This study aimed to investigate the impacts of COVID-19 on the hospitality industry. We examined the interplay between consumers’ fear and uncertainty of COVID-19, their trust in green hotel brands, and their behavioral intentions in relation to staying at green hotels. Analysis of 613 completed responses to a survey instrument revealed that fear and uncertainty of COVID-19 have increased consumers’ environmental concerns and green hotel brand trust, which in turn have promoted their willingness to pay more and willingness to make sacrifices to stay at green hotels. The paper contributes to research on green consumption behavior in the hotel industry during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Purpose: Grounded in uses and gratification theory (UGT) and observational learning theory (OLT), this study aims to understand the impact of motivational factors on consumer-influencer engagement behaviors (CIEBs). Motivating factors, including entertainment, information seeking, reward and social interaction, are regarded as antecedents of consumers' OLT, as manifested by CIEB dimensions, including consumption, contribution and creation, and subsequently drive consumer engagement with the endorsed brands.Design/methodology/approach: A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to Malaysian social media users. A total of 263 responses were collected and analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to examine the impact of motivational factors on CIEBs.Findings: The results show that the three dimensions of CIEBs can be predicted by different gratifications (information seeking, entertainment, reward and interaction). In addition, two of the CIEB dimensions, consumption and contribution, were found to have a significant positive influence on consumers' engagement with endorsed brands.Practical implications: This study provides insights into how social media influencers (SMIs) could lead to CIEBs by creating entertaining and rewarding content that facilitates social interaction between consumers. SMIs and marketers that encourage consumers to browse, comment and share SMI-created posts will enhance consumer engagement with the endorsed brands, as engagement is driven by the consumption and contribution to SMI-created content.Originality/value: SMI marketing is increasing, and many brands are beginning to rely more on SMIs to promote brands. Yet, there is a dearth of studies that have examined how SMIs play a role in affecting consumers' engagement with endorsed brands. This study contributes to the marketing literature by developing and empirically testing the research model. Results suggest that social interaction, reward and entertainment are key motivational factors that drive CIEBs, which, in turn, foster consumer engagement with endorsed brands.

Many studies highlight the merits of positive reviews on social networking sites (SNSs), suggesting that consumers tend to consider these to be trustworthy recommendations. This study draws attention to the potential negative effects of luxury hotels’ positive reviews on SNSs. We propose that positive reviews may encourage social comparison and trigger feelings of malicious envy, thereby negatively influencing purchase intentions. Results from two experiments show that high similarity between the review writer and readers increases readers’ social comparison tendency, which induces malicious envy when the writer is considered undeserving of luxury hotel consumption. This leads to decreased purchase intentions toward the hotel brand mentioned in the review and increased purchase intentions toward competing hotel brands. The findings have implications for buzz marketing strategies seeking to mitigate the risk of eliciting malicious envy on SNSs.