Esthetic Dining Experience: The relations among aesthetic stimulation, pleasantness, memorable experience, and behavioral intentions

The role of esthetic dining in the experience economy has rarely been explored by previous studies. This study examines the relationships among esthetic stimulation, pleasantness, behavioral intentions, and memorable experiences in the dining context. A total of 561 participants were recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). The survey results demonstrated that the esthetic dining experience can be explained by the S-O-R model. Esthetic stimulation positively affects the most common esthetic emotion-pleasantness, in the service context and subsequently affects behavioral intentions. Moreover, memorable experiences fully mediate the relationship between pleasantness and behavioral intentions. This study identifies a model of the esthetic dining experience and contributes to the construction of an esthetic dining context for restaurant practitioners.