Meaningful experience, positive emotions, and happiness in smart hotel contexts: a study on psychological mechanisms...

Smart hotels are reshaping the landscape of consumers' accommodation experiences. Services such as self-check-in and smart locks are associated with changes in consumers' psychological perceptions of lodging life. However, previous studies have often overlooked consumers' sense of meaning, positive emotions, and subjective happiness. Based on positive psychology and service experience theory, this study explores the psychological mechanisms and associations connecting meaningful experiences with consumer happiness.

A quantitative research design was employed, analyzing data from consumers who had experienced smart hotel services (N = 618). Correlation analysis, multiple regression, and path estimation were utilized to examine the relationships among meaningful experience, perceived control, service trust, positive emotions, and happiness.

Respondents generally held moderately positive evaluations of the smart hotel experience, with mean scores for meaningful experience, positive emotions, and happiness at 3.837, 3.822, and 3.698, respectively. Meaningful experience was significantly and positively correlated with positive emotions (r = 0.634) and happiness (r = 0.613); the correlation between positive emotion and happiness was also significant (r = 0.603, p < 0.001). Regression analysis indicated that meaningful experience was a significant predictor of happiness (β = 0.613, R ² = 0.376); when positive emotions and other mediating variables were included, the model's explanatory power increased to R ² = 0.490. Among them, meaningful experience had the strongest predictive association with happiness (β = 0.284), followed by positive emotions (β = 0.273), service trust (β = 0.196), and perceived control (β = 0.112). Path coefficient estimates revealed an indirect relationship between meaningful experience and happiness through positive emotions (0.117). Furthermore, sequential indirect relationships were observed for "meaningful experience → perceived control → positive emotion → happiness" (0.027) and "meaningful experience → service trust → positive emotion → happiness" (0.029).

From the perspective of positive psychology, smart hotel features are associated with a sequential pattern of psychological responses related to consumer happiness. The findings support research on the psychological mechanisms connecting meaningful experiences with happiness and offer insights for service design in the hospitality industry.