Introduction

Coronavirus (namely COVID-19) is a highly infectious disease and is transmitted through human sneezing, coughing, breathing, and speaking (Syed, 2020; Tang et al., 2013). Chu et al. (2020) found that COVID-19, within 48-h period, produced virus particles that are three times more contagious than that of SARS from the infected lung tissues. Especially, a research unit declared that there is a likelihood that the virus would mix the aerosol suspended in the air and breathe in by human (Van Doremalen et al., 2020). In addition, clustered infections have been reported in bars, hotels, hot pot cafes, wedding banquets, and karaoke parlors. Infected people include, but not limited to customers, servers, performers, managers, and staff in the administrative office.

To prevent the prevalence of COVID-19, the World Health Organization (WHO) advised people to wear a mask when getting symptoms or have looked after someone who contracted COVID-19 (WHO, 2020). Also, some studies found that wearing mask could help reduce virus transmission or prevent the spread of infectious droplets via mouth and nose. More recently, one experiment revealed that the hamsters in the cage with wrapped mask materials are less likely to be infected (Chan et al., 2020). It was found that the non-contact transmission rate was 66.7%, meaning that ten out of 15 healthy hamsters had become infected with no partition, and the number of transmission was dropped significantly to 25% (6 out of 24, p = 0.018) with the present of surgical mask partition. Cheng et al. (2020) also concluded that community-wide mask wearing may contribute to the control of virus by lowering the act of exhaling infected saliva and respiratory droplets from individuals with mild COVID-19.

While vaccine that can inhibit the COVID-19 has already come into existence, vaccination on global scale may take a longer time, wearing mask by guests and staff as protective gear has become a “regular” and “normal” practice. In face of this, many hoteliers have thus quickened to select and order effective masks for guests and employees to protect their health. Hence, the consumption of mask, which subsequently becomes disposed waste, is believed to be tremendous.

Currently, the standards of quality masks being used are set by various country’s recognized standard offices. Six producing countries (EU, USA, Australia, Taiwan, and Mainland China) use criteria to specifying their masks’ standard including bacterial filtration efficiency, splash resistant/synthetic blood resistance, sub-micron particulate filtration efficiency, differential pressure, flame spread, and microbial cleanliness. Among these criteria, the informants said that the bacterial filtration efficiency ranging from 95 to 98% and the sub-micron particulate filtration efficiency are the two major important criteria for reference in purchasing decision for hotel environment at the moment. In addition, they also learnt that, under each standard, there are three to four some sub-categories; some are designed for use in surgical situations for this purpose.

To meet the prospective demand and alleviate this foreseeable environmental problem, manufacturers have been researching and designing options that can mitigate this impact. Recently, a reusable copper-impregnated face mask (cu mask) has been innovated and commercialized in studied region. Basically, the mask complies with the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) F2100 Level 1 Standard in terms of particle filtration efficiency, bacterial filtration efficiency, resistance to penetration by synthetic blood, flammability, and pressure resistance as being claimed by many protective facial masks’ manufacturers.

Apart meeting the above standards, a recently produced copper-impregnated masks excel in that it has anti-virus function and remains effective even after 60 washes (HKG, 2020). The novel aspects are a viscose and cotton material impregnated with copper oxide, and a polypropylene nonwoven with copper oxide for the innovated mask. In addition, the design principle follows the ergonomics. The effectiveness of this mask was verified by a laboratory certificate and a third party certification. The details of the latter two are not easy to be found in the portal of manufacturers for many masks available in the market. In the end, the mask was recognized by an innovative award in Geneva for its design and capability of anti-coronavirus (Anonymous, 2020).

In view of the accomplishment, the government provided assistance to the manufacturers to produce and commercialize this mask after adding the agronomy design. To hoteliers who are in favor of adopting innovative technology and maintain high-standard hygienic environment, this appears as a good news. Upscale hotels, compared with the economic ones, may have a higher potential of adopting the innovative masks for its role as distributor of masks for guests and staff.

Whereas research with such understanding of the intermediary role in the innovation process is scarce as the main focuses of most adoption innovation research were on potential adopters or end-users. Many attributes were reported to have an effect (either positive or negative) on adoption intention. Nevertheless, which main or sub-attributes are more robust to explain the intention of the mediator is obscure.

This study seeks to investigate the views of hoteliers with regard to their adoption intentions of the innovative product. More specifically, this study aims to:

  1. (1)

    explore how hoteliers rate the importance of the general attributes for adopting the studied mask,

  2. (2)

    identify the industry-specific attributes under the general attributes, and

  3. (3)

    elucidate the rationale of the above identified industry-specific attributes for and against adoption.

Literature Review

Generally speaking, researchers refer adoption to the first evaluation of an innovation and a commitment to use it on various occasions (Lee, 2012) or to a decision to make full use of an innovation (Olshavsky & Spreng, 1996). Robbins and O’Gorman (2015) described adoption as the endpoint of the new product development project. According to Rogers (2003), adoption occurred after a five-step decision-making process, namely, awareness, interest, evaluation, trial, and adoption. In a later edition, the process was further refined to suggest that a potential adopter goes through five stages when adopting an innovation, starting from becoming aware of the innovation, followed by persuasion, decision, implementation, and confirmation. At the decision stage, an adopter has the choice to either adopt or reject the innovation. In this context, adoption takes place at the “decision” stage.

Diffusion of Innovation Theory (DOI)

Over the past decades, a very rich body of instructive and influential models have been developed to address factors that have affected innovation diffusion through different lenses and angles (Breier et al., 2021; Balas & Chapman, 2018). Outstanding examples include the Theory of Reasoned Action, and the widely applied behavioral models such as the Theory of Planned Behavior and the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) (Confente & Vigolo, 2018; Huang et al., 2019; Olya et al., 2019). Table 1 shows a comparative review on the relevant literature about research on diffusion of innovation. And an elaborative and structured analysis on the reviewed research publication is as follows.

Table 1 Summarizing literature review on innovation diffusion
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The history of diffusion research can be traced back to the study conducted by rural sociologists Ryan and Gross (1943). This study triggered a series of diffusion research, and the concept was extended to many other fields such as communication, education, and public health. In 1962, Rogers synthesized the common themes and general patterns among various disciplines to generalize the diffusion model in his seminal works, which clearly defined diffusion as a communication process and specified a more standardized way for adopter categorization (see Rogers, 2004). As a theory, the DOI model explains how new ideas, products, or technological devices diffuse (or spread) through a particular population over time. From knowing of a product to finally adopting it depends on one’s decision and behavior, indicating that adoption is a complete individual process. While diffusion demonstrates how an innovation spreads into the market, showing a group phenomenon (Savas-Hall et al., 2019). The key to adoption, therefore, relies on the perceptions of adopters (ranging from innovators to laggards), which ultimately influence their decision making and action taking process. It is through this that the diffusion of new ideas could possibly be achieved.

This theory has soon attracted scholarly interest from a wide range of backgrounds and has driven enormous adoption-diffusion researches, publications, and presentations, which have exceeded over 5000 (Rogers, 2004). For example, this theory is particularly applicable not only in purchasing decision analysis but also in transnational research (Balas & Chapmen, 2018). Prior findings have also indirectly led to the discovery of a wider inventory of other attributes and influencers that are related to innovation adoption (e.g., Dizgah et al., 2011; Hameed et al., 2012; Hashem & Tann, 2007; Nevo et al., 2016; Oturakci & Yuregir, 2018). Based on the observation of this pattern, consumers’ response to the innovation has become a top research priority in some specific fields, such as marketing science. Numerous factors were developed to examine their impacts, positive or negative, on innovation adoption (Claudy et al., 2015; Kleijnen et al., 2009). The leading drivers of the innovation adoption are generally divided into three categories—innovation characteristics, adopter characteristics, and environmental variables. The first group refers to the features that consumers take to evaluate an innovation. The second category denotes the personal traits of potential adopters of an innovation, which can be further split into sociodemographic antecedents such as age, education, or gender (Im et al., 2003) and psychographics such as innovativeness, optimism, proficiency, dependence, and vulnerability (Bartels & Reinders, 2011). The last group refers to the factors that do not relate to either the individual or the innovation, such as interpersonal communication, industry competitiveness, or the social system (Reinhardt et al., 2017; Rogers, 2003; Sheeral et al., 2019; Skare & Soriano, 2021).

In addition, Rogers (1962) identified and outlined five key attributes of an innovation that play an important role in determining the likelihood of adoption. Innovation attributes have vast usage in the adoption-diffusion research. They are relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability. Since the current study aims to investigate the adoption intention of the hoteliers of a newly designed product—copper-impregnated mask, the five attributes are highly appropriate, important, and relevant. It is used as the primary attribute-set in structuring the framework.

DOI’s Relative Advantage

Scholars pointed out that “in the innovation adoption process, the desirability to adopt a new product or service is higher in the case where the potential adopter perceives the innovation to be advantageous and compatible with their needs” (Arts et al., 2011, p.136). The advantage is perceived as economic profitability, social prestige, or other gains by potential users. Thus, the economic and service value brought by the adoption of the investigate mask are considered as directions for investigating industry-specific attributes of adopting the studied innovative masks by hoteliers.

Besides, a potential adopter would be motivated to adopt an innovation if it is considered as relatively more advantageous than an existing product at bringing some benefits in the social status aspects (Mannan et al., 2017; Oturakci & Yuregir, 2018; Rogers, 2003). The claimed anti-virus function of the impregnated copper in the mask may thus bring advantage than other masks.

DOI’s Compatibility

Compatibility is defined as the degree to which a target innovation is seen by potential adopters to be consistent with their existing values, past experiences, and current needs (Rogers, 2003). Tornatzky and Klein (1982) reported that an innovation was more likely to be adopted when it was compatible with the job responsibilities and value system of an individual. A strong positive relationship between compatibility and the perception for adoption is found (Sarel & Marmorstein, 2003). And compatibility is thought to closely relate to the concept of relative advantage in that they both are viewed in the context of current practices. (Mannan et al., 2017; Park et al., 2018).

DOI’s Complexity

Complexity suggests that the likelihood of adoption is lessen when an innovation is perceived as difficult to understand and use (Pérez-Luño et al., 2019; Roger, 2003). As indicated by Tan and Teo (2000), if an innovation comes with a high degree of complexity, higher level of technical skills are required from an individual, as a result, greater implementation and operational efforts are needed to increase its chance of adoption. Otherwise, frustration, in addition to rejection, discontinuance, and misuse of the innovation would emerge. Therefore, this attribute is often associated as a significant negative influence on the potential users’ adoption intentions and use decisions (Joachim et al., 2018; Kapoor et al., 2015).

DOI’s Trialability

Rogers (2003) defined trialability as the extent to which an innovation is allowed to be experimented with by the potential adopters on a limited basis. Rogers (2003) argued that giving the chance to adopters to try out an innovation would minimize certain fears, uncertainties, and risks, in turn, it results in higher level of comfortability and confidence to use the innovation at a later stage and boosts the likelihood of trail adoption. This attribute is found to have a significant effect on the users’ adoption intentions across various fields, such as mobile Internet (Hsu et al., 2007; Park et al., 2018).

DOI’s Observability

Observability refers to how communicable and visible the positive results of an innovation are to others in the social system (Rogers, 2003). In other words, it is about the measure of the degree to which the use of an innovation becomes apparent (Kapoor et al., 2015). Because of the intricate nature of visibility, this attribute was further divided into two concepts by Moore and Benbasat (1991) as demonstrability and visibility. The former refers to ‘‘the tangibility of the results of using an innovation” and the latter stands for ‘‘the extent to which potential adopters see the innovation as being visible in the adoption context” (p. 203).

DOI’s Uncertainty

Uncertainty (or risk), an extended attribute in diffusion and adoption theory, was conceptualized by Bauer (1960) and widely adapted by the DOI literature (Arts et al., 2011; Rey-Moreno & Medina-Molina, 2017; Tan & Teo, 2000). It is defined as how the potential adopters perceive the security of the functional, social, and/or financial consequences of adopting an innovation (Arts et al., 2011). Inevitably, any attempts to adopt a new innovation, uncertainty might occur as an outcome of such action. Some of the outcomes may be negative (e.g., lack of privacy or control) or using the innovation may be perceived as high-risk undertaking; it would lower their intention to adopt (Chis et al., 2018; Kim & Amran, 2018). Recent studies also found that uncertainty is usually negatively associated with innovation adoption and therefore management plan is required to reduce the negative impact if the adoption is decided (Anthony et al., 2008; Shipilov et al., 2010; Smith et al., 2018). While in the present study, uncertainty may be predicted when potential adopters believe that adopting the mask includes the possibility of safety issues relating to health or other factors (Wang et al., 2012). Hence, this attribute, certainty or uncertainty, is also included as part of the framework to address the general concern of the effectiveness and capability of the studded mask, which is claimed to be linked directly to the reduction of the virus intake into the human system.

General-to-Specific Approach

In retrospect of the literature review above, many existing adoption decision models for innovative products mainly concentrate on the information technology (IT)-related devices and directly address the side of end-users. While their models provide a certain degree of references in develo** the adoption intention model in the present investigation, it is also necessary to note that the investigated mask is however non-IT by nature and the studied adopters—hotel managers—are not the end-users. In the adoption process, hotel managers play merely the role of distributors who direct the mask to staff and/or customers.

In view of this background and development, this study employs a general-to-specific approach, which has been employed in a number of tourism and hospitality research, to investigate the drivers for adoption intention (Ariffin, 2013; Ayeh & Lin, 2011; Wei et al., 2013; Wu & Ko, 2013). In this study, attributes that initiate the hotel managers to adopt the mask would be explored from general to specific angles. General drivers would firstly be studied. They include the five main attributes derived from the classical model proposed by Rogers (1962) and the attribute uncertainty plus the attribute of affordability raised in the pilot test. The industry-specific drivers would then be delved into to disclose the hotel managers’ cognitive attributes that determine their adoption intention (see Fig. 1 for the research framework).

Fig. 1
figure 1

Research framework of the intention to initiate the adoption of copper-impregnated masks

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Methods

In the present study, qualitative approach was adopted to understand perspectives about the adoption of new types of masks, owing to the exploratory nature of the studying object and the need of examining the original context of the narrative accounts (Castro et al., 2010). Data was collected through semi-structured interviews which provide the researchers with more flexibility to explore the qualitative data. As a rather open framework of adoption innovation was built, the setting of the semi-structured interviews would allow researchers to collect and obtain more useful information from a focused but conversational two-way communication with the participants (Brown & Danaher, 2017). The purpose of this study is to shed light on the localist perspective, thematic analysis, which was commonly seen in small sample research, was then employed for data analysis (Alvarez & Urla, 2002; Pathak & Intratat, 2012; Qu & Dumay, 2011).

Places of Studies

To investigate the perspectives of hoteliers and attributes that constitute their adoption intentions of the innovative product—copper impregnated mask, 40 interviews were conducted with the hotel managers in the upscale hotels which are located in four cities inside the Greater Bay Area (GBA): Macau, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou (Table 2). Thirty interviews were conducted on a face-to-face basis and ten were done online. Semi-structured questionnaire was used during the interview to solicit the hoteliers’ views. Each interview lasted 20 to 45 min. The interviews were then transcribed and analyzed based on the context.

Table 2 Number of upscale hotels in the market and studied hotels
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Pilot Study

Before conducting the actual interview, the interview guide with a set of questions had been piloted with five hotel professionals with experience in rooms, marketing, and finance (Roller & Lavrakas, 2015; Sampson, 2004). Based on their feedback, substantial change had been made on the interviewing questions. The discussion in the pilot study with the hospitality professionals threw light on another chief attribute of initiating adoption—affordability and on two industry-specific attributes—Average Daily Rate (ADR) and discount offered in bulk purchase, which are relatively unique and unmatched to any of the main drivers conceptualized and tested by previous studies, to our best knowledge. Interviewees also shared that most hotel businesses are operated under management contract that requires operating managers to seek approval on purchasing non-recurrent items from owner office. In submitting application for procurement of the studied mask in bulk, justification is necessary. ADR and discount are applicable indicators to reflect anticipated revenue and cost that subsequently implies the affordability of the hotel. These newly generated attributes were later included as part of the interview questions.

Procedures

The whole interview was divided into three sections—warm-up, development, and closing. The warm-up section aimed to give the informants an overview of the research project and to establish an informal setting and the trust needed for a comfortable interview (Artis, 2014). The informants were informed about the research aims, the structure and length of the interviews, the confidentiality of the collected data, and the informants’ anonymity (Chan et al., 2015, 2017).

In the first part of the development section, interviewees were showed the photo of the mask and bulletin points about its benefits. In the second part, they were invited to give a rating on the degree of importance about the seven general attributes to initiate adoption intention (King & Horrocks, 2010) on a 10-point scale (1 = extremely unimportant, 10 = extremely important). Then, the protocol proceeded to pose questions so as to seek for the views and rationales of their rating. More detailed questions were asked when interviewees expressed their suggested drivers during the interview. Because of this approach, the interviewees have flexibility and freedom in deciding what needed to be described, how much explanation to offer, and how much detail to be given. The third part contained two rating questions on a 10-point scale about the rebounded level of Average Daily Room Rate (based on the room price) during the epidemic and the masks’ discounted percentage as these two factors can also trigger the intention to adopt copper-infused mask.

Coding and Reliability

The theoretically backed and inductively oriented approaches were used to analyze the collected data (Miles et al., 2013). Given the relatively small sample size, manual coding was selected as an effective and efficient method to process the qualitative interview data. During the open coding, researchers identified and underlined the keywords and phrases according to the main attributes and rationales related to the framework. The identified attributes and rationales were validated if it reoccurred many times or was mentioned simultaneously by various informants.

After reading through all the interview transcripts, the three investigators held several discussions to finalize the coding scheme. Two researchers coded all the interview transcripts on the basis of the seven main attributes pitched in the framework. Percentage agreement (total coding agreement to total number of coding decisions) was adopted as the coefficient of inter-coder reliability (Olson et al., 2016). Due to the simple nature of the interview questions and coding scheme, this study yielded a fairly high inter-coder reliability of 94% which exceeded the recommended threshold level of 80% (Riffe et al., 1998). The third researcher reviewed all the coding and finalized the results by making final decisions on a few codes where the two coders had disagreed. The 6% disagreement was mainly derived from four specific attributes possessing two characteristics that can be coded under two general attributes.

Findings and Discussion

Interviewees’ Profiles

As displayed in Table 2, 16 interviewees are working as executives including General Managers and Deputy General Managers at property level and another 24 are working as department heads including Directors of Rooms, Purchasing Managers, Revenue Management Managers, Directors of Sales, Finance Managers, and Catering Managers. The gender ratio is 13 females to 27 males. The total number of their working experience in hotels is up to 812 years. Regarding to their education level, the collected data shows that two are at Doctoral level, two are Doctoral Candidates, 16 and 18 are graduates with Master degree and Bachelor degree respectively.

General and Industry-Specific Attributes

On the holistic perspective, the investigation identified 31 industry-specific drivers which can initiate the hoteliers’ intention to adopt the examined mask. Among these specific drivers, 17 drivers are actionable on the hotel side, and 14 suggested drivers fall within the areas that can be carried out and realized by the continuing effort of the manufacturers.

Relative Advantage and Industry-Specific Attributes

The rated usefulness of relative advantage as a general attribute to initiate intention to adopt was found to have an average of 8.2 (SD 2.11 and CI 7.55–8.85 at 95%) on a 10-point scale (1 = extremely unimportant, 10 = extremely important). This result displays that relative advantage is ranked as the top among the other six main attributes (see Table 3 for summary).

Table 3 Profile of the interviewees and studied hotels
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Eighteen interviewees suggested that the studied mask has the potential to be converted to manipulated items in the revenue management for room pricing; it can either be the free amenity or packaged incentives. This idea echoes with prior studies that have investigated a set of in-room attributes, including innovative smart phone service and free mini-bar items as means to test the customers’ willingness to pay, in order to maximize yield from higher room rate under revenue management (Masiero et al., 2015).

Informants also pointed out that casino hotels can usually generate more yield than hotel operations as the former can offer many free-of-charge amenities or even guest rooms to attract potential customers to stay and gamble in casinos. Two informants further commented that the mask could be used as additional free amenities in the suite rooms, which are priced much higher than standard rooms. Especially, the consumption cost of these amenities was close to the selling price of the studied mask.

Additionally, the innovative mask could be considered as an item in the hotel guest or loyalty program for redemption with points after a satisfactory result of trial use. Interviewees also suggested that, given the existing scientific recognition by government and renowned laboratory testing results, the mask could be introduced to long-staying guests as a kind of appreciation or a sample of trial use. Alternatively, the mask could also be combined as the standard set-up of the free amenities in the VIP rooms or as discounted souvenir products for in-house guests. In other words, the promotional selling or free offering of the innovated mask may add advantageous value to the hotel service.

Complexity and Industry-Specific Attributes

The analysis shows that the complexity attribute bears a mean of 7.78 (SD 1.41 and CI 7.34—8.22 at 95%) in the adoption framework. Three informants believed that some free posters or audio–video clip**s about maintenance of the mask would be useful; this may also facilitate human resource (HR) department to deliver relevant trainings to staff and enhancing their absorption of the knowledge.

In terms of ways to mitigate the complexity to use, interviewees suggested that the manufacturers should think of and design some convenient devices that can help the users to clean the mask daily. While some online audio-visual aids are available which show the steps in washing and drying the mask, informants noted that staff may not be willing to spend several minutes to wash or clean the mask. They predicted that staff would most likely to place the uncleaned or wet mask in staff locker. This may cause another severe hygienic problem. Therefore, if some devices are available for quickening the dry-up process, the likelihood of initiating adoption intention can be raised. However, the provision of quick and hygienic dry-up service may create a cost implication. The development cost of dry-up machine may be transferred to hoteliers.

Equally important, two informants shared the difficulty they faced in their procurement experience, saying that the quality of the masks’ materials in each order has been inconsistent. The supply has been unstable due to the intense competition and increased demand for raw materials. The production line was affected by the insufficient materials as a result of the stoppage of the exported materials across the world in the market. If manufactures could offer any guarantee that could alleviate such worry would be favored.

Compatibility and Industry-Specific Attributes

Compatibility, as a general attribute, has been ascertained to be addressed the most and carries a rated mean of 7.53 (SD 1.91 and CI 6.94–8.12 at 95%). As shown in Table 4, having the frequency of 107 times, eight industry attributes for initiating adoption intention were most frequently mentioned and suggested by the interviewed hoteliers.

Table 4 Identified industry-specific attributes for initiating intention of adoption
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Some informants expressed that maintaining high hygienic environment has always been an upheld standard in deluxe hotel; the claimed anti-virus function of the innovated mask may serve this purpose. For instances, the value of resorts that have their own laboratory for sanitation control, and of hotels with certifications about food and beverage hygiene or cleaner air quality certification is compatible with innovated features of the studied masks. Besides, the larger profit margin of deluxe hotels allows them to enjoy more resources to make use of the innovated facilities or service.

It has been found that the preference for more color and more size of the studied mask are the two highly expressed drivers of adoption intention. Other than using color to match with hotel’s own designated color and guest preference, interviewees suggested to use color to differentiate some departments and remarked that it is likely to prevent the staff from picking up other staff’s mark if there is only one color. Provision of tailored-made hotel slogans on the mask surface can also be articulated with hotel management approach. The above expressed preference echoes with previous findings that product design meeting business image is one of the significant drivers of innovation adoption (Chhabra et al., 2020; Moore & Benbasat, 1991).

Besides the image, hoteliers also paid attention to the uniform’s design that can enhance the operational efficiency. Five indicated that comfortability of the uniform or mask is therefore a critical step towards efficiency. It would be better if the masks have both summer and winter model in future to fit the ambient temperature of the working environment, especially due to relatively laboring duties in making up rooms and kitchen operations plus walking in non-air-conditioned area in tropical summer. Duck-shaped design allows more air inside for breathing and may reduce the chance of skin allergic due to the contact with mask’s materials.

In addition, five informants also added that the provision for the participation of hotel designers in the design process could increase the adoption intention as managers in the upscale property would usually consult with professional designers when designing the staff uniform. They claimed that uniform designers took the hotel designated staff grooming and hotel’s standardized colors into consideration in their design. They hoped that the design of the studied mark could also reflect the hotel’s unique characteristics.

Apart from these, environmental conservation has been one of the management chain’s value advocated by many upscale hotels. Five interviewees wondered if the manufacturer could provide any recycling service of the disposal copper mask to make the product become more environmentally friendly. They expressed concern about the current dum** of discarded mask to landfill, which has not only brought sanitation problem, but has also added the burden to existing landfill.

Trialability and Industry-Specific Attributes

The result reveals that the general attribute—trialability—has a rated average of 7.28 (SD 2.06 and CI 6.64–7.92 at 95%). Six specific drivers to enhance the likelihood of trial use are raised by interviewees. Free trial use appears to be a highly preferred option among interviewees. Based on their past experience in adopting the modern version of in-room handy phone, trial use of an innovation is essential and necessary. They suggested that in exchange of a certain amount of mask for trial use, some areas in the hotels, such as hotel lobby, lift lobby at each floor, and staff canteen, can be used to display the innovated mask together with its certifications and form for subsequent feedback. This kind of initiative is particularly suitable for hotels that have goals for innovation or high sanitation standards.

Interviewees also suggested that the mask can be offered to long-staying guests as a kind of appreciation so as to obtain their feedback on the trial use. It would be relatively easier to collect feedback from this segment of guests than travelers who just stay in the hotel for several days. Since the previous tourism crises caused by SAR epidemic and Asian Financial Crisis, the long-staying guests have been widely targeted by hoteliers as a way to stabilize hotel revenue. Thus, these two attributes together would raise the hoteliers’ adoption intention. Besides, event organizers and online travel agents are usually the contact where the hoteliers can collect feedback from the departed guests. These two sources could also serve as the channels for arranging trial use of mask and collecting responses.

Moreover, five interviewees expressed that the hotels have been monitoring if there are any skin allergic issues after the staff has worn the ordered masks. Thus, offering a small number of free trial for allergic testing would be favorable to raise the adoption intention. In addition, trial use of mask by kitchen staff should be prioritized as they had already worn mask in operations before the epidemic.

Observability and Industry-Specific Attributes

As a general attribute, the rated average of observability to initiate adoption is 6.83 (SD 2.00; CI 6.21–7.45 at 95%). To enhance observability, interviewees suggested to set some demonstrations and displays at front office’s resting area, floor lobbies near lifts, and staff canteen. To further enhance the visibility of the innovative product, one even suggested to place the mask in its guest service and item-selling robots in return for revenue. Besides, the mask could also be used as hotel’s giveaway items during the visits of key accounts, high-yield clients, and corporate segments.

Certainty and Industry-Specific Attributes

The mean of certainty, as general attribute to initiate proposal of adoption, is 7.45 (SD 1.88 and CI 6.87–8.03 at 95%). To strengthen hoteliers’ confidence of functionality, interviewees suggested that manufacturer’s Research and Development may strengthen the product in terms of design, structure, and materials so as to elongate the effective duration of washable period to over 60 days in future. In other words, the interviewees hoped that for the next version of the mask, the technology of making the mask still effective after 60 washes could be further reinforced so as to prolong the useful period.

In addition, one informant claimed that the more numbers of independent certifications and visible proofs in scientific reports the mask obtain, the more confident they will have in adopting the innovation. Two informants raised that manufactures should acquire certifications to give proof of the dust-free environment and the sterilization from production to packaging process. One added that it would be better if the Consumer Council can take up the monitoring responsibility to verify the safety of the mask and issue authoritative certificates about its quality and effectiveness. One added that collective procurement of mask made by the industry association would also have implications that the association had already done research about the reliability of the product. Yet, another informant added that studies must be done to investigate the effectiveness of the mask before the industry association calling for collective purchase. Furthermore, informants also suggested that if there are some audiovisual clips showing interviews with professors in Chemistry or Microbiology about their views on the functionality of the copper mask, then the level of confidence in adopting the mask would certainly be raised.

Affordability and Industry-Specific Attributes

The analysis exhibits that affordability, as a general attribute to initiate intention, carries a rated mean of 5.94 (SD 2.34 and CI 5.18–6.70 at 95%) which has the lowest rating among other general attributes. A closer examination of the data reveals that four respondents who are serving in luxury properties did not favor the use of Average Doom Rate (ADR) as an attribute, which indirectly lowered the rating. They thought that luxury hotel operator should treat the search for quality mask as a guest service and their hotels or guests are able to absorb the given cost price. Another said that his hotel employed the bundled pricing which offers other valuable services such as complimentary breakfast and entertainment ticket during the epidemic period, in lieu of lowering room rate. Thus, the rebounding level of ADR is not found to a relevant driver in their decision making.

However, results show that 90% interviewees agreed that ADR is the crucial management statistic for them to consider initiating the adoption of innovated mask because this indicator may crudely estimate the room department’s gross profit margin. The approval authorities in hotel executives’ and owners’ meeting would take this indicator as one of the major references. Interviewees predicted that if the rebound level of ADR increased by 55% in average (SD 27% and CI 46.51–64.91 at 95%) during the epidemic period, it can be regarded as a threshold point to trigger intention to propose adoption of investigated mask if other criteria are also positive.

On the other hand, the actual magnitude of discount offered by manufacturer is also a key consideration for the interviewees. They added that the existing online price in retail market is not acceptable to hotels since hoteliers usually procure in bulk. There was also precedent that hotels made joint order for the same item in order to receive a deeper discount. Two interviewees also mentioned that it would be most helpful if hotel industry association acts as a middle agent to liaise with interested hoteliers to make bulky purchase so as to acquire a larger discount. The study finds that interviewees took discount up to 54% (SD 19.92 and CI 48.24–60.73 at 95%) as the other critical reference level for initiating the adoption intention.

Conclusion

Due to the pandemic and likely infection of COVID virus via air transmission, wearing mask as a protective device has been strongly recommended by health authorities and governments, especially in densely occupied area and small enclosure. Because of the daily need of masks in many situations, the potential demand for more different types of quality masks has thus existed. To meet the market need, many research and development focusing on creating effective and innovative masks have been undertaken. Once such a kind of product is ready, it is necessary to devise marketing plan to transfer the innovated product knowledge to the potential customers, seek their acceptance, and trigger their intention to purchase.

Against the above background, this research bases on the six dimensions of classical and extended diffusion model of innovated products to construct a framework specific for diffusing coming innovations of masks. The established specific model with its elucidated 31 attributes being recognized by studied executives in the role of distribution provides a practical reference for management to evaluate and make the procurement decisions. In addition, the elaborated content of attributes and the newly added dimension—“affordability” of the developed diffusion framework specific for mask innovation in the study has substantiated theoretical model of innovative diffusion.

In the present study, 40 semi-structured interviews were conducted to solicit the general attributes and industry-specific attributes for initiating adoption intention of the innovative copper-impregnated masks by hoteliers. The research framework is built based on the classical diffusion model of innovation proposed by Rogers (1962), which contained five main attributes, together with two extended attributes; the investigation found that relative advantage, complexity, compatibility, uncertainty, and trialability are important criteria for the hoteliers to consider whether or not to adopt an innovation. Most importantly, 31 industry-specific attributes together with the rationales were identified which can be harnessed by hoteliers when consider initiating intention to adopt the forthcoming innovated masks in the new normal period (Table 5).

Table 5 Rated significance of main attributes for initiating adoption intention
Full size table

The identified attributes, its industry-based rationale, and taxonomical structure provide support to the view that the dimensionality of the adoption intention constructs depends on the hotel industry under investigation and adds support to the claims that industry-specific attribute of adopting innovative facilities needs to be developed. The same phenomenon has been observed in the service quality studies that have called for the development of industry-specific attributes for service quality construct (Brady & Cronin, 2001; Clemes et al., 2009; Kang, 2006).

Besides, the findings from the present study could also serve as the reference for risk management process under ISO31000, which is designed at company level (Ibáñez et al., 2016; Olechowski et al., 2016; Purdy, 2010). The process of risk management under ISO31000 starts from setting up scope and criteria for risk assessment which includes risk identification, risk analysis, and risk evaluation. Then the framework comes to risk treatment, recording, and reporting. The adoption intention model of the innovated masks could also become a mitigating device for the consideration of the crisis management.

To conclude, the current study represents the first of its kind in the hospitality field, and the findings may help to substantiate theoretical framework of diffusing masks’ innovation specific to the hotel industry. At the same time, these identified attributes can also serve as a reference for hotel owners and chain leadership to consider adopting any forthcoming masks with innovative properties or not.

Limitations

In the analytical process, researchers note that some identified industry attributes are mutually inclusive over two dimensions (main attributes) with strong industry evidence offered by the interviewees. For instance, the provision of places in hotel for displaying masks in exchange for free or discounted trial use, this suggested attribute can be categorized under both observability and trialability attributes. Another mutually inclusive condition is exemplified by hotel’s willingness to prompt the long-staying guests to use the trial mask. This initiative can also be classified both under the relative advantage as adding.

Future Research

As the current investigation is exploratory by nature and is confined to upscale hotels, future research may opt for quantitative approach by enlarging sample size and extend to investigate hoteliers’ response in the medium-scaled hotels.

Also, the almost half-and-half split of actionable attributes to be carried out by hoteliers and manufacturers imply that the notion of co-creation theory may be relevant in this situation in which the involvement between producers and consumers is encouraged to create valuable experience. It is worthwhile for future empirical studies to delve into this theoretical domain.

Prideaux (2004) argued that crisis management is not found in the normal operating framework of many small tourism businesses that do not plan beyond day-to-day survival. Ritchie (2008) also echoes and further raises that domestic destination offices need to assist stakeholders to develop reduction and readiness strategies and highlights an urgent need to understand any potential barrier and facilitators of tourism disaster planning. Taking the findings from this research, one can continue the investigation into the functionality and application of the studied mask, which could also be an input as one of the agenda items for crisis management.

More recently, researchers have developed a flexible resin material that kills 99% COVID-19 virus on surfaces as claimed. Lee (2022) reported on a new material that contains cationic (positively charged) compounds that pierces the cell membrane of the virus to kill it. When used in a 3D printer, the resin can take on different forms catering to different needs. For high touch surfaces like door handles, the new material can terminate almost all viruses and bacteria on its surface in 20 min. Another type of materials that claim for filtrating virus and is called “nano materials” has also been recently innovated for mask production (Chhikara et al., 2021; Seidi et al., 2021). Thus, future research about innovation of mask may take this material as studying object. In addition, future study may consider a deeper investigation of the organization’s or staff’s action learning process about such innovations.