| Summary: | Although the importance of menu-engineering had been widely reported and discussed in the hospitality and restaurant marketing literature, specific elements of the menus and the extent of their effectiveness on ordering intention had not been extensively studied. The purpose of the study was to examine the credibility of different sources of recommendation symbols and identify the relative importance of menu elements such as recommendation symbols, colour-theme and descriptive dish names affecting consumers’ ordering intention. Hypotheses were predicted and investigated through the use of a post-test only experimental design. Eight treatment groups were exposed to the manipulated menus and another group acting as the control group. A two-stage sampling method with proportional cluster sampling of shopping malls followed by a systematic selection of sampling units was adopted in the collection of a total of four hundred and forty nine subject responses. Statistical findings showed that ordering intention was significantly increased with the effective use of recommendation symbols and negatively provoking descriptive dish name. Consumers were found to order food items with recommendation symbols that indicated higher trustworthiness than expertise. The moderating factor, namely, the introduction of strong tie recommendation through social interaction would reduce the effect of recommendation symbols on the ordering intention of selected food items. A red-coloured theme menu was proven to be ineffective in increasing the ordering intention significantly possibly due to insufficient increase in the metabolism rate. The concluding discussion further addressed the managerial implications for restaurateurs in future menu designs.
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