The Use of Importance Performance Analysis in the Hospitality Industry

ABSTRACT

Increased demands placed by consumers, competition, and shrinking management teams has resulted in the need for hospitality professionals to use effective tools to improve the changing situation. The Importance Performance Analysis (IPA) was a tool first introduced by Martilla and James (1977) to assist professionals in evaluating the effectiveness of various agency issues and attributes. Hospitality researchers have used this technique in at least forty-two studies since then. The purpose of this study was to compare the use of IPA in hospitality related research and compare historical use of IPA to a recent study in a private club setting.     

IPA分析法的修正及其在游客满意度研究的应用

传统的重要性绩效（IPA）分析法以受访者自述满意度和重要性评价来衡量各评价要素对提升客户满意度的意义。多数学者指出,这种分析方法存在两个弊端：一是重要性评价受满意程度的影响,二是单个评价要素的满意与否不一定能带来整体满意度相对称的变化。因此,单个评价要素的重要性也应当有所不同。所以,采用自述重要性的分析方式并不能反映客户的真实感受,分析方法需要改进。该研究以一山地景区的游客满意度为例,使用对数转化和偏相关系数法从满意度评价计算出引申重要性评价,去除满意度的影响,从而能较为客观地反映出游客对评价指标重要性感知。该研究对两种IPA分析方法进行了实证比较研究,并指出了结果存在差异性的原因,为完善使用IPA方法提供了有价值的理论阐述和实践检验。     

Improving importance-performance analysis: The role of the zone of tolerance and competitor performance. The case of Taiwan's hot spring hotels

Importance–performance analysis (IPA) is a valuable and popular approach for prioritizing improvements to the quality of services. Despite its simplicity, shortcomings in the analytical framework remain: (a) its application is hindered by measurement bias; (b) it requires a crosshair placement mechanism to enhance the reliability of managerial interpretations; (c) it does not account for differences between the characteristics of quality attributes; (d) it ignores the relative performance of competitors in the competitive marketplace. Since all of these issues have important managerial implications, this work proposes a model for evaluating service quality based on the competitive zone of tolerance by benchmarking against competitors, and then constructs an analytical framework referred to as “CZIPA” (competitive ZOT service quality based IPA) for prioritizing quality improvements of quality attributes to resolve these above issues. The case of a Taiwanese hot springs hotel is presented to demonstrate the implementation of the proposed CZIPA. The results of this case study demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the determination of priorities of attributes for improvement using CZIPA, enabling hotel managers to achieve a competitive advantage.     

A novel framework for customer-driven service strategies: A case study of a restaurant chain

Importance–performance analysis (IPA) is a popular customer-driven tool that enables companies to understand market competition and identify improvement priorities for various attributes of products and services. Despite the widespread use of IPA, previous studies have identified specific deficiencies. For example, the managerial improvement directions derived from IPA are potentially misleading because they ignore the asymmetric and nonlinear relationships between attribute performance (AP) and customer satisfaction (CS). Furthermore, the relationship between AP and importance is erroneously assumed to be independent. By contrast, the Kano model offers useful insight into quality attributes based on the asymmetric and nonlinear relations between AP and CS. In this study, a customer-driven framework is proposed, integrating the advantages of traditional IPA and the Kano model to elucidate the market competition position of each service and product attribute, providing strategic improvement guidelines for managers to design service activities. By conducting a case study of a restaurant chain, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.     

Competitive importance-performance analysis of an Australian wildlife park

Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) and the related analysis of performance minus importance gaps have proved valuable and popular techniques for the management of tourism destinations as well as products and services more generally. Their simplicity makes them easily interpretable to management. Unfortunately their application is hindered by measurement bias and doubt over the appropriate placement of crosshairs to determine whether performance and importance is high or low. This paper introduces Competitive Importance-Performance Analysis (CIPA) to resolve these issues by applying the scientific principle of a control. CIPA uses benchmarking against competitors to determine cross-hair placement, reduce measurement bias and determine market position. A survey of an Australian wildlife park is used to illustrate how CIPA provides additional insights for management while results from IPA or gap analysis are potentially misleading. CIPA is applicable not only to tourism but also to other areas of management or marketing of a product or service.     

Destinations strategic groups via Multivariate Competition-based IPA

This paper aims at developing a sound methodology for both extending Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) to the consideration of many tourism destinations simultaneously, and defining the prioritization of core attributes in each. Multivariate Competition-based IPA (MCIPA) allows to provide detailed information of particular utility for destination management, through a synthetic representation, accounting also for the geographical and administrative context.The conceptual framework of strategic groups, applied for the first time to tourist destinations, is the interpretative key of MCIPA. It makes the comparison of importance and performance, of various attributes in many areas, feasible and synthetic. It leads to interpret combinations of importance values in terms of target segment's preferences, defining destinations with similar performances on the same target segment as direct rivals. Based on a set of very broadly applicable statistical techniques, MCIPA helps addressing some methodological and interpretative drawbacks of IPA. An application to Italian provinces is shown.     

Perceptions of Chinese restaurants in the U.S.: What affects customer satisfaction and behavioral intentions?

This study investigates American customers’ perceptions of Chinese restaurants in the U.S., using the Importance–Performance Analysis (IPA) approach. This study also examines which attributes of Chinese restaurants influence American customers’ satisfaction and behavioral intentions. The IPA shows that environmental cleanliness and attentive service are two important areas where Chinese restaurateurs can make improvements. In addition, food taste and service reliability appear to be key attributes for Chinese restaurants’ success. Overall, this study indicates that food quality, service reliability and environmental cleanliness are three pivotal attributes to create satisfied customers and positive post-dining behavioral intentions. Chinese restaurant managers should reasonably allocate their limited resources to restaurant attributes based on their contributions to customer satisfaction and behavioral intentions.     

Motivation of internationalization and a moderating role of environmental conditions in the hospitality industry

As internationalization has been widely implemented throughout the tourism industry, it is important to understand what motivates a firm to internationalize its business. Thus, this study examines the motivation for internationalization based on the neoinstitutional theory. This study employs a hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to test the proposed hypotheses, using the annual firm-level data of the tourism industry, and finds that tourism firms including casinos, hotels, and restaurants are demotivated to diversify their international expansion into different countries as their competitors increase the scope of countries in which they operate. However, if a firm perceives its competitors as speeding up the process of internationalization, that firm will also increase the pace of internationalization. In addition, this relationship between competitors and focal firms' internationalization varies according to environmental conditions (i.e., dynamism, complexity, and munificence). The findings of the study contribute to the internationalization and tourism literature.     

Service innovativeness and the structuring of organizations: The moderating roles of learning orientation and inter-functional coordination

This paper aims to investigate the influence of organizational structure on service innovativeness by testing the moderating roles of learning orientation and inter-functional coordination. This helps to understand how organic structure influences service innovativeness when it is effectively leveraged with favorable organizational factors. Data were collected from 178 hotel managers and executives in Japan and moderated regression analysis was performed to analyze the data. Findings of the study suggest that higher levels of service innovativeness are positively related to higher levels of hotel business performance. In addition, organic structure makes a positive influence on service innovativeness and an increase in the levels of learning orientation boost the effectiveness of organic structure on service innovativeness. Moreover, the positive association between organic structure and service innovativeness become stronger when all firm’s functions make an attempt to cooperate and contribute to disseminating customers and competitors’ information in the hotels. These findings contribute to understanding how hotel service innovation is affected by service innovativeness, organizational structure, learning orientation and inter-functional coordination.     

Competitive advantages of franchising firms and the moderating role of organizational characteristics: Evidence from the restaurant industry

This study investigates the effects of a firm’s involvement in franchising on efficiency and differentiation as defined in Porter’s generic competitive strategy framework. The study further examines the moderating effects of organizational characteristics (prior experience in franchising and business type) on the relationship between franchising and efficiency and between franchising and differentiation. Results indicate that as a firm increases its involvement in franchising, differentiation increases, but efficiency does not. Furthermore, prior experience enhances the effects of franchising on efficiency and differentiation, while business type only enhances effects on differentiation. The findings suggest that as an interconnected governance structure, franchising offers benefits to franchisors by helping them develop competitive advantages and outperform their competitors in the market. By discovering the detailed channels through which hospitality firms could achieve business success, this study contributes to existing literature on franchising and hospitality management and provides guidance for industry practitioners.     

The effects of training satisfaction and weather on revisiting sport events and their monetary value: The role of attribute non-attendance

This study examines the effect of training satisfaction and weather on the intention to revisit a sport event. It considers attribute non-attendance, i.e. respondents ignoring choice attributes in surveys. Online surveys were conducted at four sport events in the United States in 2017 and 2018. Respondents answered a series of hypothetical scenarios for return visitation that randomly assigned different travel costs per mile, travel distances, weather forecasts, and respondents' training satisfaction. Logit models estimated with and without attribute non-attendance reveal the extent to which respondents did not pay attention to specific trip attributes when answering the survey. These results indicate that attribute non-attendance is an issue in each data set. Partial consideration of attribute non-attendance yields statistically significant willingness-to-pay estimates for event attributes, while full consideration yields larger willingness-to-pay estimates. This study's contribution lies in the examination of previously neglected factors (training satisfaction, weather) and the consideration of attribute non-attendance.     

Gateway community resident perceptions of tourism development: Incorporating Importance-Performance Analysis into a Limits of Acceptable Change framework

Gateway communities serve as entry points to our nation's public lands and are desirable to live within, but commonly subject to indiscriminate growth. The researchers used a variation of Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) to chart resident types and their evaluations of environmental, cultural and economic attributes to better understand perspectives on tourism development. IPA was chosen because it can serve as a simple evaluative tool for communities in gateway areas interested in employing a more comprehensive Limits of Acceptable Change (LAC) planning framework. Environmental attributes were found to be what make the area special with it considered both important and of real concern from each resident-type perspective. With the exception of a few items no other cultural or economic attributes were perceived the same in importance and concern as the environmental items with few meaningful differences found between resident types. In summary, IPA is a tool that can provide insight about resident perceptions while serving to inform a larger LAC tourism development framework.     

Analysis of congress destinations' competitiveness using importance performance competitor analysis

To be competitive and successful in congress tourism, destinations must learn which congress tourism-related attributes are important and how they perform against their main competitors. This study identifies the importance and performance of destination attributes in Antalya, Turkey, and compares the position of these attributes to those of its main rival in congress tourism, ?stanbul. Importance performance competitor analysis results show that, according to domestic participants, Antalya has to focus on “sight-seeing and cultural attractions” and “outside entertainment.” For international participants, “climate,” “choice of meeting and housing properties,” and “suitability of conference facilities” exhibit higher performance in Antalya than ?stanbul.     

旅游目的地形象之IPA分析——以西安居民对海南旅游目的地形象感知为例

尽管我国在旅游目的地形象方面的研究取得了长足的进步,但是仍然存在诸如定性研究多、定量研究少、缺乏研究方法上的创新等问题.为进一步提高我国旅游调研特别是旅游目的地形象调研的科学性、实用性和针对性,本文以西安居民对海南旅游目的地形象的感知分析为例,介绍和运用了当今国外广泛运用的IPA分析法,即重要性(Importance)及其表现(Performance)分析法(Analysis).     

互联网使用与家庭文旅消费——兼论互联网普及下居民消费升级的可行性

经济新常态下,互联网普及推动了消费方式的系统性变革。文章基于中国家庭追踪调查数据(CFPS),实证检验了互联网使用对家庭文旅消费的影响。研究结果表明:(1)互联网使用显著提升了家庭文旅消费概率和水平,并且在克服潜在的内生性问题后,其影响效应保持稳健。(2)进一步分析发现,互联网使用对家庭文旅消费的促进作用来源于信息渠道效应和便捷交易效应,而受教育水平和收入水平的增加有利于增强互联网使用的影响效果。(3)分地区异质性分析显示,在中西部地区、低互联网普及率地区、高景区拥有量地区,互联网使用对家庭文旅消费的促进作用更为明显。(4)拓展分析还发现,互联网使用没有影响家庭在必需品消费方面的支出比重,但却带来以文旅消费为代表的服务消费水平和比重的显著提升,继而有助于家庭扩大消费支出,并促进消费结构的服务化转型。上述结论不仅为理解中国家庭消费行为提供了新的视角,也为合理利用互联网激发消费潜能提供了有益参考。     

The value of self-stated attribute importance to overall satisfaction

This paper provides insights into techniques used to determine the attributes that influence overall satisfaction. A survey of zoo visitors illustrates several key findings relevant for both managers interpreting survey results and researchers designing studies. First, the assumption of importance-performance analysis (IPA) that self-stated importance measures the influence of attribute performance on overall satisfaction is endorsed. Second, relative importance is shown to be vital as it improves the prediction of overall satisfaction from attribute performance while absolute importance makes it worse. Third, techniques using self-stated relative importance are shown to be superior to statistical techniques such as regression, however new techniques using both self-stated importance and regression are shown to be even better. These findings apply generally to tangible products in marketing and management as well as to tourism services.     

Should the EFQM Excellence Model be Adapted for Specific Industries? A Restaurant Sector Example

As the scores in the current European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) excellence model are the same for all industries, the accuracy of the model has been questioned. Our objective is threefold: 1) to confirm the need to adjust the EFQM model, using the restaurant industry as an example; 2) to ensure the new scores from the restaurant experts are consistent and reliable through the Kruskal-Wallis test for intergroup consistency and Kendall’s W for interexpert reliability; and 3) to use the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process to give each attribute and sub-attribute a new, accurate score. Among the restaurant attribute and sub-attribute scores, Customer Results scored 190 points instead of 150 points, and Processes, Products & Services scored 140 points instead of 100 points in the current model. The findings show that the new scores differ substantially from the current EFQM model. We then argue that its evaluation scores should be modified by industry.     

旅游吸引物属性之辨

旅游吸引物在旅游系统中扮演着基础性作用,但却面临着语义的不明和来自理论内部与旅游实践的双重挑战。文章从边界与内涵出发,借助"旅游吸引物"与"旅游资源"的比较、旅游吸引物与旅游吸引物系统的转变,剖析旅游吸引物之为吸引物的意义生成与社会建构过程,重新思考旅游吸引物之属性及其在当下旅游实践中的作用,探讨其社会建构所反映的旅游与社会的关系问题。文章认为,旅游吸引物兼具自然属性、社会属性和符号属性等多重属性,吸引力特性是其本质属性;旅游吸引物属性及其社会建构有深刻的社会基础。旅游吸引物边界及其属性的理论反思,在旅游席卷全球的当下,兼具学理价值与现实意义;在火热的乡村旅游实践中,对守护乡土景观亦有特殊意涵。     

上海世博会旅游经营商市场感知维度及其行为影响研究

文章以上海世博会为例,采用SPSS、AMOS等统计分析软件对全国362家旅行商调查问卷进行统计分析,建构旅行商对重大事件旅游市场感知维度的测量模型,分析不同类型旅行商市场感知的差异性,通过结构方程模型检验市场感知维度对其分销行为的影响。研究表明:①重大事件旅游市场的旅行商感知模型包括事件属性维度、产品属性维度、市场属性维度及市场影响维度等4个测量维度。②国际业务、国内业务旅行商在4个感知维度上均存在显著差异;特许与非特许旅行商在市场属性感知维度上有显著差异,在其他维度上差异不显著;不同地理区域的旅行商在产品属性维度上差异不显著,在其他维度上有显著差异。③旅行商对重大事件旅游市场感知维度中,市场属性维度、市场影响维度对其分销行为存在显著影响,事件属性维度和产品属性维度的影响不显著,市场影响维度是主导其分销行为的主要因素。从旅行商视角研究重大事件旅游市场感知及其分销行为影响,对于重大事件在我国可持续发展及其后续旅游开发具有重要的意义。     

Running Havana: Observations on the Political Economy of Sport Tourism in Cuba

Abstract

Sport tourism is a booming global business that has different costs and benefits for distinctive societies depending upon both global and local socio‐cultural, political and economic factors. With more than 130 officially sanctioned events worldwide, marathon running has developed to become a key feature of the international sport tourism calendar. This paper provides an ethnographic account of the 2005 Marabana – the Havana Marathon. After consideration of some of the central conceptual and historical issues pertinent to sport tourism in relation to the marathon in general, it uses this race and the events surrounding it as a critical window into Cuba’s complex contemporary political economy. Detailed consideration is given to the special conditions that have led to the development of the Island’s sport tourism industry and the consequences of that development in terms of Cuba’s political heritage. What sets Cuba apart from the tourist economies of its Caribbean neighbours is its continued commitment to the economic and political principles of communism and its strained and tense relationship with the United States. The paper concludes by pointing to the social and economic contradictions associated with the development of a tourist economy that is essentially capitalist within a society that is avowedly communist.