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The hotel industry has turned out to be one of the most competitive industries in the world. The competition among hotels forced them to increase the quality of services and improve the relationship with customers. Today business development is fast (Wijaya et al., 2021), and hotels require to deal with ongoing monitoring across a variety of service areas in order to improve the services at the best levels. The service quality is known as a fundamental determinant in differentiating service providers (Mey et al., 2006). It is an important element in customers’ initial decision-making, and their return intention. However, in today’s business world, hotels may face major challenges, such as frequent changes in customers’ preferences, and demands that are more complex. Therefore, there is room for this question of whether the perceived service quality is a sufficient stimulant to retain a relationship in a long term?

Since it was proposed by Satoshi Nakamoto (2008) at the end of 2008, Bitcoin, as an alternative to conventional currencies, has quickly gained wide attention from the media, investors and scholars. This attention is attributed to its transparency, simplicity, increasing popularity, decentralized peer-to-peer system and self-regulation. There is a growing interest in studying the general dynamics of Bitcoin market. For instance, diversification was measured (Brière et al., 2015; Bouri et al., 2017; Urquhart & Zhang, 2019; Chaim & Laurini, 2018; Lahmiri et al., 2018), statistical properties and market efficiency were examined (Bariviera et al., 2017; Carbone et al., 2004; Martinez et al., 2018; McCarthy, 2009; Symitsi & Chalvatzis, 2018), liquidity and microstructure were explored (Koutmos, 2018; Dyhrberg et al., 2018; Donier & Bonart, 2015), speculative bubble and risk were investigated (Osterrieder & Lorenz, 2017; Bouoiyour et al., 2015; Klein et al., 2018), regulation was studied (Dwyer, 2015; Tasca & Liu, 2018; Katsiampa, 2017) whilst optimal trading was scrutinized (Ajaz & Kumar, 2018; Li & Tourin, 2016; Yi et al., 2018).

The high pace of strategic and organisational changes in the current financial services sector is not only caused by the fundamental transformation in the institutional and competitive environment but also by the rapid expansion of technological innovations (Menshikova et al., 2017). The restructuring of the modern labour market and traditional human resources qualification requirements is to a large extent impacted by Industry 4.0 (Smirnova et al., 2019) that is directly connected with a transformation of knowledge sharing processes, data processing and integration and value orientation, which the companies consider essential for their success (Blštáková et al., 2020). Customer centricity, personalisation, mobility and agile corporate culture are becoming key factors to ensure an innovative pace of development in the digital environment (Ajupov et al., 2019). In this regard, the demand for highly educated specialists directly involved in customer service in banking and insurance institutions has been increasing especially as a lack of a qualified workforce is among the most important drivers for Industry 4.0 (Stentoft & Rajkumar, 2020).

In March 2020, we witnessed enormous turbulence in the global markets caused by the escalation of problems related to the new medical phenomenon of coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. High fluctuations of indices were observed during the pandemic, but the crisis caused by fighting the virus was also reflected in firms’ essentials. The uncertainty provoked by the pandemic in the real economy also influenced listed companies. Some of them were forced to restrict or cease their operations temporarily. One of the impacts that this caused relatively quickly was on dividend decisions. Listed companies that had paid dividends for many years faced a difficult decision on whether they should still pay them or instead restrict or cease issuing dividends. The purpose of such actions would be to build a capital and liquidity buffer.

The development and innovations of technology has paved the way for the expanding growth of an innovative form of commerce based on a principle of shared access of assets or resources rather than private ownership (Basukie et al., 2020). Although to date, there has been no agreement on the naming or definition of this socio-economic phenomenon (Martínez-González et al., 2021), it has quickly changed consumers’ preferences and inclinations. People around the world embark on digital interaction and temporarily Exchange their under-utilized possessions, resources, time and skills, facilitated through internet platforms (Leoni & Parker, 2019). According to the European Commission (2018), the size of this new economy relative to the total EU economy was estimated to be 26.5 billion EUR in 2016, offering about 394,000 jobs across the EU.