MU Faculty members win Emerald Literati Award for research into Airbnb tourist loyalty

Dr Christian Weismayer and Dr Lidija Lalicic have been named among the winners of this year's Literati Emerald Award for their article 'A model of tourists’ loyalty: the case of Airbnb'. The research, published in the Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology, was selected by the award's editorial team as an "Outstanding Paper in the 2019 Emerald Literati Awards". The article was highlighted as "one of the most exceptional pieces of work the team has seen".

The study, which was a collaboration between the Department of Sustainability, Governance and Methods, and the Department of Tourism and Service Management at MU Vienna, aimed to investigate Airbnb as a service setting. The article looked to provide more insights into the relevance of concepts such as service quality and hospitality factors to explain consumers' behavioral intentions with peer-to-peer accommodations and its effect on tourist loyalty.

The authors say the study has particular implications for the accommodation sector when segmenting customers according to their needs and designing appropriate marketing strategies.

The criteria used to judge the awards were based on six areas: internationality; diversity; support for scholarly research; encouragement of applied research; commitment to high quality scholarship; and a desire to ensure reader, author and customer experience is the best it can be.

The award-winning article has been made freely available for one year.

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Related study programs at MU Vienna:

BBA in Tourism and Hospitality Management

MSc in Sustainable Development, Management and Policy

MBA with a Specialization in Innovation and Experience Design for Tourism