The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on many economic sectors, including the hotel and hospitality sectors [1]. When the pandemic first emerged in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, its rapid spread to 188 countries, resulting in an estimated 17 million cases and 677 thousand deaths, was unexpected [2]. Many countries responded with travel bans, national emergencies, and complete lockdowns [3], causing severe disruptions to prominent sectors such as airlines, cruises, hotels, hospitality, restaurants, travel, tourism, and entertainment [4]. Job insecurity has intensified, resulting in job stress for hotel employees [5] and exacerbating the already unstable conditions of hotels. The hotel sector has encountered particularly unstable conditions compared with other sectors [6]. Approximately 18% of people tend to stay at hotels in destinations where there are few COVID-19 cases or where treatment is readily available, while others do not feel comfortable staying at hotels [7,8,9]. Further research is needed to identify the various factors that motivate customers to stay in hotels again. Hotels require staff who can provide feedback, come up with creative service development suggestions, and perform tasks efficiently to meet customers’ expectations [10]. Customer perceived value (CPV), as a cornerstone concept in the marketing literature, refers to the manifestation of more value and satisfaction during the deal process, when customers choose services that provide better satisfaction and experiences [11]. Based on early definitions of CPV, this concept is reflected in customers’ perception of the benefits and costs resulting from experiencing a specific service. In other words, it is based on customers’ perceptions of the value generated in trade-offs [12]. In hotel contexts, customer perceived value (CPV) is the manifestation of value resulting from service deals [13]. While CPV encompasses the intellectual aspects of individuals, it is revealed in feelings and intrinsic responses during trade-offs [14,15]. Moreover, it has been identified as a prominent element in the decision-making stage of the purchase process [11,16]. Zeithaml [17] proposed the initial conceptualizations of this concept in the context of product deals, which involve customers’ first evaluations of a specific product [14].

Since the COVID-19 pandemic rapidly spread from China in December 2019, its destructive impact on hotel employees’ mental health [5] has had a significant impact on the world and hit the hotel and hospitality industries hard. The hotel industry has been particularly affected [27]. In the United States, for example, hotel occupancy and revenue rates dramatically declined in the first few months of 2020, resulting in a loss of USD 30 billion [1]. Ozdemir, Dogru, Kizildag, Mody, and Suess [1] stated that different types of hotels have been affected differently by the emergence of the pandemic. While economy hotels have not experienced severe declines, luxury and chain hotels have encountered significant drops in revenue and occupancy rates. Considering the highly disastrous impact of COVID-19 compared with other previous pandemics [9], it has severely hit hotel sectors worldwide, leading to a dramatic decrease in hotel occupancy rates. For example, China experienced a 71% drop in hotel occupancy rates over 2020 [28]. Additionally, the number of layoffs has increased by almost 470% due to leave and discharge [29]. Previous studies by scholars such as Al-Awadhi et al. [30] and Ding et al. [31] have shown the severe impact of the pandemic on industries such as hotels, with revenues and return rates fundamentally decreasing [3].

To the best of our knowledge, one of the significant features of the hotel industry that scholars have considered is its sensitivity and vulnerability to international political and economic events stemming from unexpected natural disasters or contagious outbreaks, which require hoteliers to take preventive and emergency measures to address them [32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39]. For example, Korean hoteliers employed educational and hygiene measures in response to the SARS epidemic [40]. However, the question is, how can we encourage domestic and foreign customers to return to hotels for their lodgings? According to scholars, hoteliers need to understand the nature of customer perceived value and redefine CPV. Furthermore, they must develop adapted strategies based on the COVID-19 pandemic crisis (in line with [15,23,24,25,26]. For this reason, this study provides significant insights into these issues.

Customer perceived value (CPV) is a critical concept in hotel management, as it determines how customers perceive the value of a hotel’s offerings and influences their purchase decisions [41,42]. CPV is the sum total of benefits that customers receive from a hotel’s products and services in relation to the total cost of those products and services [11,43]. Managers need to have a deep understanding of what their customers want and value the most to tailor their offerings to meet the needs of their target customers [44]. Providing high-quality products and services is essential to meeting customer needs and desires, including clean rooms, comfortable beds, and excellent customer service [45]. Pricing is a key factor in customer perceived value. Hotels need to offer competitive prices that are in line with the value they provide [46]. They can differentiate themselves by providing a unique experience to their customers, such as personalized services, unique amenities, and special packages [47]. Effective communication is crucial to building customer loyalty and enhancing customer perceived value. Managers should regularly communicate with their customers to understand their needs and inform them of any new products or services. By effectively managing customer perceived value, hotels can build customer loyalty, increase customer satisfaction, and ultimately improve their bottom line [48,49].

Karatepe [5] highlighted that hotel customer satisfaction moderates the effect of empathy and reliability on loyalty. Scholars have developed antecedents and consequences of the concept of customer perceived value (CPV) and its measurement scales [15,23,24,25,26]. El-Adly [23] identified how CPV, customer satisfaction, and loyalty in the hotel context are interrelated. He argued that CPV consists of different cognitive dimensions, such as price, quality, deal, hedonism, self-satisfaction, prestige, and aesthetics. While the first five dimensions have a positive impact on customer satisfaction and subsequent loyalty, the latter two (validity and aesthetics) have no positive impact on customer satisfaction nor loyalty. He also recognized that the leading dimensions of CPV, such as quality, deal, price, and pleasure seeking, have an indirect positive impact on the abovementioned dimensions. In a similar study examining the role of CPV on hotel customer loyalty, Hussein, Hapsari, and Yulianti [21] acknowledged the strong positive impact of CPV on customer loyalty. Şen Küpeli and Özer [24] investigated the correlation between two notable variables, CPV and perceived risk, and proposed approaches to check the relation of these variables with dimensions such as customer satisfaction and behavioral intent by collecting data from hotel customers in Turkey. They also recognized two important new variables entitled epistemic and validity. Perceived risk was negatively interrelated with CPV, while CPV and satisfaction were positively interrelated with the behavioral aspect.

Wiedmann, Labenz, Haase, and Hennigs [15] asserted that multisensory marketing and brand factors that strengthen service brands play a significant role in creating CPV. They also identified which aspects of CPV, such as financial, practical, social, and individual aspects, change the most under the influence of multisensory marketing and brand experience as intervening factors. In another study conducted by Lai [50], the interaction between significant factors determining hotel reputation, such as hotel image, service quality, CPV, customer satisfaction, hotel reputation, customer commitment, and customer loyalty, was identified. Furthermore, Mohammed and Al-Swidi [26] explored a new dimension called company social responsibility (CSR), which was not mentioned in previous studies, and found that it plays a fundamental role in reinforcing the CPV of hotel customers, with social media serving as a mediating factor between CSR and loyalty. They argued that these processes ultimately lead to the appearance of customer loyalty. To our knowledge, according to Wong and Denizci Guillet [25], the value of room occupancy depends on the perspectives of both customers and service providers, with significant differences between their perceptions of CPV. These differences can be found in two factors: social value and customer-service sacrifices.