Call for Papers: 2018 Global Marketing Conference (GMC) Track & Special Issue of Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research on Customer Engagement in Tourism and Hospitality Services
Extended Submission Deadline: Jan. 31,2018
Track Chairs/Special Issue Guest Editors: Kevin Kam Fung So, Ph.D., School of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Management, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC29208, USA
Xiang (Robert) Li, Ph.D., Department of Tourism and Hospitality Management, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA19122, USA
Extended abstract or full paper for conference submissions must be received by January 31, 2018
The 2018 Global Marketing Conference (http://gammaconference.org/2018) will be held in Tokyo, Japan, on July 26-29, 2018. The theme of this year’s conference is “Bridging Asia and the World: Searching for Academic Excellence and Best Practice in Marketing and Management.” We warmly welcome submissions for consideration for the “Customer Engagement in Tourism and Hospitality Services” track of the 2018 GMC conference and for a special issue of the Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research (SSCI, Impact Factor 2016: 2.646).
Entering a new marketing era that is characterized by contemporary, increasingly dynamic, and interactive business environments (Hollebeek, Srivastava, & Chen, 2016; Pansari & Kumar, 2016), the concept of customer engagement has dominated many recent discussions among marketing academics (Brodie et al., 2011; Verhoef, Reinartz, & Krafft, 2010) and practitioners (Econsultancy, 2011). Recent empirical research shows CE enhances customers’ evaluation of the brand (So et al., 2016) and future purchase intention (Hollebeek, Glynn, & Brodie, 2014), and has been described as the “expanded domain of relationship marketing” (Vivek, Beatty, & Morgan, 2012, p. 129). In parallel with such findings, tourism and hospitality organizations, such as hotels or airlines, even destinations, have extensively implemented customer engagement strategies to connect with their customers at various stages of consumption including pre-, during- and post-consumption.
Given its theoretical significance and practical relevance, the tourism and hospitality literature has paid increasing attention to the concept of customer engagement. Critical insights attained include the conceptualization and measurement of customer engagement (So, King, & Sparks, 2014), the antecedents and consequences of customer engagement (Dijkmans, Kerkhof, & Beukeboom, 2015; Ge & Gretzel, 2017; So et al., 2016), barriers to organizational adoption of customer engagement (Chathoth et al., 2014), customers’ perceptions of and management responses to customer engagement behaviors (Wei, Miao, & Huang, 2013), as well as customer engagement through the lens of social media affordance (Cabiddu, Carlo, & Piccoli, 2014).
Despite such recent advancements, insight into the nature of customer engagement and the wider nomological network within which it situates remain sparse in the literature to-date, therefore highlighting the need for more research to be conducted to further advance the customer engagement literature by addressing significant research issues and challenges. This motivates the current CFP. Ultimately, this conference track/special issue will seek to address some of the most pressing challenges in understanding this phenomenon both from a theoretical and practical perspective.
Submission Both conceptual and empirical, quantitative, qualitative or mixed method studies are welcome. The editors are particularly interested in submissions that make an original contribution to customer engagement theory in the tourism and hospitality contexts. Some example dimensions of topics include, but are not limited to the following: - What factors trigger customer engagement and/or engagement behaviors such as customer-to-customer interactions, blogging, and writing reviews etc.? - What are organizational or consumer’s psychological and behavioral outcomes of customer engagement? - How can customer engagement be leveraged to generate enhanced organizational performance outcomes and positive consumer responses? - What opportunities and challenges do hospitality and tourism organizations encounter when fostering customer engagement? - What conditions under which customer engagement is more likely to occur (or not occur)? - What are existing and potential consumers’ motivations and barriers to engage on various platforms? - How do social media and transitional marketing activities affect customer engagement? - How do their effects on customer engagement differ? - Across various tourism and hospitality service sectors (e.g., hotel, restaurant, airline), which types of engagement platforms best facilitate or cultivate customer engagement? - How does customer engagement change overtime and what factors affect its latent change and latent growth trajectory? - How do customer engagement behaviors and practices (and/or strategies) differ in matured markets and emerging markets? - What makes customer engagement behaviors and practices unique, if at all, in the tourism and hospitality contexts? - Alternative research approaches in studying customer engagement, from biosocial techniques to big data analytics - Studies of the above from within emerging world regions, especially from geographical contexts within the Middle East, Africa or Latin America
Scholars should submit their extended abstracts or full conference papers by January 31, 2018 to the Track Chairs/Special Issue Guest Editors: Kevin Kam Fung So (kevinso@hrsm.sc.edu) and Xiang (Robert) Li (robertli@temple.edu). Submission Guidelines of the 2018 GMC at Tokyo can be found at http://gammaconference.org/2018/. If authors do not receive confirmation of their submission within seven days, please contact the track chairs. Scholars seeking consideration of their papers for publication in this JHTR special issue should clearly indicate their intention to the track chairs. All submissions, reviewing and notification will be conducted electronically.
Authors of the top papers submitted to the “Customer Engagement in Tourism and Hospitality Services” conference track will be invited to submit their full paper for publication consideration in the JHTR special issue. The format of the papers must comply with the Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research guidelines, which can be found at http://journals.sagepub.com/home/jht. Information identifying the submission authors (affiliation, mailing address, telephone number, and e-mail address) should only be listed on the title page. Authors should submit the final version of their articles on the Manuscript Central website at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jhtr. All submitted full papers will subject to the formal double blind review process of JHTR. The invitation to submit a full paper does not guarantee conditional acceptance or publication. | 
