🔍 The findings show that advertising effectiveness depends on the match between sensory experiences and advertising language:
• Proximal sensory experiences + concrete language elicit the vividness of mental simulation
• Distal sensory experiences + abstract language elicit metaphor of mental simulation
• Both enhance the persuasive effect of tourism advertising

📌 The study contributes to tourism sensory marketing by clarifying when and how to apply different sensory and language strategies.

🔗 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhtm.2025.101383

New JHTM paper just out!
“Evaluating pride applicants: The moderating role of s*x and perceived similarity on hiring managers’ evaluations of gender-nonconforming applicants”
📝 Dongwon Yun, Renata F. Guzzo & Cass Shum

Drawing on similarity-attraction theory, this study examines how and when gender-nonconforming displays influence hospitality hiring managers’ evaluations of job applicants.

🔬 Across three between-subject experiments involving front-of-the-house and back-of-the-house positions, the findings demonstrate a consistent three-way interactive moderated mediation effect.

🔍 Results show that:
• Gender-nonconforming displays increase likability
• The effect is especially strong among similar female and non-similar male applicants
• Hiring managers make more favourable evaluations (in suitability and recommendations) when they like the applicants

📌 This study extends similarity-attraction theory and provides practical implications for selection practices in the hospitality industry.

🔗 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhtm.2025.101378

♻️ New JHTM paper just out!
“Diffusing sustainable consumption: A qualitative study on reusable container adoption in foodservice”
📝 Seonwoo Ko & Eojina Kim

Guided by the diffusion of innovation theory, this study examines the adoption of reusable containers in everyday hospitality and foodservice contexts.

🗣️ Using focus group interviews with users and in-depth interviews with non-users, the authors combined traditional qualitative analysis with ChatGPT verification. Human-coded analysis was primary, while AI-coded analysis supported triangulation rather than replacing human interpretation.

🔍 Qualitative analysis identified factors influencing adoption, including:
• Innovation attributes
• The social system
• The efforts of agents
• Consumers’ decision-making processes

📌 The study advances research on sustainable consumption and green innovation, offering practical insights for hospitality managers seeking to reduce plastic waste and promote environmentally responsible service delivery.

🔗 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhtm.2026.101413

🌳 New JHTM paper just out!
“Pepping parks with distinct personality to explore visitor satisfaction”
📝 Vanessa Quintal, Billy Sung, Chien Van Duong & Matthew Tingchi Liu

This study examines park personality and its moderating effects on the predictors of visitor satisfaction.

📊 A self-administered survey across the USA, Australia and China (N = 660) was conducted. Best-Worst Scaling identified the best and worst park personality attributes to determine the most distinct and non-distinct samples (N = 398).

🔍 Grounded in the expectancy-disconfirmation paradigm and the European customer satisfaction index, the findings show that:
• The hypotheses and majority of research propositions were supported
• Park image is formed prior to park personality

📌 Managerially, the study highlights the need to delineate park personality from park image in order to elicit emotional connections with visitors.

🔗 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhtm.2026.101416