Guest experience at internet-celebrated B&Bs: A media-spectacle inquiry

The impact of social media on tourism experience has been a common theme in existing research. However, there is a noticeable lack of focus on the genesis of lodgers’ experience, notably at the internet-celebrated B&Bs. Our study conducted within the context of mainland China’s rise in Bed and Breakfasts (B&Bs) over the last decade, employing qualitative methodologies, based on interview content from 17 residents and 6 practitioners in the B&B industry, exploring the evolution and structure of guest experience at these unique accommodation offerings. Results from our study distinguish two categories of guest experience at internet-celebrated B&Bs-functional and symbolic. These experience traverse three stages: pre-trip, during the trip, and post-trip. Deeper analysis shows a decisive role played by media-spectacle in this process, merging these stages into an integrated meaning-generation system. This system reveals a bidirectional relationship between media-spectacle and guest experience, typified by positive elicitation and negative validation. Consequently, we provide a grounded understanding of guest experience at internet-celebrated B&Bs, taking into account the effect of media-spectacle.