International Journal of Hospitality Management 65 (2017) 110

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

International Journal of Hospitality Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhosman

Discussion paper

The power of design: How does design affect consumers online hotel
booking?
Jooa Baek a, , Chihyung Michael Ok b,1
a
Fox School of Business, School of Sport, Tourism and Hospitality Management, Temple University, 1810 N. 13th Street, Speakman Hall 360, Philadelphia,
PA 19122, USA
b
School of Sport, Tourism and Hospitality Management, Temple University, 1810 N. 13th Street, Speakman Hall 305, Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Emphasizing experiential appeals to consumers through design is most notable in the emerging lifestyle
Received 27 January 2017 hotel segment of the lodging industry. This study identifies which lodging design mechanisms evoke con-
Received in revised form 9 April 2017 sumer responses and provides a novel understanding of the relationships among consumer perception
Accepted 5 May 2017
of hotel product/service design and booking intention by incorporating consumer emotional arousal and
quality expectations in a theoretical model. The findings of this study suggest that aesthetics and sym-
Keywords:
bolism in hotel design shape booking intention through emotional arousal and quality expectation. The
Hotel design
functional dimension of design affects booking intention only through quality expectation. The findings
Emotional arousal
Quality expectation
will be particularly meaningful to the lodging industry because online booking requires both emotional
Booking intention and cognitive responses on the part of consumers.
Lifestyle hotel 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction More recently, with rapid technological advances, consumers visit

A buyers first impression of a product is its design, which
affects the purchase decision if that impression is strong enough
(Bloch, 1995). Consumers also evaluate design during consumption
through both direct and indirect interactions (Mishra et al., 2015).
Service is, of course, characterized differently from physical goods
because of its distinctive characteristics. Intangibility, the most
distinctive characteristic of services, means that consumers can-
not feel, touch, or taste before purchasing and consuming services
(Levitt, 1981). Therefore, consumers rely more on other cues to
evaluate quality before purchasing service or at the moment of pur-
chase (Brandy et al., 2005). To deliver customers delightful service
in a competitive and hedonic consumption market, the design of the
physical facility has become an essential part of sustaining a com-
petitive advantage (Hightower et al., 2002). Physical environment
is critical to generating excitement (Wakefield and Blodgett, 1999)
and evaluating the quality of intangible services with subsequent
attitudinal and behavioral outcomes (Bitner, 1992; Parasuraman
et al., 1995). Such characteristics are directly applicable to the
hospitality industry. Hospitality service organizations must pro-
vide tangible evidence of service components to their consumers.
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 785 317 6133.
E-mail addresses: jooa.baek@temple.edu (J. Baek), cok@temple.edu
(C. Michael Ok).
1
Tel.: +1 215 204 0361.
company websites to collect information, relying on the physical
evidence on the website as a surrogate for quality before making
a purchase online. Therefore, understanding how consumers per-
ceive design has become even more important, particularly because
consumers evaluate and purchase lodging services long before they
actually experience the lodging first hand and consume the service.
In striving for a competitive advantage in the market, hospital-
ity service organizations have tried to create the best impression
of their service offerings by carefully designing the physical envi-
ronment of their property (Countryman and Jang, 2006; Lin, 2004).
Very recently, hospitality entities have begun to make their service
offerings more tangible to consumers. Within this emerging trend,
experiential appeals to consumers are emphasized through design,
particularly for lifestyle hotels. Major hotel chains have started
their own versions of lifestyle hotels that emphasize unique style
rather than commoditized product/service offerings (e.g., Ernst and
Young, 2015; Jones et al., 2013). They focus on services, styles,
and images. By emphasizing style and other design elements of
the interior and exterior of properties, particularly lighting, decor,
furniture, artwork, and landscape, lifestyle hotels attract guests
and present their services (Kim and Perdue, 2013). As consumers
pay more attention to new experiences and favor contemporary
design (Cachon and Swinney, 2011; Crilly et al., 2004), new hotel
segments like lifestyle hotels have become especially interested in
how hotel design features influence consumer responses and their
decisions. Although consumer behavior and decision-making in
purchasing hospitality services online have been investigated over

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2017.05.001
0278-4319/ 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
2 J. Baek, C. Michael Ok / International Journal of Hospitality Management 65 (2017) 110
the past decade, understanding how consumers perceive physi-
cal design and how that affects decision-making remains limited.
Consequently, examining the relationships between conscious and
subconscious evaluation of physical design and decision making is
necessary.
Hospitality service firms can manipulate the servicescape
to communicate their unique style to their consumers, and
understanding how consumers interpret and respond could help
determine the effectiveness of the marketing (Aubert-Gamet, 1997;
Rosenbaum and Massiah, 2011). Therefore, we must better under-
stand how the physical design of lifestyle hotels communicates
intangibles to consumers. The purpose of this study is to further
explicate the connections between how consumers perceive the
design of a hotels physical environment and consumer booking
intentions. By incorporating consumer emotional arousal and qual-
ity expectations in a theoretical model, we present meaningful
discussions that help understand consumers online hotel booking
intention.
2. Review of literature
2.1. Product design and its conceptualization
Product design is a holistic summation of all different activities
in the production process and a primary reason for consumers to
purchase and use the product (Mishra et al., 2015). Product design
is a powerful strategic device for developing brands (Brunner et al.,
2008) as well as positioning them (Best, 2008). As a source of the ini-
tial impression of a product or inferences about product attributes,
design provides valuable information to help consumers determine
an initial reaction to the product (Bloch, 1995). Although design
in modern research has no single definition, the literature views
design as a mixture of appearance and function.
Because service offerings have no form (appearance), design
becomes a pervasive component of marketing mix. The design of
tangibles and physical environment is an important cue differ-
entiating a product or service from its competitors (Black et al.,
2014). In lodging, the mix of tangibles and intangibles are presented
for consumption. According to the touch management perspec-
tive of service companies, hotel businesses require considerable
investment in space/architecture and product design because of
the hedonic motivation of the guest: it is all about good feeling and
comfort (Lee et al., 2013). Particularly, design-led hotels differ in
look and feel from traditional lodging properties, which changes
the dynamics of attracting guests. For these reasons, hotel compa-
nies strive to provide the best service environments and emphasize
the design elements of their properties.
2.2. Dimensions of design perception
A review of the literature reveals that researchers have focused
on product design and its effect on consumer responses. Luchs and
Swan (2011), however, claimed that the study of product design
suffers from a lack of research on anything not associated with
the form and function paradigm. While form and function are
important, a more integrated understanding is necessary because
consumers interact with a product or service comprehensively, not
just its form nor its function. Function, while necessary, is not suf-
ficient. Bloch (1995) emphasized a systematic approach to product
design, proposing a model of consumer responses that included
psychological and behavioral elements. Later, a holistic approach
to design has emerged as a mix of functionality, look and feel, and
end-user needs (Venkatesh and Meamber, 2006). More recently,
three design dimensions, including aesthetics, functionality, and
symbolism, have been widely applied (e.g., Homburg et al., 2015;
Noble and Kumar, 2008).
Aesthetic characteristics of a design refer to the visually appeal-
ing, as well as pleasing all human senses (Bloch, 1995). It has been
defined as a part of the attributes of a product, eye-catching, or
combination of both: a product is eye-catching, which leads to the
beholder seeing beauty (Homburg et al., 2015; Reber et al., 2004).
The functionality of design is related to the way the design commu-
nicates and conveys information to consumers (Nussbaum, 2005).
It involves the utilitarian elements of a product and how well it
achieves adequate practical performance (Bloch, 1995, 2011). The
symbolic dimension centers on the meaning of a product, convey-
ing to a consumer a self-image through the design elements (Aaker,
1999; Bloch, 2011; Homburg et al., 2015). These three dimensions
are related to each other but, at the same time, are profoundly
different: each has its own unique features. This study adopts
Homburg et al.s (2015) definition of design, a multi-dimensional
perception of aesthetics, functionality, and symbolism of a product.
To take the first step in linking design perceptions to emotional
and cognitive appraisals and empirically test these connections
in the lodging context, we focused on three distinct dimensions
of design perceptions (aesthetics, functional, and symbolism) of
hotel service products (physical attributes and environment) and
the connections to relevant appraisals (i.e., emotional arousal and
quality expectation).
2.3. Effects of design perception on affective and cognitive
appraisals
Design influences the consumer decision-making process
because it can generate favorable intuitive and emotional reac-
tions (Norman, 2004). The initial evaluation of product design is
often subconscious occurring within milliseconds (Firzsimous et al.,
2002; Frijda, 2006) to appraise the pleasantness of the product
itself. Design affects the emotions, creating arousal at different lev-
els, both low and high, which results in behavioral outcomes like the
amount of time and money spent, the number of items purchased,
and loyalty (cf. Mummalaneni, 2005). Therefore, much research on
design has focused on creating favorable emotional responses and
preferences for specific products.
Cognitive appraisal is the process through which individuals
evaluate and interpret ambiguous situations where they have little
evidence, no physical stimulation, or no obvious clues (Schachter
and Singer, 1962; Schachter, 1964). Understanding this process
can show why people appraise situations differently and respond
differently even to the same product (Allen et al., 1992). A consider-
able amount of research examined how consumers react to visual
cue(s) or information and how they use them in making a decision
(e.g., Bagozzi et al., 2000; Sherman and Smith, 1987). The image
stimuli associated with stores on websites, for instance, influ-
ence consumer emotional states, inspiring admiration, amusement,
boredom, desire, disgust, disappointment, fascination, inspiration,
and (un)pleasant surprise (Desmet, 2002); in turn, these emotional
states affect consumer quality expectations (Oh et al., 2008). Cus-
tomers often rely on surrogate barometers of quality to evaluate
a service and make purchasing decisions (Bloom and Reve, 1990).
Signaling theory suggests that physical surroundings or atmo-
spherics act as cues of quality in the service context (Bitner, 1990;
Ward et al., 1992). That is, the design elements of the physi-
cal surroundings where services are delivered activate cognitive
appraisal. Further, according to the perspective of environmen-
tal psychology from the stimulusorganism response (SOR)
paradigm, atmosphere (S) causes an evaluation (O) and behav-
ior responses (R) (Mehrabian and Russell, 1974). Aesthetics
of tangibles are likely to generate emotional responses and
invoke particular images and expectations of service organizations
 J. Baek, C. Michael Ok / International Journal of Hospitality Management 65 (2017) 110
(Hwang and Ok, 2013; Liu and Jang, 2009) to bring about behav-
ioral reactions (Browne et al., 2004; Hall and Hanna, 2004). In fact,
studies have noted aesthetics have a positive effect on consumer
emotions, including delight (Chitturi et al., 2007). Aesthetics influ-
ence not only consumer desire but also the decision to buy a product
(Reimann et al., 2010). Even in a virtual environment like a web-
site, the design of the physical facilities of retail stores can make
consumers approach (come in) or avoid (go away) through a vari-
ety of emotional states (Clark et al., 2009). Therefore, for hotels,
the aesthetic perception of design as an atmospheric cue induces
the intention to book a reservation. Based on this review of the
literature, the following hypotheses are proposed:
H1a. Aesthetic design is positively related to emotional arousal.
H2a. Aesthetic design is positively related to quality expectation.
H3a. Aesthetic design is positively related to booking intention.
Providing compelling experiences to customers through design
is one way to introduce a new product to the market. Consumers
use functional attributes to justify their product judgment and
choices (Shafir et al., 1993). Design is a part of product appear-
ance and can generate inferences about its functionality (Berkowitz,
1987). With insufficient information, consumers estimate the level
of quality of the product based on its design and appearance when
they buy or plan to buy (Dawar and Parker, 1994). Generally, for
some goods like cosmetics, cars, and home appliances, functional-
ity can be perceived only through consumption or use. Consumers
can also evaluate the functionality of a product by simply seeing it
(Hoegg and Alba, 2011; Radford and Bloch, 2011). Therefore, this
functionality perception through observation is important in online
shopping (Spears and Yazdanparast, 2014).
Services consist predominantly of experience characteristics, so
consumers find it more difficult to assess service quality before pur-
chase (Siehl et al., 1992; Zeithaml, 1981). Therefore, consumers rely
more on external cues, especially appearance, when making infer-
ences about services offered by service organizations (Dawar and
Parker, 1994; Ward et al., 1992). Because of this difficulty in evalu-
ation, customers use functional information as a signal expressing
the quality of service or overall quality before purchase (Murray,
1991). Functionality perception of the physical environment where
the service is delivered and consumed is thus a meaningful predic-
tor of consumer behavior (Chitturi, 2009).
Perceptions of tangible cues like physical setting and atmo-
sphere are effective signals of quality and can be the means of
persuading consumers to react with approach behaviors (Parish
et al., 2008; Ha and Jang, 2012). That is, consumers rely heavily
on tangible elements of service as a proxy for the many intangi-
ble elements of service, especially its quality (Black et al., 2014),
which thus helps consumers increase their likelihood of purchas-
ing (Hoegg and Alba, 2011). From this, we developed the following
hypotheses:
H1b. Functional design is positively related to emotional arousal.
H2b. Functional design is positively related to quality expectation.
H3b. Functional design is positively related to booking intention.
In symbolic consumption, the symbolic features of products
determine evaluation and consumption because consumers focus
on product meanings by forming impressions and communicat-
ing those impressions (Belk, 1978). Symbolic environmental cues
can enhance positive evaluation and interpretation of what is
expected (Solomon, 1983). Socially symbolic stimuli act as sig-
nals of social identity in prospective consumers (Rosenbaum and
Montoya, 2007; Wall and Berry, 2007). Service organizations use
product design symbolically to help consumers interpret meaning
for place or service product (Zeithaml et al., 2009). Architectural
3
designs of the servicescape in particular can work as a significant
tool to provide either socio-collective or self-expressive meaning to
both in- and out-groups of customers with unique cultural, ethnic,
or societal status (Rosenbaum, 2006).
Social identity theory suggests that consumers will examine the
servicescape for clues (Hogg et al., 1995), categorizing service orga-
nizations as either similar to or dissimilar from themselves. These
socially symbolic meanings serve to indicate belonging to a group.
This self-definition process or mechanism guides behavior via an
expected sequence of events (Abelson, 1976). Product designs help
consumers link to products to either protect or maintain their
self-image; thus, symbolic dimensions have more influence on
likelihood to purchase (Homburg et al., 2015; Tian et al., 2001).
Therefore, the following hypotheses are proposed:
H1c. Symbolic design is positively related to emotional arousal.
H2c. Symbolic design is related to quality expectation.
H3c. Symbolic design is related to booking intention.
2.4. Relationships among arousal, quality expectation, and
booking intention
Researchers have suggested that appraisal has a specific tem-
poral sequence (e.g., Dunning, 2007; Kumar and Garg, 2010). In
the initial stage, attention and emotion (pleasure, for example)
are triggered first. Subsequently, in the more conscious evaluation
stage, cognitive appraisal (i.e., quality expectation for the product)
becomes active. With objects, events, and/or places (which are real,
imagined, anticipated, or even remembered), emotion is based on
intuition, and the first reactions of the organism are independent
reactions that can later be influenced by cognition using informa-
tion processing (Zajonc, 1980).
Through the psychological process, emotion (i.e., ones current
state, feelings and, more specifically, affective reactions) guides
cognitive processing; the more positive the emotion, the more posi-
tively events will be anticipated or experienced (Schwarz and Clore,
1983). The perceptual and affective processing of the target object
is continuous. During the next phase, appraisal and judgment of
target qualities is activated by the emotion experienced in the first
phase (Russell, 2003). This leads to the following hypothesis:
H3. Emotional arousal is positively related to quality expectation.
While emotion and evaluation can be distinguished theoret-
ically and empirically, both emotional arousal and expectancy
are significant determinants of the overall evaluation of products
(Henning et al., 2012). So although product design is important as
a visual component of making a decision and, indeed, greatly influ-
ences consumer purchases, both emotions and cognition increase
the variance in purchasing behavior (Donovan et al., 1994; Turley
and Milliman, 2000). The role of emotions has been well explained
in the product and service consumption (Chitturi et al., 2007).
However, online consumers are logical problem solvers, so this
information-processing paradigm is incomplete for understand-
ing online consumer decision making. With this limitation noted,
researchers have investigated the types of emotional states and
their effects on consumer decision-making (MacInnis and De
Mello, 2005). Emotional arousal from consumer interactions with
products influences subsequent consumer behavior, particularly
in hedonic consumption for which less experience is available
(Chitturi, 2009; Chitturi et al., 2007; Desmet and Hekkert, 2007).
Therefore, the following hypotheses are proposed:
H4. Emotional arousal is positively related to booking intention.
H5. Quality expectation is positively related to booking intention.
4 J. Baek, C. Michael Ok / International Journal of Hospitality Management 65 (2017) 110

2.5. Research model Table 1

Measurement items and loadings.

To explicate the process through which consumers decide to Constructs and scale items Standardized Construct
book a room in a hotel, this study first investigates how dif- loading* reliability
ferent elements of design affect emotional arousal and quality Product design dimensions
expectation. Then, this study examines how the affective response Aesthetics .92
and cognitive appraisal of design affect booking intention. Fig. 1 This hotel is visually striking. .81
This hotel is good looking. .94
shows the research model for this study. Much of the research on
This hotel looks appealing. .93
retail stores and their environments have used manipulation of Functionality .91
various visual elements like the exterior, interior, layout, point- This hotel is likely to perform well. .79
of-purchase, design, and decoration as stimuli to examine their This hotel seems to be capable of .91
doing its job.
impact on behavioral responses (e.g., Turley and Milliman, 2000).
This hotel seems to be functional. .92
The visual stimuli of hotel design at the point of reservation tend Symbolism .94
to include all those environmental cues, so consumers can easily This hotel would help me in .92
imagine their hotel stay. This paper examines proposed relation- establishing a distinctive image.
ships in a lodging service setting, particularly an emerging new This hotel would be helpful to .90
distinguish myself from the mass.
hotel segment (i.e., lifestyle hotel), as a hedonic and experience-
This hotel would accurately .95
based context to explore effects of various design perception on symbolize my achievements.
consumer purchasing intention. Emotional arousal .96
High .96
Alert .61
3. Methodology Excited .83
Happy .91
Pleased .93
3.1. Sample and data collection procedure
Low .89
Content .89
Study participants were recruited through an online survey Peaceful .94
company, Qualtrics (http://www.qualtrics.com/). Of 2501 panel Relaxed .95
members initially willing to participate in the survey, 1766 were Calm .93
Expected quality .86
eliminated because they had no plans to travel within the next This hotel appears to be of good .85
three months. Thirteen were less than 18 years old, and 266 were quality.
located outside of the targeted geographic region (i.e., North Amer- This hotel appears to be durable. .85
ica). Accordingly, 456 of responses were used for data analysis. This hotel appears to be reliable. .77
Booking intention .96
Attention check questions were built into the survey to eval-
If I were going to reserve a hotel .93
uate whether respondents saw the images, read the instructions, room, the probability of reserving
and answered questions carefully. An example check questions was this hotel room is...
In the image you just saw, what was not included? If a respon- The probability that I would consider .94
dent answered any of the attention questions incorrectly, their reserving this hotel room is...
The likelihood that I would reserve .96
responses were removed from the analysis. Additionally, expo- this hotel room is...
sure time to images was monitored to ensure respondents viewed
Note: Bold figures represent first-order factor loadings.
the image long enough to observe details, but not for an extended *
All factor loadings are significant (p < .001).
period: long than 1 s and shorter than 30 min. 57 responses were
omitted either for failing one or more of the attention questions or
for viewing images for an inappropriate length of time. To rule out design involved property images like the physical surroundings
any possibility of other systematic effects, a very similar number of of the service setting (i.e., servicescapes), which is the dominant
business and leisure travel respondents (n = 399) were retained for element in web-based purchasing (Eroglu et al., 2003). Design per-
data analysis. ceptions were measured with three components that Homburg
et al. (2015) conceptualized: aesthetics, functionality, and symbol-
3.2. Instrument and measures ism. For all constructs, participants rated each item on a 7-point
Likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree; 7 = strongly agree). Two
Participants were first asked if they were planning a trip within sub-dimensions for emotional arousal (high and low) were mea-
the next three months and about their travel purposes (leisure or sured with four items from Valenzuela et al. (2010). Participants
business). They were then invited to imagine that they were making rated each item on a 7-point Likert-type scale (1 = I didnt feel like
a hotel reservation. After the hypothetical situations were intro- this at all; 7 = I felt like this very strongly). Three measures of quality
duced, participants were exposed to images of a hotel lobby, bar, expectation were adopted from Grewal et al. (1998), anchored at
building, front desk, guest room, or restaurant each from one of strongly disagree (1) and strongly agree (7). Measures for booking
three fictitious hotel products. The hotel images were selected from intentions came from Noone and Mattila (2009) and assessed using
the official websites of three different lifestyle hotel brands in New seven-point scales ranging from highly unlikely (1) to highly likely
York City and removed the brand names to rule out the effect of (7). Table 1 provides all measures.
the brands. Each set of hotel images consisted of eight different
elements: building, public areas like the hotel lobby, front desk, 4. Data analysis and results
restaurant, and bar, and private areas like guest rooms with sin-
gle and/or double beds, and bathrooms. Each set was presented in 4.1. Data examination
exactly the same order. Finally, participants were asked to respond
to these hypothetical situations. Before the main data analysis, the accuracy of data entry, missing
Validated measures in the literature were adapted to a lodging values, outliers, and fit of normal distributions were examined. Six
context with some modifications. Our conceptualization of hotel outliers were deleted. Data were normally distributed with accept-
 J. Baek, C. Michael Ok / International Journal of Hospitality Management 65 (2017) 110
Fig. 1. Proposed research model.
able statistics (less than 2.0) for skewness and kurtosis (Kline,
2005). Missing values (17) that were only in the multiscale were
replaced with each of their means.
4.2. Sample characteristics
Of the 393 respondents, most were female (60.2%, n = 240), and
the overall mean of age was 42.31 (standard deviation = 15.41). The
average of hotel stay per year was 6.17 nights. The two most fre-
quently checked average hotel stays per year was twice (23.3%,
n = 93) and three times (16.5%, n = 66).
4.3. Measurement model
Overall, the measurement model fit the data well (NFI = .95;
TLI = .95; CFI = .97; RMSEA = .07; !2 (208) = 564.97, p < .001),
although the chi-square test statistic did not (!2 /df = 2.72)
(Hu and Bentler, 1999). The factor loadings (Table 1) were greater
than 0.6 and significant (p < .001) with t-values ranging from 12.66
to 36.67. As shown in Table 2, the average variance extracted (AVE)
for all constructs was well above the 0.50 cutoff (Bagozzi and Yi,
1988), demonstrating the convergent validity of the measurement
scales (Fornell and Larcker, 1981). Discriminant validity was
assessed by comparing the AVE and the squared correlations of
the two constructs of interest (Fornell and Larcker, 1981). AVE
for each construct was higher than the squared correlations (R2 )
between any pair of constructs, except for the aesthetic and func-
tional dimensions of design perceptions, the aesthetic dimension
and functional dimension of design perceptions, and those on
quality expectation. For these exceptions, discriminant validity
was also assessed using the confidence interval (2SE) around
the correlation estimate of those two constructs; the correlation
estimates of functional dimension of design perceptions and
quality expectation (.714; .970), and aesthetic dimension of design
perceptions and quality expectation (.763; .999) did not reach
1.0 (Anderson and Gerbing, 1988). The functional dimension of
design perceptions and quality expectation, however, remained
unsatisfactory (.794; 1.054). Discriminant validity was further
tested by combining the two latent indicators into one construct
5
and then performing a !2 difference test on the values obtained
from the constrained and unconstrained models (Bagozzi and Yi,
1988). The constrained model showed a !2 of 579.54 (df = 209);
the resulting !2 difference was greater than the critical value of
3.84 (14.57, df = 1), supporting discriminant validity for aesthetic
and functional dimensions of design perceptions. Moreover, the
unconstrained model showed a !2 of 588.95 (df = 209) and 902.13
(df = 209) and the resulting of the !2 difference showed 23.98
(df = 1) and 337.16 (df = 1) respectively (>3.84); these results also
supported discriminant validity for both aesthetic dimension
of design perceptions and quality expectation, and functional
dimension of design perceptions and quality expectation. Then,
adequate internal consistency of the scales was confirmed by
computing composite reliabilities, and all were higher than the
recommended 0.70 (Hair et al., 2006). Moreover, because some
correlations between the latent constructs were as high as 0.84
or more, the possibility of multicollinearity was checked against
the corresponding measurement items. The results showed all the
corresponding items had tolerance levels (1 R2 ) of 0.15 or more,
which are higher than the recommended 0.10 (Tabachnick and
Fidell, 2007). Therefore, we concluded that multicollinearity is not
a serious issue in this study.
4.4. Structural model
The proposed model was evaluated using structural equation
modeling. Fit indices showed that the proposed model had an ade-
quate fit to the data (NFI = .95, CFI = .97, TLI = .96, and RMSEA = .07),
except the !2 likelihood ratio test, which is often reported to be sig-
nificant (!2 = 563.25[210] and !2 /df = 2.68). The parameters were
estimated by the maximum likelihood estimation. Fig. 2 depicts
the path coefficients with t-values. For non-significant paths, medi-
ation tests were further conducted. The results of the mediating
tests are further discussed in Section 4.5.
Both aesthetic and symbolic dimensions of product design
affected emotional arousal positively ( = .42, t = 3.17, and p < .01;
= .40, t = 6.55, and p < .001, respectively), supporting H1a and H1c.
The two dimensions together explained 57.3% of the total vari-
ance in emotional arousal. The two had no direct effect on quality
6 J. Baek, C. Michael Ok / International Journal of Hospitality Management 65 (2017) 110

Table 2
Descriptive statistics and associated measures.

No. of items Mean (S.D.) AVE Aesthetics Functionality Symbolism Emotional arousal Quality expectation Booking intention

Aesthetics 3 6.03 (1.06) .80 .92a .85c .44 .50 .71 .34
Functionality 3 5.98 (.99) .76 .92b .91 .50 .48 .78 .30
Symbolism 3 5.50 (1.35) .85 .67 .71 .94 .45 .45 .31
Emotional arousal 8 5.46 (1.28) .77 .71 .69 .67 .96 .50 .29
Quality expectation 3 5.90 (1.00) .68 .84 .88 .67 .71 .86 .37
Booking intention 3 4.93 (1.53) .89 .58 .54 .56 .54 .61 .96

Note: All correlations among study variables are significant at p < .01.
a
Composite reliabilities are along the diagonal.
b
Correlations are below the diagonal.
c
Squared correlations are above the diagonal.

Fig. 2. Test results of the proposed model. Numbers in parentheses are t-values. Numbers outside parentheses are standardized path coefficients. Statistically significant at
***p < .001, **p < .01, *p < .05.

Table 3
Results of hypothesis testing.

Construct relationships Hypothesis Coefficient () Estimates S.E. C.R.

Aesthetics emotional arousal H1a .42 .55 .17 3.17**

Functionality emotional arousal H1b .02 .02 .20 .11
Symbolism emotional arousal H1c .40 .41 .06 6.55***
Aesthetics quality expectation H2a .01 .01 .10 .06
Functional quality expectation H2b .82 .81 .12 6.63***
Symbolism quality expectation H2c .06 .04 .04 1.09
Aesthetics booking intention H3a .30 .49 .23 2.13*
Functionality booking intention H3b .37 .65 .39 1.67
Symbolism booking intention H3c .13 .16 .09 1.83
Emotional arousal quality expectation H4 .19 .13 .04 3.45** *
Emotional arousal booking intention H5 .37 .47 .10 4.76***
Quality expectation booking intention H6 .33 .60 .30 2.02*

Statistically significant at: ***p < .001, **p < .01, *p < .05.

expectation. Only the functional dimension had a positive, direct
effect on quality expectation, supporting H2b ( = .82, t = 6.63, and
p < .001). Moreover, only aesthetic dimension had positive, direct
effect on booking intention among the three dimensions of design
perception ( = .30, t = 2.13, and p < .05), supporting H3a. Emotional
arousal positively affected quality expectations ( = .19, t = 3.45, and
p < .001), supporting H4. Functional dimension of product design
and emotional arousal together explained 85.1% of the total vari-
ance of quality expectation. Finally, the effect of emotional arousal
(H5, = .37, t = 4.76, and p < .001) and quality expectation (H6,
= .33, t = 2.02, and p < .05) on booking intention were significant;
48.8% of the total variance in booking intention was explained by
aesthetics, emotional arousal, and quality expectation (Table 3).
4.5. Direct and indirect effect
To examine direct and indirect effects of each individual dimen-
sion of product design on booking intention, we decomposed
 J. Baek, C. Michael Ok / International Journal of Hospitality Management 65 (2017) 110
Table 4
Standardized direct and indirect effect.
Emotional arousal
a a
Direct Indirect Total
Aesthetics .42 .42
Functionality .02 .02
Symbolism .4 .4
Emotional arousal
Quality expectation
Note.
a
Indirect effects bootstrapping (95% confidence interval). Confidence intervals are based on 2000 bootstrap samples.
the total effects using nonparametric bootstrapping (Preacher and
Hayes, 2008). Table 4 lists direct, indirect, and total effects among
exogenous variables in this study. The results demonstrate that the
95% confidence intervals for most indirect effects of product design
(with the exception of functional dimension on quality expecta-
tion) and booking intention do not contain zero, which confirms
the proposed constructs (emotional arousal and quality expecta-
tion) mediate the relationship between the aesthetic, functional,
and symbolic dimensions of design perception and booking inten-
tion. All dimensions of product design (aesthetics, functionality,
and symbolism) had significant indirect effects on booking inten-
tion through five paths.
The total effect of aesthetics on booking intention is .48 with
both a direct effect (.3) and an indirect effect (.18) through .03
(.42 .19 .33 = .03), 0.16 (.42 .37 = .16) and .01 (.01 .33 = .01).
The functional dimension also has a direct effect (.37) and an
indirect effect (.28) on booking intention along three paths, where
path coefficients are .01 (.02 .19 .33 = .01), .01 (.02 .37 = .006),
and 0.27 (.82 .33 = .27), with the total effect of .09. Finally, sym-
bolic dimension had indirect effects on booking intention along
three paths, where path coefficients are .03 (.40 .19 .33 = .03),
.15 (.40 .37 = .15), and .02 (.06 .33 = .02); the total effect is
.28. The results show that the aesthetic dimension has the strongest
total effect (.48), stronger than both symbolism (.28) and function-
ality (.09), on booking intention. Overall, the aesthetic dimension
was most detrimental to booking intention. The functional dimen-
sion, however, had a peculiarly contradictory effect on booking
intention.
Despite the current evidence, the role of emotional arousal and
quality expectation as mediating variables in Fig. 2 must be con-
firmed. Past efforts to gauge mediation typically used Chi-square
difference tests for nested models (Bagozzi and Yi, 1988; Baron and
Kenny, 1986). With various criticisms of the conventional approach,
the bootstrapping approach can reveal both direct and indirect
effects (Zhao et al., 2010). More specifically, emotional arousal
as a full or partial mediator of the effect of aesthetics and sym-
bolism on booking intention was examined, and the results are
reported in Table 5. Partial mediation have both direct and indi-
rect effects via emotional arousal, and they should be significant,
but full mediation requires that the direct effect become nonsignif-
icant when emotional arousal is presented as a mediator while
the indirect effect of each design dimension (i.e., aesthetic and
symbolic) on booking intention must be significant. To test the
effects of aesthetics and symbolism on booking intention with and
without emotional arousal as mediator, bootstrapping was used
to reveal the significance of both direct and indirect effects. Stan-
dardized regression coefficients support that emotional arousal
fully mediated the effect of symbolism on booking intention. Direct
effects without the mediator were significant, but after adding
emotional arousal, direct effects with the mediator were not signif-
icant and indirect effects of symbolism were significant. Moreover,
in the relationship between aesthetics and booking intention, emo-
tional arousal partly mediated; the direct effect with and without
7
Quality expectation Booking intention
Direct Indirect Total Direct Indirect a Total
.01 .08 (.021, .204) .09 .30 .18 (.008, .367) .48
.82 .01 (.066, .044) .82 .37 .28 (.011, .710) .09
.06 .07 (.024, .143) .02 .13 .15 (.080, .247) .28
.19 .19 .37 .06 (.014, .201) .44
.33 .33
a mediator and the indirect effect were all significant. Finally, the
results showed that quality expectation partly mediates the effect
of emotional arousal and booking intention. The same results were
achieved using the traditional Baron and Kennys (1986) approach.
5. Discussion and implications
This study found that images of the physical environment of
a hotel on its website aroused consumer emotion and developed
an expectation of quality for the hotel and thus was crucial in
determining whether the consumer would purchase online. These
findings provide a foundation for further research in the lodging
industry to better explicate how the design of physical environ-
ments works. These findings also offer hotel marketers meaningful
insight into what is meant by consumer design perception and how
consumers interpret the design of physical facilities.
5.1. Theoretical implications
This study provides evidence of the importance of holistic
conceptualization of product design in understanding the con-
sumer decision-making process, particularly for online booking.
Our results show that understanding design through only one (or
two) aspect(s) of the three (aesthetic, functional, or symbolic) is
not sufficient, obviating a broader understanding of how design
perception affects consumer behavior. Each design dimension was
important in understanding the decision-making process. More-
over, we observed that product design influences the purchase
intention indirectly through two mediators (emotional arousal
and quality expectation). Specifically, the aesthetic and symbolic
dimensions of design create emotional arousal, which in turn, shape
quality expectation. The functional aspect of design elements, on
the other hand, directly affects quality expectation, which in turn,
affects booking intention. Quality expectation developed directly
from functionality and indirectly through emotional arousal from
aesthetics and symbolism, so all three contribute to booking inten-
tion.
Second, the study confirmed that the three dimensions of a
product design directly and indirectly influenced booking inten-
tion, but not in the same way as noted by Homburg et al. (2015).
They found that the symbolic dimension was the most power-
ful determinant of purchase intention for consumer durables. In
our study, the aesthetic perception of hotel environments had the
greatest influence on consumer booking intention. The aesthetic
(0.48) dimension had more total effect than the symbolic (0.28) and
functional (0.09) dimensions. Moreover, the aesthetic dimension
of design indirectly affected booking intention (0.18, about 38% of
the total effect) through emotional arousal and quality expectation.
The findings do support the Homburg et al.s suggestion that the
relative importance of design perception in influencing outcome
variables in consumer behavior varies across product categories.
Finally, the research revealed an interesting relationship
between emotional arousal and purchase intention. Hospitality
8 J. Baek, C. Michael Ok / International Journal of Hospitality Management 65 (2017) 110
Table 5
Testing for mediation.
Direct effect without EA
Aesthetics EA QE .09 (.248, .310)
Functionality EA QE .82* (.591, 1.144)
Symbolism EA QE .02 (.077, .128)
Aesthetics EA BI .49* (.226, .750)
Symbolism EA BI 0.28* (.162, .393)
Direct effect without QE
Functionality QE BI .09 (.386, .209)
Emotional Arousal QE BI .44* (.303, .579)
Note: EA = emotional arousal, QE = quality expectation, BI = booking intention.
*
Statistically significant at p < .05.
service offerings differ from general goods for the hedonic, expe-
riential nature of consumption. Our findings (the direct effect of
emotional arousal and its indirect effect through quality expec-
tation on booking intention) further support the critical role of
emotional arousal in hospitality service consumption, especially
in the pre-consumption stage. This finding is especially impor-
tant because affective responses draw first on the psychological
mechanism, helping communicate the level of quality expecta-
tions to consumers, which eventually leads to increased booking
intention. That is, consumers feel first and then consciously (often
unconsciously as well) gather and retrieve all cues to create
a mental picture. Then, they form specific expectations of the
product/service before the actual purchase. This is particularly
important because the purchase of a hotel room precedes the actual
purchase and use of that hotel room.
5.2. Managerial implications
With emerging trends in the lodging industry, many hotel com-
panies are introducing new brands and emphasizing contemporary
design, including lifestyle hotels, boutique hotels, and soft brand
hotels. This study demonstrated the importance of design, both of
the physical facility and the environment, in arousing emotion and
shaping quality expectations that enhance purchasing intention.
First, our findings confirmed what the industry practices: hotel
design and style should appeal visually to customers to arouse emo-
tion. To attract consumers and to meet increased consumer needs
for experiential/hedonic consumption, hotel marketers, especially
in the lifestyle hotel segment, must consider design elements at
the booking stage, especially for online customers. To do so, hotel
business should present pictures of their properties on their hotel
websites, especially images that convey the appropriate design ele-
ments. Consumers usually purchase the hotel product before they
actually experience that product, so pictures could help them imag-
ine experiences of the hotel and generate vivid mental imagery at
the time of booking. Using a wide variety of pictures to empha-
size hotel design and facilities can enable potential consumers to
picture their stays.
Second, this study found that to facilitate the online book-
ing of hotel rooms, online visitors must be emotionally aroused
to build high-quality expectation. Our findings indicate that con-
sumers have a different perception of design in the lodging industry
than for general goods. Along with their functional design per-
ception, consumers become emotionally aroused when visually
appealing hotel pictures enhance their quality expectations. Our
findings suggest that hotels should choose images that will shape
service expectation. Assessing appropriate delivery performance
should help avoid service gaps during and after service delivery.
Finally, this study found that the symbolic dimension had sig-
nificant indirect effects on booking intention. Social symbolism
of service products encourages approach behaviors by evoking
Direct effect with EA Indirect effect Type of mediation
.01 (.300, .245) .08* (.021, .204) No mediation
.82* (.596, 1.144) .00 (.066, .044) No mediation
.06 (.168, .056) .07* (.024, .143) No mediation
.30* (.061, .612) .18* (.008, .367) Partial mediation
.13 (.002, .246) .15* (.080, .247) Full mediation
Direct effect with QE Indirect effect Type of mediation
.37* (.835, .002) .28* (.011, .710) Inconsistent mediation
.37* (.215, .534) .06* (.014, .201) Partial mediation
feelings of uniqueness, distinctiveness, and achievement. Service
organizations, in response to guests needing to feel different
(unique and distinctive) from others, develop service environments
to deliver social meaning. The social dimension may have per-
ceptions among customers that contradict what other dimensions
provide (Creusen and Schoormans, 2005; Homburg et al., 2015).
For example, a guest may prefer a colorful hotel, one with a fancy
design but may not want to stay at the hotel because it makes the
guest look too punky or feel less comfortable. Thus, design must
be approached holistically so this subconscious process does not
affect purchase decisions among the target market.
5.3. Limitations and suggestions for future study
Several limitations must be acknowledged, particularly related
to types of stimuli and measures. Suggestions provided may also
offer opportunities for further studies.
First, we used hotel property pictures as stimuli in this study.
Consumer responses to product design are based on both visual
and nonvisual elements of key product elements for an abstract
representation through different sensory systems (Bloch, 1995;
Homburg et al., 2015). Future research should investigate consumer
responses to product design using various types of stimuli that
could give hotel guests more concrete design details and thus allow
them to have clearer responses to design. Moreover, we presented
various pictures of hotel physical facilities to capture a holistic
understanding of design perception through multi-dimensional
conceputalization. We could not, therefore, identify which phys-
ical cues were more or less important to respondents. To identify
the relative importance of different physical cues to how design is
perceived, future research could break down these image stimuli
independently (e.g., public versus private; core versus supporting
amenities).
Second, the perceived importance of each dimension may vary
across travel characteristics (e.g., trip purpose, types of travel
companions), individual differences (e.g., age, generation, involve-
ment), and/or types of hotel property (e.g., scales, categories). A
different pattern of effect size may require further investigation. For
example, leisure travelers may find the aesthetic dimension more
pertinent to the booking decision, but business travelers would give
more weight to functionality. Further, posting trip photos on social
networking sites like Facebook and Instagram has become common
for particular demographic segments. In such a case, the symbolic
dimension might be more relevant to some consumers.
Third, this study considered booking intention as an outcome
variable in lieu of understanding purchasing behavior. Future
research may explore other outcomes for this model, including
willingness-to-pay and word of mouth intention, two measures
that are meaningful for revenue management. We expect a sim-
ilar, but still different, effect of the three design dimensions on
those outcomes. Results of such studies can help companies suggest
 J. Baek, C. Michael Ok / International Journal of Hospitality Management 65 (2017) 110
different marketing strategies (e.g., setting discount rate or price
levels, determining activities or promotions to increasing word of
mouth, etc.).
References
Aaker, J.L., 1999. The malleable self: the role of self-expression in persuasion.
Journal of Marketing Research 36 (1), 4557.
Abelson, R.P., 1976. Script Processing in Attitude Formation and Decision Making.
Lawrence Erlbaum, Oxford, England.
Allen, C.T., Machleit, K.A., Kleine, S.S., 1992. A comparison of attitude and emotions
as predictors of behavior at diverse levels of behavioral experience. Journal of
Consumer Research 18 (4), 493504.
Anderson, J.C., Gerbing, D.W., 1988. Structural modeling in practice: a review and
recommended two-step approach. Psychological Bulletin 103, 411423.
Aubert-Gamet, V., 1997. Twisting servicescapes: diversion of the physical
environment in a re-appropriation process. International Journal of Service
Industry Management 8 (1), 2641.
Bagozzi, R.P., Yi, Y., 1988. On the evaluation of structural equation models. Journal
of the Academy of Marketing Science 16 (1), 7494.
Bagozzi, R.P., Baumgartner, H., Pieters, R., Zeelenberg, M., 2000. The role of
emotions in goal-directed behavior. In: Ratneshwar, S., Mick, D.G., Huffman, C.
(Eds.), The Why of Consumption. Routledge, London, pp. 36568.
Baron, R.M., Kenny, D.A., 1986. The moderator-mediator variable distinction in
social psychological research: conceptual, strategic, and statistical
considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 51 (6), 11731182.
Belk, R.W., 1978. Assessing the effects of visible consumption on impression
formation. In: Hunt, K., Arbor, A. (Eds.), Advances in Consumer Research, vol. 5.
Association for Consumer Research, Provo, UT, pp. 3947.
Berkowitz, M., 1987. Product shape as a design innovation strategy. Journal of
Product Innovation Management 4 (4), 274283.
Best, P., 2008. Branding and design innovation leadership: Whats next? Design
Management Review 19 (3), 4450.
Bitner, M.J., 1990. Evaluating service encounters: the effects of physical
surroundings and employee responses. Journal of Marketing 54 (2), 6982.
Bitner, M.J., 1992. Servicescapes: the impact of physical surroundings on
customers and employees. Journal of Marketing 56 (2), 5771.
Black, G.H., Childers, Y.C., Vincent, H.L., 2014. Service characteristics impact on key
service quality relationships: a meta-analysis. Journal of Services Marketing 28
(4), 276291.
Bloch, P.H., 1995. Seeking the ideal form: product design and consumer response.
Journal of Marketing 59 (3), 1629.
Bloch, P.H., 2011. Product design and marketing: reflections after fifteen years. The
Journal of Product Innovation Management 28 (3), 378380.
Bloom, P.N., Reve, T., 1990. Transmitting signals to consumers for competitive
advantage. Business Horizons 33 (4), 5866.
Brandy, M.K., Bourdeau, B.L., Heskel, J., 2005. The importance of brand cues in
intangible service industries: an application to investment services. Journal of
Services Marketing 19 (6), 401410.
Browne, G.J., Durrett, J.R., Wetherbe, J.C., 2004. Consumer reactions toward clicks
and bricks: investigating buying behaviour on-line and at stores. Behaviour &
Information Technology 23 (4), 237245.
Brunner, R., Emery, S., Hall, R., 2008. Do You Matter? How Great Design will Make
People Love Your Company. FT Press, Upper Saddle River, NJ.
Cachon, G.P., Swinney, R., 2011. The value of fast fashion: quick response,
enhanced design, and strategic consumer behavior. Management Science 57
(4), 778795.
Chitturi, R., 2009. Emotions by design: a consumer perspective. International
Journal of Design 3 (2), 717.
Chitturi, R., Raghunathan, R., Mahajan, V., 2007. Form versus function: how the
intensities of specific emotions evoked in functional versus hedonic trade-offs
mediate product preferences. Journal of Marketing Research 44 (4), 702714.
Clark, W.R., Ezell, J., Clark, J., Sheffield, D.N., 2009. Stay or leave: applying
approachavoidance theory to virtual environments. Journal of Database
Marketing & Customer Strategy Management 16 (4), 231240.
Courtryman, C.C., Jang, S.C., 2006. The effects of atmospheric elements on customer
impression: the case of hotel lobbies. International Journal of Contemporary
Hospitality Management 18 (7), 534545.
Creusen, M.E., Schoormans, J.P., 2005. The different roles of product appearance in
consumer choice. Journal of Product Innovation Management 22 (1), 6381.
Crilly, N., Moultrie, J., Clarkson, P.J., 2004. Seeing things: consumer response to the
visual domain in product design. Design Studies 25 (6), 547577.
Dawar, N., Parker, P., 1994. Marketing universals: consumers use of brand name,
price, physical appearance, and retailer reputation as signals of product
quality. Journal of Marketing 58 (2), 8195.
Desmet, P.M.A., 2002. Designing emotions. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation.
Technical University of Delft.
Desmet, P., Hekkert, P., 2007. Framework of product experience. International
Journal of Design 1 (1), 5766.
Donovan, R.J., Rossiter, J.R., Marcoolyn, G., Nesdale, A., 1994. Store atmosphere and
purchasing behavior. Journal of Retailing 70 (3), 283294.
Dunning, D., 2007. Self-image motives and consumer behavior: how sacrosanct
self-beliefs sway preferences in the marketplace. Journal of Consumer
Psychology 17 (4), 237249.
9
Ernst and Young, 2015. Global hospitality insights top thoughts for 2015.
Retrieved from http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/ey-global-
hospitality-insights-2015/$File/ey-global-hospitality-insights-2015.pdf.
Eroglu, S.A., Machleit, K.A., Davis, L.M., 2003. Empirical testing of a model of online
store atmospherics and shopper responses. Psychology & Marketing 20 (2),
139150.
Fitzsimons, G.J., Hutchinson, J.W., Williams, P., Alba, J.W., Chartrand, T.L., Huber, J.,
Kardes, F.R., Menon, G., Raghubir, P., Russo, J.E., Shiv, B., Tavassoli, N.T., 2002.
Non-conscious influences on consumer choice. Marketing Letters 13 (3),
267277.
Frijda, N.H., 2006. The Laws of Emotion. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ.
Fornell, C., Larcker, D.F., 1981. Evaluating structural equation models with
unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of Marketing Research
18, 3950.
Grewal, D., Monroe, K.B., Krishnan, R., 1998. The effects of price-comparison
advertising on buyers perceptions of acquisition value, transaction value and
behavioral intentions. Journal of Marketing 62 (2), 4659.
Ha, J., Jang, S.C., 2012. The effects of dining atmospherics on behavioral intentions
through quality perception. Journal of Services Marketing 26 (3), 204215.
Hair Jr., J.F., Black, W.C., Babin, B.J., Anderson, R.E., Tatham, R.L., 2006. Multivariate
Data Analysis, 6th ed. Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ.
Hall, R.H., Hanna, P., 2004. The impact of web page text-background colour
combinations on readability, retention, aesthetics and behavioural intention.
Behaviour & Information Technology 23 (3), 183195.
Henning, V., Thurau, T.H., Feireisen, S., 2012. Giving the expectancy-value model a
heart. Psychology & Marketing 29 (10), 765781.
Hightower, R., Brady, M.K., Baker, T.L., 2002. Investigating the role of the physical
environment in hedonic service consumption: an exploratory study of sporting
events. Journal of Business Research 55, 697707.
Hoegg, J., Alba, J.W., 2011. Seeing is believing (too much): the influence of product
form on perceptions of functional performance. Journal of Product Innovation
Management 28 (3), 346359.
Hogg, M.A., Terry, D.J., White, K.M., 1995. A tale of two theories: a critical
comparison of identity theory with social identity theory. Social Psychology
Quarterly 58 (4), 255269.
Homburg, C., Schwemmle, M., Kuehnl, C., 2015. New product design: concept,
measurement, and consequences. Journal of Marketing 79 (3), 4156.
Hu, L., Bentler, P.M., 1999. Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure
analysis: conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation
Modeling 6 (1), 155.
Hwang, J., Ok, C., 2013. The antecedents and consequence of consumer attitudes
toward restaurant brands: a comparative study between casual and fine dining
restaurants. International Journal of Hospitality Management 32 (1), 121131.
Jones, D.L., Day, J., Quadri-Felitti, D., 2013. Emerging definitions of boutique and
lifestyle hotels: a Delphi study. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing 30 (7),
715731.
Kim, D., Perdue, R.R., 2013. The effects of cognitive, affective and sensory attributes
on hotel choice. International Journal of Hospitality Management 35, 246257.
Kline, R.B., 2005. Principle and Practice of Structural Equation Modeling. Guilford,
New York.
Kumar, M., Garg, N., 2010. Aesthetic principles and cognitive emotion appraisals:
How much of the beauty lies in the eye of the beholder? Journal of Consumer
Psychology 20 (4), 485494.
Lee, K., Chung, K., Nam, K., 2013. The role of services as touch points for different
service settings. IEEE Tsinghua International Design Management Symposium,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TIDMS.2013.6981253.
Levitt, T., 1981. Marketing intangible products and product intangible. Cornell
Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly 22, 3744.
Lin, I.Y., 2004. Evaluating a servicescape: the effect of cognition and emotion.
International Journal of Hospitality Management 23 (2), 163178.
Liu, Y., Jang, S.C., 2009. The effectsof dining atmospherics: an extended
Mehrabian-Rusell model. Internaitonal Jornal of Hospitality Management 28
(4), 494503.
Luchs, M., Swan, K.S., 2011. Perspective: the emergence of product design as a field
of marketing inquiry. Journal of Product Innovation Management 28 (3),
327345.
Macinnis, D.J., De Mello, G., 2005. The construct of hope and its relevance to
product evaluation and choice. Journal of Marketing 69 (1), 114.
Mehrabian, A., Russell, J.A., 1974. An Approach to Environmental Psychology. The
MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Mishra, A., Dash, S., Malhotra, N., Cyr, D., 2015. Measuring consumer design
perceptions for digital devices: a multi-dimensional scale. Journal of Brand
Management 22 (7), 603630.
Mummalaneni, V., 2005. An empirical investigation of Web site characteristics,
consumer emotional states and on-line shopping behaviors. Journal of
Business Research 58 (4), 526532.
Murray, K.B., 1991. A test of services marketing theory: consumer information
acquisition activities. Journal of Marketing 55 (1), 1025.
Noble, C.H., Kumar, M., 2008. Using product design strategically to create deeper
consumer connections. Business Horizons 51 (5), 441450.
Noone, B.M., Mattila, A.S., 2009. Hotel revenue management and the Internet: the
effect of price presentation strategies on customers willingness to book.
International Journal of Hospitality Management 28 (2), 272279.
Norman, D.A., 2004. Emotional Design: Why do We Love (or Hate) Everyday
Things. Basic Books, New York.
10 J. Baek, C. Michael Ok / International Journal of Hospitality Management 65 (2017) 110
Nussbaum, B., 2005. Get creative! How to build innovative companies. Available
at: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05 31/b3945401.htm.
Oh, J., Fiorito, S.S., Cho, H., Hofacker, C.F., 2008. Effects of design factors on store
image and expectation of merchandise quality in web-based stores. Journal of
Retailing and Consumer Services 15 (4), 237249.
Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V.A., Berry, L.L., 1995. A conceptual model of service
quality and its implications for further research. Journal of Marketing 49,
4150.
Parish, J.T., Berry, L.L., Lam, S.Y., 2008. The effect of the servicescape on service
workers. Journal of Service Research 10 (3), 220238.
Preacher, K., Hayes, A.F., 2008. Asymptotic and resampling strategies for assessing
and comparing indirect effects in multiple mediator models. Behavior
Research Methods 40 (3), 879891.
Radford, S.K., Bloch, P.H., 2011. Linking innovation to design: consumer responses
to visual product newness. Journal of Product Innovation Management 28 (s1),
208220.
Reber, R., Schwarz, N., Winkielman, P., 2004. Processing fluency and aesthetic
pleasure: Is beauty in the perceivers processing experience? Personality and
Social Psychology Review 8 (4), 364382.
Reimann, M., Zaichkowsky, J., Neuhaus, C., Bender, T., Weber, B., 2010. Aesthetic
package design: a behavioral, neural, and psychological investigation. Journal
of Consumer Psychology 20 (4), 431441.
Rosenbaum, M.S., 2006. Exploring the social supportive role of third places in
consumers lives. Journal of Service Research 9 (1), 5972.
Rosenbaum, M.S., Massiah, C., 2011. An expanded servicescape perspective.
Journal of Service Management 22 (4), 471490.
Rosenbaum, M.S., Montoya, D.Y., 2007. Am I welcome here? Exploring how ethnic
consumers assess their place identity. Journal of Business Research 60 (3),
206214.
Russell, J.A., 2003. Core affect and the psychological construction of emotion.
Psychological Review 110 (1), 145172.
Schachter, S., 1964. The interaction of cognitive and physiological determinants of
emotional state. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 1, 4980.
Schachter, S., Singer, J., 1962. Cognitive, social, and physiological determinants of
emotional state. Psychological Review 69 (5), 379399.
Schwarz, N., Clore, G.L., 1983. Mood, misattribution, and judgments of well-being:
informative and directive functions of affective states. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology 45 (3), 513523.
Shafir, E., Simonson, I., Tversky, A., 1993. Reason-based choice. Cognition 49, 1136.
Sherman, E., Smith, R.B., 1987. Mood states of shoppers and store image:
promising interactions and possible behavioral effects. In: Wallendort, M.,
Anderson, P. (Eds.), Advances in Consumer Research, vol. 13. Association for
Consumer Research, Provo, UT, pp. 251254.
Siehl, C., Bowen, D.E., Pearson, C.M., 1992. Service encounters as rites of
integration: an information processing model. Organization Science 3 (4),
537555.
Solomon, M.R., 1983. The role of products as social stimuli: a symbolic
interactionism perspective. Journal of Consumer Research 10 (3), 319329.
Spears, N., Yazdanparast, A., 2014. Revealing obstacles to the consumer
imagination. Journal of Consumer Psychology 24 (3), 363372.
Tabachnick, B.G., Fidell, L.S., 2007. Using Multivariate Statistics, 5th ed. Boston, MA,
Pearson.
Tian, K.T., Bearden, W.O., Hunter, G.L., 2001. Consumers need for uniqueness: scale
development and validation. Journal of Consumer Research 28 (1), 5066.
Turley, L.W., Milliman, R.E., 2000. Atmospheric effects on shopping behavior: a
review of the experimental evidence. Journal of Business Research 49 (2),
193211.
Valenzuela, A., Mellers, B., Strebel, J., 2010. Pleasurable surprises: a crosscultural
study of consumer responses to unexpected incentives. Journal of Consumer
Research 36 (5), 792805.
Venkatesh, A., Meamber, L.A., 2006. Arts and aesthetics: marketing and cultural
production. Marketing Theory 6 (1), 1139.
Wakefield, K.L., Blodgett, J.G., 1999. Customer response to intangible and tangible
service factors. Psychology & Marketing 16 (1), 5168.
Wall, E.A., Berry, L.L., 2007. The combined effects of the physical environment and
employee behavior on customer perception of restaurant service quality.
Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly 48 (1), 5969.
Ward, J.C., Bitner, M.J., Barnes, J., 1992. Measuring the prototypicality and meaning
of retail environments. Journal of Retailing 68 (2), 194.
Zajonc, R.B., 1980. Feeling and thinking: preferences need no inferences. American
Psychologist 35 (2), 151175.
Zeithaml, V.A., 1981. How consumer evaluation processes differ between goods
and services. In: Donnelly, J.H., George, W.R. (Eds.), Marketing of Services.
American Marketing Association, Chicago, IL, pp. 186190.
Zeithaml, V.A., Bitner, M.J., Gremler, D.E., 2009. Services Marketing: Integrating
Customer Focus Across the Firm. McGraw-Hill/Irwin, New York.
Zhao, X., Lynch Jr., J.G., Chen, Q., 2010. Reconsidering Baron and Kenny: myths and
truths about mediation analysis. Journal of Consumer Research 37 (2),
197206.