Abstract
Purpose: This paper aims to identify and compare the graphical shapes and meanings attributed to place/city by the designer/creative/author of a city visual identity (VI) and by the client and designer’s peers. Design/methodology/approach: To identify and compare the graphical shapes and meanings attributed to place/city by the designer/creative/author of a city VI and by the client and designer’s peers. Findings: This paper analysed the way the visual culture of different stakeholders influenced the process and the construction of the iconographic meanings. Secondly, this paper assessed how the design tools impacted the creative process in that specific context. Practical implications: A demanding involvement of more participants in the design process can be worthy for a VI outcome. Visual identity of a city is both designer’s creative as a political process. The several aesthetical options decisions implied adaptation, trade-offs and negotiations. Originality/value: This research explains how the design tools and forms were used in the creative process of designers when conceiving the VI of a place. This research also reveals how a design work can have an effective impact on the sensory qualities emanating from city brands which are recognized by tourists and citizens. The consideration of the designer’s tools makes a relevant contribution to understand some underlying procedural issues.

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Increasing digitalization has posed new challenges for businesses, and digital coupons are an important means of promoting their sales. However, there are still gaps in the literature on how they are distributed. The objective of this paper is to study whether the distribution of digital coupons through a referral program increases purchase intention and perceived quality towards a product. By conducting an experimental design, the results point out that consumer purchase intention increases if the recommendation is made by someone with a strong relationship and if a digital coupon is offered, and when the tie relationship is weak or no relationship, it does not vary significantly. On the other hand, the results showed that perceived quality does not vary with the offer of a digital coupon, regardless of the strength of the tie between the person who recommended and the consumer. Current research suggests that managers should use this information to design a digital coupon program tailored to the company’s objectives to retain and capture customers. This new approach to digital voucher distribution is one of the first to investigate their distribution, and their simultaneous use with a referral program. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

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This study intends to understand whether hotels should choose to surprise through a discount or a surprise gift. The experiment consisted in identifying whether there were differences in satisfaction and delight, according to the associated treatment (no surprise, surprise discount, or gift). With this purpose, a fictional hotel website was created for participants to simulate a reservation. Through the analysis of the experiment, the impact of surprise on customer satisfaction was confirmed. It was also found that, in the hospitality industry, a gift has a higher impact on satisfaction than a discount. When analyzing the guest delight, the results differ from what is stipulated in the literature (which points to the significant impact of surprise in this measure). It was concluded that between the two promotion tools, only the gift can significantly increase customer delight. This study demonstrates the importance of understanding the concept of surprise according to different industries. It also points to the importance of identifying the best methods to surprise customers, as different methods may lead to different results. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

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Vicarious experiences in tourism possess significant marketing implications. While numerous studies have explored how various forms of vicarious experiences can impact an individual, the role of different time spans as a key factor determining the extent of said impact has been neglected in prior research. To address this gap, the present study thus bridges environmental psychology with the context of tourism and applies the theory of mental representations. An experiment (n = 359) was designed to examine differences in select mental representation dimensions (cognitive, affective, conative, and sensorial) among male and female Chinese college students who have zero/medium/maximum durations of constant vicarious experiences related to European destinations in their home environment. The results indicate that the medium duration of constant vicarious experiences leads to the most positive changes in cognitive and conative dimensions, while the longest constant vicarious experiences produce desirable affective dimension outcomes. Moreover, male college students seem to be more susceptible to the influences of such constant vicarious experiences.