Hospitality service aesthetic of luxury hotel front desk and its effect on consumers’ willingness-to-pay price premium

Draws on the integration of aesthetic theory and transaction-specific satisfaction theory, this study concentrated on the concept of hospitality service aesthetics of the front desk of luxury hotel about consumers’ perception among the visual servicescape and humanistic appearance and potential effect on their willingness-to-pay price premium. A mixed method approach of both lab experiment and field investigation was applied to test three hypotheses. The results showed that consumers’ visual aesthetics of front desk with non-thematic style have a more significant impact on their willingness-to-pay price premium compared to the thematic style. This study also indicated that the physical attractiveness of employees is a moderator only when consumers’ willingness-to-pay price premium during service interactions in the context of thematic front desk with low hospitableness.