Service Experience and Servicescape in Sustainable Consumption
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 10 July 2026 | Viewed by 1164
Special Issue Editors
Interests: tourist experience (TX); customer experience (CX); user experience (UX); human–computer interaction (HCI); service science
Interests: user experience (UX); customer experience (CX); human–computer interaction (HCI); education; culture; tourism; cyber security
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
This Special Issue of Sustainability seeks to investigate the crucial role that service environments and experiences play in fostering sustainable consumption across diverse sectors, including digital platforms, healthcare, education, tourism, and retail. Consumption experiences, both of individuals and groups, have emerged as important determinants of sustainable behavior, especially in high-involvement environments such as healthcare, education, travel, and interactions with digital services. To strengthen its theoretical and practical relevance, this Special Issue emphasizes the role of behavioral science and service design in shaping sustainable consumer decisions and highlights actionable implications for managing data-driven and resource-efficient services. We believe that it could be beneficial if emotional, cognitive, and behavioral reactions to service environments could be modeled, optimized, and predicted using data-driven methods.
This Special Issue focuses on three main areas: (a) examining how service experience design and delivery affect sustainable consumer behavior; (b) incorporating cutting-edge technological tools, including digital twins, simulation, machine learning, and decision support systems (DSSs), into the study of servicescapes and their sustainability implications; and (c) differentiating itself from existing trends by fostering interdisciplinary insights into smart and sustainable service ecosystems (especially in high-involvement, public-facing contexts), particularly those that seek to improve patient satisfaction, student experience, visitor engagement, and environmentally conscious decision-making.
This Special Issue aims to contribute to the existing literature by embedding the scientific, technological, and socioeconomic dimensions of sustainability into service design and experience management. Its objective is to quantify and assess how service interactions affect consumer well-being, environmental efficiency, and resource utilization. Applications of explainable AI (XAI), behavioral analytics, predictive models, and integrated DSS frameworks are encouraged to measure and track sustainable consumption, particularly in the contexts of public services, healthcare delivery, tourism systems, and digital transformation.
Where earlier studies by Zhou et al. (2022), Pappas et al. (2023), and Shah et al. (2025) explored sustainability largely within isolated sectors and treated consumer emotions and operational data as distinct lines of inquiry, this Special Issue deliberately converges service experience design, behavioral science, and intelligent systems to narrow that divide. It emphasizes the integration of socio-emotional responses with data-driven optimization techniques, extends the analysis across high-involvement public services and digitally mediated contexts, and advances explainable AI decision-support frameworks capable of quantifying consumer well-being while simultaneously monitoring environmental performance and resource efficiency.
We look forward to receiving your contributions.
Prof. Dr. Cristian Rusu
Dr. Nicolás Matus
Dr. Fabián Silva-Aravena
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- service experience
- servicescape and environmental design
- sustainable consumption and behavior
- tourism experience and tourist behavior
- health service management and patient experience
- education and student experience
- predictive analytics and consumer modeling
- decision support systems (DSS) and explainable AI
- digital transformation and smart services
- service ecosystems
Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue
- Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
- Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
- Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
- External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
- Reprint: MDPI Books provides the opportunity to republish successful Special Issues in book format, both online and in print.
Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.
