The Influence of a Hotel Firm's Quality of Service and Image and its Effect on Tourism Customer Loyalty

The aim of this article is to understand the influence of hotel service quality and corporate image on tourism customer loyalty. Data were collected from tourists at several sight-seeing locations in Mauritius. The study sample comprised guests of various hotels in Mauritius who were randomly approached and invited to participate in a survey on the hotel's services. The study findings suggest that it is the quality of service and the corporate image of the hotel that jointly influence tourism customers' loyalty. Although the study findings do not indicate a direct relationship between service quality and loyalty, it is the consistent quality of service that creates and sustains the image of the hotel which, ultimately, results in tourism customer loyalty. This would therefore suggest that tourism customer loyalty is dependent on a hotel's ability to consistently deliver service quality.     

How Does the Work Status Affect Employees’ Job Attitude and Behavior in the Hotel Industry?

The study focuses on how work status impacts employees’ perception of job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and job performance in the hotel industry. Also, it explores whether supervisors perceive employees’ job attitudes and behavior in the same way as they perceive. Data were collected from a self-administered survey for five-star hotel employees and supervisors in Seoul, South Korea. A total of 335 valid responses were collected from 280 employees and 65 supervisors and analyzed by using structural equation modeling. The results of the study indicated that nonstandard employees expressed higher job satisfaction and higher organizational commitment but perceived lower job performance than standard employees did. Work status had no significant moderating effect on the relationships between job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and job performance; however, the results of this study indicated that supervisors’ perceptions of nonstandard employees’ job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and job performance were quite different from those of the nonstandard employees themselves. This study suggests that hotel operators should develop strategies to fully utilize nonstandard employees who reveal potential for quality service to guests.     

Hotel safety and security systems: Bridging the gap between managers and guests

Safety and security are important factors in guests’ selection of a hotel. Hoteliers normally follow local regulations when designing a hotel's safety and security systems, but which system features hotel guests perceive to be the most important and which they expect to find in place remain open questions. The main aim of this research is thus to investigate the gap between hotel safety and security managers’ and hotel guests’ perceptions of the relative importance of safety and security facilities. Two sets of questionnaires – designed for managers and guests, respectively – containing 32 attributes were used to gauge respondents’ perceptions of different hotel safety and security system installations. Independent t-tests and one-way ANOVA were employed to examine significant differences in the way managers and guests rate the importance of hotel in-house safety and security systems.The findings reveal that guests perceive “well-equipped fire prevention systems in accordance with local regulations”, “an emergency plan”, “an emergency lighting system”, “a 24-h uniformed security guard” and “the regular testing of hotel safety and security systems” to be the top five in-house safety and security systems, whereas hotel managers perceive “closed-circuit television systems for hotel public areas”, “emergency lighting systems” and “application of a guest key to activate the lifts to guest floors” to be the third through fifth most important. The results also indicate two good matches, six under-perceptions and four over-perceptions, indicating that managers may require a better understanding of guest expectations.In addition to gap analysis, this study discusses the importance of staff safety and security training, the acceptance of high-tech safety and security systems and the need for female guest floors, and provides a number of insights to help hotel managers better understand the needs of their customers, thereby allowing them to employ measures that are likely to keep customers’ satisfied.     

Gender differences in the relationship between justice perceptions and job insecurity in hotel outsourcing

Discrimination against women, injustices, and job insecurity are three issues in hotel outsourcing that have not been examined together. This study uses conservation of resource (COR) theory to investigate whether male and female internal staff have lower job insecurity when they perceive external peers’ fair treatment by management or when they perceive such treatment for themselves. Using a pen-and-paper survey, data were collected from 215 internal staff who worked side by side with external peers in 14 Spanish hotels. Results indicate that female internal staff reduce their job insecurity when observing acts of interpersonal justice towards external peers, and male internal staff reduce their job insecurity when perceiving themselves as recipients of acts of procedural justice. No results were found for internal staff who observed acts of distributive justice towards external peers. Findings suggest that job insecurity threatens outsourcing’s success unless different kinds of justice are managed according to gender.     

Gender,loyalty card membership,age, and critical incident recovery: Do they moderate experience-loyalty relationship?

The study examines the critical role of customer experience in determining hotel brand loyalty and the moderating role of gender, loyalty card membership, age, and critical incident recovery in this relationship. Based on a sample of 408 hotel guests and employing structural equation modeling approach, dimensions that comprise ‘customer experience with hotel brands’—hotel location, hotel staff competence, hotel stay, and ambience, hotel website and social media, and guest-to-guest experience—are found to have relative effects on hotel brand loyalty. The results contribute to hospitality realm by suggesting the moderating effect of gender, loyalty card membership, age, and critical incident recovery on customer experience-loyalty relationship. Implications for managerial practice and theory are discussed together with limitations and further research directions.     

Hotel guests’ perceptions of environmental friendly practices in social media

Despite hotels’ managers spend substantial time and money on environmental initiatives; they are not sure whether their guests perceive their green efforts appropriately. The purpose of this study is to analyze guests’ perceptions of hotels’ environmental practices expressed through social media. Main results suggest that even though customers perceive green efforts regarding six items: Energy, Water, Purchasing, Waste, Site and Education & Innovation, they do not discern hotels' level of environmental commitment. Moreover, guests' perceptions of hotel efforts in environmentally friendly practices do not significantly differ by the mode of travel nor by the reviewer's experience in travel platforms. A relevant implication is that the communication about environmentally friendly practices needs to be redesigned and intensified by hotel managers in order to take advantage of these efforts.     

Sustainability Management of Hotels: How Do Customers Respond in Online Reviews?

The purpose of this study was to investigate how guests respond to the sustainability efforts of sustainably managed hotels by discussing them in reviews posted online. Thus, an exploratory research design and the content analysis method were chosen for this study. The content analysis technique was used to analyze User Generated Content and to explore what attributes of sustainability are perceived as the most important by hotel guests in online reviews and whether they generate positive or negative feelings. An analysis of the reviews showed that hotel guests perceive sustainability positively: most indicators were discussed in a positive context, and reviews that contained sustainability attributes had higher guest ratings than other reviews. Explicit references to sustainability were found in only 6.8% of all customer comments. The most frequently encountered indicators in guest reviews were biodiversity, education and sustainable products. Customers mainly discuss attributes that have direct impacts on their experience or are observable at the hotel. Customers are likely to realize that a hotel’s commitment to sustainability can excuse the hotel for a suffered inconvenience. This finding implies that hoteliers should educate guests on their sustainability measures, as higher awareness may increase customer satisfaction.     

An Assessment of Key Hotel Guest Contact Personnel in Handling Guest Complaints

Abstract

The quality of a guest's hotel experience is frequently dependent on the consistency with which hotel standards of service are applied. Where the existing systems break down, guests will complain. This should be viewed as an opportunity for the hotel's management. However, some hotel direct guest contact personnel may view guest complaints as causes for panic rather than opportunities for improving the hotel operation. Guests whose complaints were resolved satisfactorily were willing to return back to the hotel. Proficiency in handling their complaints results in greater guest satisfaction and loyalty. The application of the research will be on Hotel Assistant Managers/Guest Relations Agents to investigate whether they are applying the necessary steps and techniques to solve guests' complaints related either to tangible or intangible products in hotels. Results indicate that Hotel Assistant Managers and Guest Relations Agents could improve their effectiveness in handling guests' complaints. Assistant Managers were found in this study to be better at handling complaints than Guest Relations Agents.     

“I have to watch my back”: Exploring Chinese hotel guests’ generalized distrust and coping behavior

The hospitality industry has been suffering from a pervasive climate of suspicion among guests who are concerned about potential hygiene or safety issues. From the perspective of protection motivation theory, this study presents a conceptual model elucidating the underlying mechanism through which generalized distrust shapes hotel guests' defensive coping behavior. Exploratory semi-structured interviews and online posts were combined to identify hotel guests' on-site coping strategies and underlying mechanisms. Then, an online questionnaire was distributed to 532 respondents, and structural equation modeling was used to test the proposed research model. Results provide empirical support for the “cognition–emotion–coping behavior” pattern in cognitive appraisal theory. This study offers valuable insight into the management of hotel guests’ generalized distrust.     

The effect of perceived error stability,brand perception,and relationship norms on consumer reaction to data breaches

The issue of data breaches has received increasing attention in the hospitality industry. Companies’ efforts to fix such errors affect consumers’ evaluations and behavioral intentions toward those companies. This study investigates the impact of perceived error stability on hotel guests’ intentions to spread positive word-of-mouth (WOM) about a hotel. The findings reveal that when a data breach occurs, consumers are likely to spread positive WOM about a company that is typically considered competent if the consumers perceive the error stability to be low rather than high. Consumers have similar reactions to companies with which they have communal relationships. This research suggests that hotels should strategically allocate their resources on the basis of brand perception in the minds of their target consumers as well as their relationships with their target markets.     

Hotel customers’ environmentally responsible behavioral intention: Impact of key constructs on decision in green consumerism

Since rapidly growing numbers of customers prefer environmentally responsible products, efforts to “green” hotel operations are becoming increasingly important. The study reported here was designed to investigate guests’ intention formation when selecting an environmentally responsible hotel. The intention was to extend the Model of Goal-directed Behavior (MGB) by integrating several essential variables (environmental awareness, perceived effectiveness, and eco-friendly behavior and reputation) in explicating customers’ eco-friendly behavior. Findings from the measurement model indicated that study variables included a satisfactory level of reliability and validity. Results from the structural modeling revealed that the proposed theoretical framework had a strong ability to anticipate intention; incorporated constructs that played a vital role in hotel guests’ decision formation; and identified attitudes and desires that acted as mediators. The role of established variables in the original MGB was redefined. Our model had superior prediction power over the MGB, accounting for guests’ environmentally friendly buying behavior accurately.     

Facial attractiveness and stereotypes of hotel guests: An experimental research

The purpose of this research was to determine social interaction between hospitality employees and their guests, and consequently assess how front-line employees categorize and stereotype hotel guests based on their facial attractiveness with reference to three main characteristics. Social stereotypes represent a means of information transmission in the communication process and can enable a more rapid transfer of information during the service delivery in the hospitality industry. The experimental research was conducted with 113 hospitality employees at seven hospitality organizations on the Slovenian coast. The results showed a correlation between the perception of hotel guests' facial attractiveness with their assumed characteristics that can lead to stereotyping. Hotel employees often link the guest's facial attractiveness with three common perceived characteristics – guests' propensity to spend, guests' predisposition to being demanding and guests' ‘kindness’, and tend to stereotype them on the same basis. These research findings contribute to a better understanding of the complex interactions that occur during a service encounter and show how facial attractiveness of guests plays an important role in the construction of stereotypes by the hospitality employees.     

Differences Between Management Philosophies Among American and Chinese Hotel Managers: A Cultural Comparison Between Las Vegas and Shanghai

The aim of this study is to ascertain, in an international tourism context, whether there are cultural discrepancies between hotel employees who have been educated and trained in a host country, and guests who have traveled to that country, given that each group is imbued with their own national culture. The findings indicate that not only do Thai frontline hotel employees have different expectations about the behavior of Japanese and Korean customers, but that the expectations of both customer groups concerning their own behavior differ from those of Thai employees. A significant gap was found in perceptions of actual behavior between the international customers and hotel staff, suggesting that cultural discrepancies are indeed present, but also vary by ethnicity. The scale of the discrepancy between Thai employees’ perceptions of Japanese tourists’ behavior, for example, was larger than in the case of the Korean customers. Comparison of the expectations of the two international customer groups also revealed strong differences.     

Managing customer citizenship behaviour: The moderating roles of employee responsiveness and organizational reassurance

This study examines the influence of employee responsiveness and organizational reassurance towards customer citizenship behaviour (CCB) on building guest satisfaction, loyalty, and perceived value. The study considers insights from concepts in psychology including attachment theory, self-congruity theory, affect infusion model, and social exchange theory which are relevant to the problematics of CCB. The scenario-based experimental design used in this study focuses on one aspect of CCB identified in extant literature: the policing of other customers. In a hospitality context, guests voluntarily participate in safeguarding an organization's quality when they identify areas that may be impacted by opportunistic behaviours of fellow guests. This context is highly relevant in hospitality and tourism settings where the behaviour of one individual may directly impact the experience of another given the co-creation of experience in a shared environment. Both employee responsiveness and organizational reassurance were found to significantly moderate guest satisfaction, loyalty and perceived value.     

Influence of environmental stimuli on hotel customer emotional loyalty response: Testing the moderating effect of the big five personality factors

The aim of this research was to test the moderation effects of the Big Five Factors (BFF) of personality on hotel ambience-guests’ consumption emotions–loyalty relationship. This was an attempt to extend the Stimuli–Organism–Response (S–O–R) that has been widely used in consumer studies without integrating personality factors that may exert effects on the relationships. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to hotel guests; 563 responses were used in data analysis. The results of the structural model affirm the effect of hotel ambience on guests’ consumption emotions, with those emotions having significant effects on loyalty. Among the personality factors, extraversion, openness to experience and agreeableness significantly moderated the relationships, with groups scoring high in traits having stronger relationships than those lower in traits. Overall, the study supports the extension of the S-O-R with the inclusion of personality. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Non-verbal communication in hospitality: At the intersection of religion and gender

Given the criticality of successful bilateral (guest–employee) interactions in the increasingly internationalised hospitality business environment, the overarching aim of this study is to determine whether religion (Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, and Christianity) plays a role in how hotel employees’ non-verbal communication is perceived by guests. In addition, we are interested in understanding perceptions of hotel employees’ non-verbal behaviour from the perspective of the intersection of religion and gender. This exploratory research is based on cross-sectional data collected from 384 hotel guests in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Results showed that Christian guests perceived proxemics, physical appearance and paralanguage of hotel employees less favourably than Muslim guests did. Effects of religion on kinesics and proxemics also depended on gender. Implications are discussed theoretically in terms of cross-religious discourse and practically in terms of workforce training.     

Influences of consumer characteristics on fairness perceptions of revenue management pricing in the hotel industry

Fairness perceptions play an important role in customers’ behavior, and this study explores which consumer characteristics influence fairness perceptions of revenue management (RM) pricing in the hotel context. To examine such differentiating characteristics, the study conducts a logit analysis by comparing two groups: one group of customers who consider hotels’ RM practices to be fair and the other group considers the practices to be unfair. The findings provide an opportunity for hotel managers to identify customers’ particular characteristics that affect customer's perceptions of the fairness of hotels’ RM pricing practices.     

Accommodating the needs of disabled hotel guests: Implications for guests and management

The purpose of this study are two-fold: (1) to identify disabled guests’ perceptions of their hotel experiences, and (2) to identify the feasibility of implementing disabled guests’ suggestions in hotel design and service policies. Interviews were conducted with leaders of national organizations serving disabled persons and hotel executives. The responses from guests with mobility impairments offered the most suggestions and the greatest need for special accommodations. The mobility disability segment echo those from the hearing and visual impairments segments, with all respondents indicating a need for better staff sensitivity training. Easily implemented suggestions were made for hotel managers to consider when attracting and accommodating guests with disabilities. If adopted by the industry, the recommendations will help hotel operators improve the hotel experiences of guests with disabilities.     

Environmental consciousness and green customer behavior: An examination of motivation crowding effect

The motivation crowding effect suggests that external money intervention weakens intrinsic motivation. The purpose of this study is to examine whether the motivation crowding effect occurs during the process where consumers try to be environmentally friendly. Thus, this study will first investigate the effect of environmental protection consciousness on green customer behavior, and then investigate the effect that incentive mechanisms have on environmental protection consciousness and green customer behavior. 458 hotel guests are used as research subjects. The results show that environmental protection consciousness positively affects green consumer behavior. Cash discount incentives have no effect on the choice of hotel guests to reuse their bed sheet or towels; on the contrary, environmental protective alternatives are great incentives for hotel guests to maintain environmentally friendly behavior. Regarding the demographics of hotels guests, female and younger guests are more inclined to be environmentally friendly. The contribution of this paper is proof of the existence of motivation crowding through an empirical analysis of hotel guests, which enlightens the hospitality industry on how to introduce environmentally friendly strategies in order to respond to motivation crowding.