ABSTRACT
This chapter critically evaluates the current state of research on customer motivation, attitudes and beliefs in the field of hospitality marketing. Specifically, the chapter reviews the conceptualization and operationalization of these terms in the current hospitality marketing literature. Motivation and beliefs are thought to impact attitude towards hospitality objects and subjects. While there is no accepted scale to measure motivation, researchers tend to adapt scales from the tourism and psychology literature. Hospitality researchers have not gone beyond conceptualizing and measuring attitude at the individual level and primarily use the theory of reasoned action and the theory of planned behavior to understand the link between attitudes and behavior. Beliefs and values are used interchangeably in existing research, which hampers operationalization of the concept of beliefs. The chapter concludes by highlighting some important gaps in the conceptualization and operationalization of these terms in the hospitality marketing literature.
