Do reward programs truly build loyalty for lodging industry?

Hotel brands have sought numerous ways to build the relationship with their customers. Inspired by the airlines’ success, most major hotel chains have developed loyalty programs that reward customers for repeat business. However, the effectiveness of reward programs has been questioned. To explore reward programs’ potential to alter normal patterns to behavior, this research investigates how the timing of rewards affects customer loyalty for hotels and whether the effectiveness of these reward structures is moderated by customer satisfaction. This research also examines whether customer's value perception of loyalty program truly affect brand loyalty or program loyalty. In order to test the research framework, a 2 × 2 full-factorial, randomized, between-subject experimental design was conducted. In total, 209 respondents participated in the study. The results indicate that immediate rewards are more effective in building a program value than delayed rewards. Moreover, the value of loyalty program affects customer loyalty only through program loyalty to the extent that the program provides value to the customer. Finally, satisfaction plays an important moderating role on reward timing. Delayed rewards work better than immediate rewards only if customers are satisfied with hotel experience. In contrast, the immediate rewards in the dissatisfied experience become effective in their capacity to invoke customer loyalty.     

Unraveling the dynamic and contingency mechanism between service experience and customer engagement with luxury hotel brands

This study unravels the dynamic and contingency mechanism between service experience and customer engagement with luxury hotel brands by investigating a multi-step model linking these two variables, in which emotional attachment and relational quality constructs (i.e., brand satisfaction, brand trust, and brand commitment) act as a bridge, while customer involvement acts as a moderator. Based on a self-administered survey dataset of 249 international tourists who are customers of luxury hotel brands, partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) is used to test the hypotheses. The results indicate that all proposed hypotheses are supported. As such, this study discovers and clarifies the nature and dynamic mechanism underpinning the co-creation and reciprocation process of customer engagement with luxury hotels. In particular, the positive service experience is found to contribute to customer engagement via emotional attachment and relational marketing. Furthermore, the moderating role of customer involvement in the luxury hotel setting is confirmed.     

Linking AI quality performance and customer engagement: The moderating effect of AI preference

Drawing upon affordance theory, this study positions artificial intelligence (AI) as a commercial service in examining its influence on customer engagement in the hotel context. In particular, we seek to understand linkages between customer perceptions of AI service quality, AI customer satisfaction and engagement. Given the multiplicity of services offered by service organisations, customers’ preference for AI service is modelled as a moderator of customer perceptions and attitudes towards AI. Data was collected from a sample of hotel customers in Australia who had previously used AI tools or services. Our results reveal a significant chain effect between AI service indicators, service quality perceptions, AI satisfaction and customer engagement. AI preference has a significant moderation effect on information quality and satisfaction. These findings provide new insights into the consumer services literature and have important implications for marketing practitioners.     

Discrimination of hotel employees: The role of heteronormativity and political exclusion

This study explores customers’ service evaluations based on the service provided by a hotel frontline employee with different sexualities, manipulated as effeminate or masculine. Study participants were randomly assigned to respond to a video with either an effeminate or masculine hotel employee that mimics a hotel check-in experience and after are asked to evaluate check-in service. The results suggest that participants who hold stronger heteronormative beliefs are more likely to discriminate against effeminate hotel employees when evaluating the service they provided. This effect persists for the social conservatism of the participants. The study also identified a joint effect of social conservatism and political exclusion. Without tapping into sexual orientation, this study contributes to the hospitality literature by introducing sexuality and heteronormativity and adds more content to queer studies. It also suggests the need for more protection policies, management awareness, and training regarding hotel frontline employees from a diversity management perspective.     

Measurement scale for eco-component of hotel service quality

Growing acknowledgement of the need to achieve more sustainable forms of development has resulted in environmentally conscious tourists who have indicated a dissatisfaction with existing hotel service quality. The objective of this study was to investigate tourists’ ecological expectations referring to the quality of spas and wellness hotel services in order to develop and test a scale for measuring the ‘eco-component,’ a new component of hotel service quality. The findings revealed four dimensions of the eco-component: hotel staff's eco-behaviour; environmentally friendly and healthy equipment; efficient use of energy and water; and bio-food. Tourists also demonstrated a hierarchy of eco-dimensions, with the most important being hotel staff's eco-behaviour and the least important being bio-food. Tourists’ expectations about the level of eco-dimensions differ significantly with respect to their income, nationality, and the hotel certification. However, no significant difference emerged in their expectations due to different educational levels.     

An Empirical Study of the Effect of Customer Participation on Service Quality

Abstract

Using 185 completed surveys from hotel customers in Tianjin, China, the authors conducted a multiple regression analysis of the effects of information collection, participation in service design and standard build-up, interaction with employees, and “word of mouth” communication with hotel customers. It was found that these four dimensions of customer participation had a direct relationship with service quality.     

The impact of customers’ prior online experience on future hotel usage behavior

Service experience model stipulates the importance of service experience in increasing satisfaction, price acceptance, revisit intentions, etc. It has been extensively tested and validated in hotel management studies. However, the online service experience which, in these days, precedes the physical service experience has not be considered together in most hotel service experience studies. In hotel management literature, studies on online experiences are largely segregated from physical service experience model. In this study, prior online experience model is proposed which includes online experience preceding the physical service encounter, and a survey is administered. Result indicates the strong influence of online experience as a leading construct of the service experience model in hotels. Online experience strongly conditions the customers’ perception of physical service experience and, also, provides good ground for price acceptance. Interestingly, the influence of physical service experience on price acceptance seems to be rather alleviated with online experience, indicating the important role the online experience plays in managing customer perception on hotel service experience. Hotel management needs to pay close attention to their customers’ online experience beyond simple esthetics as the online experience seems to influence all the subsequent components of hotel service model.     

Hotel booking through online travel agency: Optimal Stackelberg strategies under customer-centric payment service

Facing stiff competition, online travel agencies (OTAs) are dedicating to provide customer-centric payment service in hotel online booking, which poses challenges for hotels and customers to make optimal strategies. This paper studies the optimal Stackelberg decisions and strategic interactions of a hotel and a customer in online booking through online travel agencies with customer-centric payment service. The results show that refund rate has great effect on the customer's payment decision, while transaction cost has great influence on the hotel's operational decision. When the refund rate is greater than a threshold, the customer prefers online payment. Being a leader in the Stackelberg game, the hotel can induce customers to choose the payment option with the lowest transaction cost by setting a refund rate.     

The effect of atmosphere on customer engagement in upscale hotels: An application of S-O-R paradigm

Research suggests that atmosphere plays an important role in creating emotional connections between a hotel customer and the hotel and that these connections lead to improved customer satisfaction and customer engagement. The purpose of this research is to identify some of the atmosphere elements within a hotel that might enable customers to better engage with the hotel. A structural equation model (SEM) was employed to test the relationships. Social and room design were found to be significant antecedents to customer satisfaction. The research also found that while satisfied customers were more likely to promote the hotel to others through WOM behavior, they had fewer suggestions for improvement. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed as well.     

Measuring Personal Service Quality

Abstract

This study examined the personal service quality of international tourism hotels in China by measuring international hotel customer's satisfaction level and their perceived importance evaluation of personal service attributes. Six international hotels in Beijing and three departments (reception, food and beverage, and housekeeping) in each hotel were selected in this study. Responses from 472 customers were used for the data analysis of this study. It was found that customers identified friendliness and willingness to provide service in all three departments as service attributes with which they were very satisfied. Foreign language ability was identified as the least satisfactory in the reception and food and beverage departments. Customers also regarded friendliness and willingness to provide service as very important.     

Effect of corporate social responsibility,customer attribution and prior expectation on post-recovery satisfaction

A conceptual model is proposed to account for how customers’ attributions of the cause of a service failure, their perceptions of a firm's social responsibility and their prior expectations can influence post-recovery satisfaction through the mediating effect of customer–company (C–C) identification. It was tested in the context of hospitality services. Findings from a survey of 281 restaurant patrons show that after a service failure, favorable corporate social responsibility (CSR) perception can help mitigate the negative effects of internal cause attribution on customer identification and ultimately contribute to post-recovery satisfaction. Besides, the interaction effect of CSR perception and attribution on C–C identification is particularly salient for customers with higher prior expectation. Findings also highlight that the dynamic interaction effect among attribution, CSR perception and prior expectation on customer post-recovery satisfaction is mediated by C–C identification.     

The influence of customer brand identification on hotel brand evaluation and loyalty development

Hotel firms have increasingly recognized that branding strategies constitute a strategic weapon to secure a competitive edge in the global hotel industry. To extend current understanding of hotel brand management, this study investigates the role of customer brand identification in the formation of hotel brand loyalty. This study contributes to the literature by establishing that customer brand identification is an indirect predictor of hotel brand loyalty through its three known antecedents. Results suggest that while the customer may identify with a particular hotel brand, hotel loyalty still depends on the customer's positive evaluation of factors relating to service experiences. However, as consumers’ identification with a hotel brand affects their evaluation of these factors, hoteliers should leverage customers’ brand identification to engender positive consumer evaluation of the hotel brand and, ultimately, increase brand loyalty.     

It is all about the emotional state: Managing tourists’ experiences

When consuming tourism and leisure services tourists do not only expect professional services but also desire satisfying emotional experiences. To measure satisfaction with emotional experiences traditional service quality and satisfaction research is outdated because those models are based on cognitive components and neglect emotional aspects of customer satisfaction. This research investigates factors determining the service setting that enhance customers’ emotional reactions and lead to psychological states and behaviours. Referring to existing theories and empirical evidence in environmental psychology, a research model is developed explaining the relationship between different components of service settings influencing emotional states and satisfaction. Guests’ emotions are assessed during service consumption in hotel settings in order to investigate the importance of emotional states. The paper derives three main factors (leisure experience, hardware and human ware) significantly influencing emotional states of customers in high-quality hotels.     

An online reviews-driven method for the prioritization of improvements in hotel services

Service improvement is of great importance for hotels to gain advantages. Several studies determined the prioritization of service improvement by identifying the relationship between service performance and customer satisfaction but ignored the impact of consumer expectations and managers' subjective opinions. This paper provides an online reviews-driven method for hoteliers to determine the prioritization of improvements in hotel services. Firstly, the improved penalty–reward contrast analysis that quantifies the sentiment tendencies and intensities in online reviews is used to identify types of service attributes. Secondly, based on the categorization of attribute types, three types of consumer expectations that affect consumer satisfaction are mined. Thirdly, the improved three-way decision model is used to determine the priority of allocation resources combining with managers’ subjective opinions. Finally, the proposed method is applied to the case study of Four Seasons Hotel service improvement, and the advantages of this method are illustrated by comparative analysis.     

The signaling effect of management response in engaging customers: A study of the hotel industry

Hotels today actively respond to online reviews given their tremendous influence on travelers' decisions. Yet, the questions of how to respond to online reviews continue to baffle hotel managers. By focusing on prospective travelers, we propose the effective management response signals hotels' care for customers and quality of service. Particularly, we postulate the frequency, speed and length of response influence the effectiveness of signaling in reducing information asymmetry. Based on the large-scale field data from TripAdvisor, this study demonstrates that the frequency and speed of response significantly enhance travelers’ engagement as indicated by more reviews, higher average valence, more votes for helpfulness, and higher popularity ranking. Furthermore, the frequent and speedy response is more effective for budget (vs. premium) hotels. Thus, management response to online reviews serves as a critical channel of communication to engage customers.     

Multilevel Analysis of the Relationship Between Type of Travel,Online Ratings,and Management Response: Empirical Evidence from International Upscale Hotels

The diverse characteristics of customers and hotels have been identified as relevant to online customer satisfaction at the individual level. In this study, a comprehensive examination is conducted, through the use of a multilevel, nested model and secondary data set. The results show that both online review experience and management response frequencies can positively affect customer satisfaction. Additionally, hotel managers need to pay more attention to customers who have less online review experience when they carry out targeted response strategies. The findings have various implications for both academic researchers and hotel operators.     

Delivering Quality Service

ABSTRACT

Quality in tourism-related services, like in services in general, are basically about balancing customer perceptions and expectations. Successful service providers are able to meet and, whenever possible, exceed consumers' needs and wants. This way, it is possible to provide memorable experiences to visitors. In delivering services, due to certain specific characteristics of services (e.g., intangibility, simultaneity, variability and perishability), the human element, in particular the ‘face-to-face’ interaction with the customer, plays a fundamental role. The study stresses the contribution of interpersonal variables for the success of service organisations. It discusses how commitment to customer service, and supportive supervisors and co-workers, influence the relationship managers' ability to satisfy customers. The main findings were as follows: (i) commitment to customer service and co-workers' support have direct and positive effects on the ability to satisfy customers; (ii) commitment to customer service is the most important determinant of the ability to satisfy customers, and works as a mediator for the other independent variables; (iii) co-workers' support, having both direct and mediated effects, is a more important predictor than supervisors' support. The available data indicates that there is a need for specific training for supervisors, in order to increase their awareness of the impact of their performance on the service delivered by contact employees. Moreover, it is important that service organisations are capable of providing employees with a holistic view of the service delivery chain. This includes not only relationship managers, but also those who are not in direct contact with external customers. Apart from these training aspects, the results of this study should also be considered in relation to other management issues, namely in human resources management. Organisations should prevent the risk of losing those employees that show more commitment to customer service and more ability to satisfy customers. Employee retention exerts a positive impact on repurchase, which, in turn, influences profitability. In light of these findings, some managerial implications are suggested.     

The role of public space in constructing experience capital: A longitudinal analysis in the hotel context

Public space plays a primary role in shaping customers' hospitality experiences. Yet how public space conditions customers' experiential outcomes in accumulating capital for hospitality organizations remains underexplored. Inspired by the theory of psychological ownership, this research presents an in-depth analysis of the impacts of customers' public space experiences on their experiential outcomes using a longitudinal hotel industry dataset merging information from customer surveys, property performance, and surrounding accessibility insights. Findings revealed the positive effects of customers’ public space experiences on their overall service experiences, the perceived value of the experience, revisit intentions, and recommendation intentions. Moreover, hotel class, other customers, and surrounding accessibility were empirically verified as moderators conditioning the positive impact of public space. These findings offer valuable implications for theory and practice that are worthy of further exploration.     

Effects of brand personality dimensions on consumers’ perceived self-image congruity and functional congruity with hotel brands

Brand personality plays a key role in consumer brand psychology, but researchers and practitioners lack an adequate understanding of the efficacy of individual brand personality dimensions. Drawing on the theory of self-congruity and an analysis of eight U.S. hotel brands, this study revealed the varying roles that brand personality plays in driving brand choice: in particular, consumers tend to express their self-images through the brand personality dimensions known as Excitement and Sincerity, while relying on Sincerity and Competence to evaluate how consistent a hotel's functions are with their own preferences. The study also indicates that business travelers are more likely than leisure travelers to value functional congruity, while self-image congruity is more important to leisure than business travelers. The paper offers hotel practitioners a better understanding of the personality dimensions they should position or strengthen for their hotel brands to deliver to customers based on each dimension's utility.     

The effects of perceived service quality on repurchase intentions and subjective well-being of Chinese tourists: The mediating role of relationship quality

The current study provides and tests an integrated model that examines two relationship quality constructs (overall customer satisfaction, customer-company identification) as mediating variables between Chinese tourists' lodging service quality perceptions and two outcomes (repurchase intentions, subjective well-being). The results of a study with domestic Chinese hotel guests (n = 451) provide support for the proposed model. Specifically, the results indicate that overall customer satisfaction fully mediates the relationship between perceived service quality and repurchase intentions and subjective well-being, respectively. Customer-company identification partially mediates the relationship between perceived service quality and repurchase intentions and subjective wellbeing, respectively. We provide empirical validation that customers do, indeed, identify with hospitality providers, and this, in-turn, provides positive consequences for both the service provider (i.e., repurchase intentions) and the customer (i.e., subjective well-being). Managerial implications are provided, limitations noted, and future research directions suggested.