Touchscreen menus, experiential mindsets, and tourist dining choices: A field experiment in Paris

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

This study examines how digital menu interfaces shape tourist dining choices. In a field experiment with 1557 international tourists dining in a casual Korean restaurant in Paris, diners selected between experientially and functionally framed dishes presented on touchscreen or card-based menus, with or without visual cues and under varying time pressure. Touchscreen (vs. card) ordering activated a more experiential mindset, increasing the likelihood of choosing experientially framed options. Visual cues amplified this effect only within touchscreen interfaces, and the synergy was strongest under high time pressure. Beyond traditional card-based menus, these findings demonstrate that the effectiveness of menu description framing and imagery is interface-dependent. Overall, the study clarifies how digital interaction, sensory design, and situational constraints jointly guide tourist food choices and highlight digital ordering as a strategic lever—especially when paired with visual optimization in high-traffic, tourist-oriented dining contexts.