Hotel Services Research Articles

Labor Shortages in the Hospitality Industry: The Effects of Work-life Balance, Employee Compensation, Government-Issued Unemployment Benefits and Job Insecurity on Employees' Turnover Intentions

The purpose of this quantitative research was to identify the factors causing labor shortages in the hospitality industry in the post-pandemic era. Specifically, it examined the effects of work-life balance, employee compensation, government-issued unemployment benefits, and job insecurity on employees' turnover intentions. The research methodology employed in this study was a quantitative survey, with a sample size of 385 participants from the hotel, restaurant, bar industry, and food service sector. The findings indicated work-life balance, employee compensation, and job insecurity had a significant impact on employees' turnover intentions, as the null hypotheses for these factors were rejected. However, the government-issued unemployment benefits (EDD) did not show any significant impact, indicating further research is needed to gain deeper insights into the potential influence of these benefits. These findings contribute to the understanding of the challenges faced by the hospitality industry in retaining employees and highlight the importance of addressing work-life balance, compensation, and job insecurity to mitigate employee turnover.

Exploring the criteria for a green and smart hotel: insights from hotel managers' perspectives

PurposeThis study aimed to explore the adaptations and perspectives of hotel managers regarding green and smart hotel technologies within the context of sustainability.Design/methodology/approachA comprehensive literature review guided the formulation of this study, followed by face-to-face, semi-structured interviews with hotel managers. A total of 17 prepared questions were finalized after examination by two expert academicians. The responses were analyzed using qualitative research methodology and the results were weighted using the step-wise weight assessment ratio analysis (SWARA) method.FindingsInterviews with sustainability and operational managers yielded insights into environmentally friendly practices and strategies such as reducing energy and water consumption, waste and chemical reduction, supporting local entrepreneurs and adopting smart technologies. These factors are crucial in eco-friendly hotels. According to the SWARA analysis, 'reducing energy consumption' is the most effective criterion.Research limitations/implicationsThis study offers insights into green and smart hotel management by focusing on the perspectives of hotel managers with a small sample. In future studies, research with larger samples on customer perspectives and the effect of hotel selection is recommended.Practical implicationsThis study offers insights to hotel managers on energy conservation and customer satisfaction enhancement through green and technological applications. These technological applications can improve hotel service quality and provide personalized experiences, fostering customer loyalty.Originality/valueThis pioneering study focuses on the intersection of green and smart practices in hospitality. By intertwining the often separately discussed concepts of “green” and “smart,” this study presents a novel approach to the sustainability practices in the hospitality industry, holding a key position, especially in Turkey. Implementing these concepts can yield environmental and economic benefits, offering invaluable insights to hotel managers and policymakers into integrating smart technologies with sustainability.

The relationship between attribute performance and customer satisfaction: an interpretable machine learning approach

Understanding the relationship between attribute performance (AP) and customer satisfaction (CS) is crucial for the hospitality industry. However, accurately modeling this relationship remains challenging. To address this issue, we propose an interpretable machine learning-based dynamic asymmetric analysis (IML-DAA) approach that leverages interpretable machine learning (IML) to improve traditional relationship analysis methods. The IML-DAA employs extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) and SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) to construct relationships and explain the significance of each attribute. Following this, an improved version of penalty-reward contrast analysis (PRCA) is used to classify attributes, whereas asymmetric impact-performance analysis (AIPA) is employed to determine the attribute improvement priority order. A total of 29,724 user ratings in New York City collected from TripAdvisor were investigated. The results suggest that IML-DAA can effectively capture non-linear relationships and that there is a dynamic asymmetric effect between AP and CS, as identified by the dynamic AIPA model. This study enhances our understanding of the relationship between AP and CS and contributes to the literature on the hotel service industry.

Classifying Different Levels of Customer Satisfaction With Vietnamese Hotel Services by Analyzing Customer Feedback

The development of online booking systems has created information platforms for sharing customers when choosing a destination. Mining this information helps to understand the customer's experience and measure customer satisfaction with hotel services. Recent studies used this approach with machine learning or language models to mine the data generated by customers on the internet. However, this approach still has some limits when wanting to understand more customer insight. This article uses linguistics rules to measure customer satisfaction by combining aspects and polarity words. In the first step, the dataset with 21,196 reviews on seven main cities in Vietnam was collected from TripAdvisor. Next, the study developed a series of formulas to measure customer satisfaction with Vietnamese hotel service aspects based on inferential statistics and linguistic rules. Python's VADER library was used to measure overall customer satisfaction for Vietnamese hotels. In the final step, by language analysis, the authors calculate and grade the satisfaction score with hotel aspects from 1 to 5. Moreover, the study discovered the negative aspects of positive reviews, while previous studies were rarely mentioned.

Cognitive Dissonance Reduction Strategies Through Designing Mental Representation

ABSTRACT This study investigates the impact of re-recognizing the consumption goals of hotel products and services in reducing cognitive dissonance and maintaining consumption intentions. We analyzed responses from a total of 712 participants, with 356 completing a questionnaire on re-recognizing retrospective consumer goals and 356 on re-recognizing anticipatory consumer goals. This study reports that retrospective re-recognition of consumption goals in the process of consumers experiencing cognitive dissonance is less effective in reducing cognitive dissonance than in anticipatory consumption goals. In addition, when re-recognizing retrospective consumption goals in utility-oriented consumer goals, the cognitive dissonance of emotions decreases the most compared to cognitive dissonance of necessity and reliability. In pleasure-oriented consumer goals, re-recognizing anticipatory consumption goals was found to have the most significant impact on reducing cognitive dissonance related to necessity. This study reports the substantial differences in people’s responses to events that have occurred versus those that are yet to occur.

Studying the effectiveness of investments in hotel services using customer sentiment analysis

AbstractThe main aim of the article is to assess investments in hotel services in Poland in 2018–2020. The assessment was carried out by examining the correlation between financial outlays in the hotel industry in powiats (counties) and voivodeships of Poland and customer opinions expressed in internet entries on the websites of individual tourist facilities. The methodology for testing the sentiment of text documents is an unsupervised classification algorithm applied to the Polish language. The classification task consists of the unsupervised assignment of a text document to one of three sentiment classes: positive, neutral, or negative. The research is based on opinions collected from 906 hotels and the amount of financial investment in individual hotel segments (categories) in the surveyed years on a powiat basis. Financial investment data were gathered from the official statistical yearbook websites and internet entries were scraped from the websites of individual tourist facilities. The analysis shows a positive relationship between the size of investment in hotel services and the sentiment of customers' opinions. The scientific contribution of the research is threefold. Firstly, an attempt is made to assess the efficiency of investments in hotel services in Poland in recent years. Secondly, the approach applied omits the downsides of other popular models of assessing the quality of services. Thirdly, the algorithm used quite precisely finds the categories required for a different kind or broader analysis of the quality of hotel services.

Understanding the relationship between fear of pandemics and hotel visit intention: A multiple mediation model

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is evident that pandemics entail significant and far-reaching economic and psychosocial consequences globally. This study seeks to examine the psychological impact of the fear of pandemics on the tourism sector by investigating the relationship between the Fear of COVID-19 and hotel visit intentions. Employing a multiple mediation model, we aim to enhance our understanding and specifically focus on the mediating roles of tourism based risks (destination risk, health risk, and travel risk) and purchase-based risk perception in a pandemic situation. The study draws on quantitative data obtained from travelers through a structured questionnaire. The findings reveal that, although fear of COVID-19 heightens tourism based risks and purchase-based risk perceptions, it concurrently diminishes hotel visit intentions. The authors propose a model to guide hotel managers and provide a concise summary of practical and strategic recommendations. It is noteworthy that the impact of the fear of COVID-19 on hotel service purchase intention, mediated by risk perception and various travel risk types, remains underexplored in the existing literature. Hence, the authors present a model that is particularly relevant for hotel managers, compressing practical and strategic insights.

РОЛЬ УПРАВЛІННЯ ДИСТРИБУЦІЙНИМИ КАНАЛАМИ ГОТЕЛЮ ПРИ ОВЕРБУКІНГУ

The application of the overbooking process for different segments of the hotel services market requires the study of factors and prerequisites for influencing demand. The main problem faced by hotels when using overbooking is that, despite a set of booking requests that exceeds the total number of rooms, there is a lack of room capacity in the intervals between bookings. Hotel owners and managers, including those with a limited capacity, are increasingly interested in revenue management methods, but not everyone has managed to implement a system of Revenue Management, which is an integral part of effective management. On the one hand, a revenuemanager can optimize profitability and profitability not only from room sales, but also from other hotel revenue centers; on the other hand, knowing (analyzing) the habits of regular guests, it is possible to increase their loyalty by offering a personalized approach to providing special conditions for hotel services. Determining the potential of bookings and their impact on the total revenue of a hotel is based on an arsenal of data on needs in the general economic aspect, which form the interests, expectations, and priorities of consumers in choosing a hotel service. From the perspective of market relations, it is the needs of consumers that are the basis for the formation of consumer demand for hotel services. In the practical context of distribution of hotel services, the main dispute in the formation of a room reservation guarantee system is reflected in the content of compensation processes for reasons of no-show or early departure. In accordance with this statement, the fundamental content, prerequisites and benefits of using overbooking for the guest are the flexible consumption, at the level of the hotel enterprise – it is to ensure the process of managing the occupancy as a set of separate areas of planning and maximizing revenues. However, it is worth noting that the increasing application of overbooking depends on individual decisions of the hotel company and requires differentiation of the hotel service, which, in particular, involves expanding the price plan, introducing new methods in the process of their promotion and transforming distribution. The problem is that the level of overbooking is determined primarily by the method of trial and error and can lead either to resale of rooms and forced relocation of guests or to an unreasonably large quantity of vacant rooms and a lack of revenue.

ПІДХОДИ ДО УПРАВЛІННЯ СТАЛИМ РОЗВИТКОМ ПІДПРИЄМСТВ ГОТЕЛЬНО-РЕСТОРАННИХ ПОСЛУГ

Taking into account the need to revise approaches to the management of hotel and restaurant service enterprises, to improve their functioning in order to ensure progressive progress, the article updates the need for methodological support to create an effective management system for their sustainable development by improving the process of resource consumption, reducing the costs of industrial and commercial activities based on the use advanced technology, digital technologies, improved forms and methods of management. It is emphasized that the management of sustainable development is the direction of the operation of the enterprise, which involves the implementation of operational, current and strategic plans of its work due to the implementation on a regular basis of measures to prevent, identify and neutralize market threats to the implementation of the plan. The article is devoted to approaches (systemic, target, process, cost) to management of sustainable development of hotel and restaurant services enterprises. In particular, the systemic approach will make it possible to determine and ensure more effective interaction of all subsystems (subdivisions, areas of activity, etc.) and component processes at the enterprise as a socio-economic system. A targeted approach to managing sustainable development implies that a change in the functions performed by the enterprise as a system leads to a change in the target action, and hence the mechanism of its functioning and organizational structure. With the help of a process approach, the processes that take place at the enterprise and affect its sustainable development in a targeted direction are studied. The cost approach, as a set of methods for estimating the costs of the company’s resources, necessary to obtain the planned results of operation, and activities aimed at ensuring progressive development, models the scheme of costs of various types of resources (material, labor, technical and technological, marketing, administrative, investment, innovation and etc.) to obtain planned functioning results. These approaches are a methodological basis for creating an effective management system for the sustainable development of hotel and restaurant services by improving the process of resource consumption, reducing the costs of commercial activity based on the use of advanced technology, digital technologies, improved forms and methods of management. It is concluded that the management of sustainable development of hotel and restaurant services enterprises provides increased efficiency and sustainable economic growth as dominant factors of sustainable development, as well as the possibility of managing these processes by applying the proposed approaches.

БЕЗПЕЧНІСТЬ ТА БЕЗБАР’ЄРНІСТЬ ПІДПРИЄМСТВ ГОТЕЛЬНОГО ГОСПОДАРСТВА МІСТА ЛУЦЬКА В УМОВАХ ВІЙНИ

Today, the direction of the socio-economic development of the hospitality industry has changed in Ukraine. In the context of war, there is a growing number of people who need effective solutions in the service sector to improve the provision of inclusive services. Given the growing demand of hospitality establishments among tourists, including people with disabilities, the direction of introducing barrier-free services is becoming relevant. Such solutions will improve the quality and culture of service. The safety and barrier-free enterprises of the hotel industry of the city of Lutsk in the conditions of war are analyzed. An assessment of the results of the questionnaire of signs of safety and barrier-free, which was developed by the Department of Tourism and Promotion of the city of Lutsk, is given. The concept of inclusion and its specifics is analyzed. The problems of signs of physical barrier-free in the field of tourism in regulatory documents are considered. The number of persons with disabilities in the Volyn region from 2019 to 2023 is analyzed. The importance of providing inclusive space for persons with disabilities in Lutsk hotels has been established. Methods of solving problems of enterprises of hotel economy of Lutsk are proposed. The most common problems faced by the hotel sector of the city of Lutsk, as well as proposals for their solution, are investigated. It is proved that the creation of an accessible environment at the enterprises of the hotel industry of the city of Lutsk will allow people of all categories to exercise their rights and fundamental freedoms, for their full participation in the functioning of tourism and ensuring barrier-free. Many Ukrainian scientists are investigating the relevance of improving inclusive services in hotels. As a result of numerous studies, there is a need to improve the organization of services for people with special needs in the field of hospitality. This article states that Lutsk hotel establishments strive for positive changes in the field of inclusion, since this form of interaction between people with special needs and private business best reflects respect, and thereby takes into account their needs and responds to challenges from society caused by the war.

Customer Demographics and Hotel Service Quality: An Indepth Investigation

The hospitality industry is characterized by its dynamic and competitive nature, necessitating a nuanced understanding of customer preferences and expectations. Through a thorough analysis, this research seeks to understand the multifaceted connection between customer demographics and hotel Service Quality (SQ). The hospitality sector has to comprehend how the different demographic aspects affect how the customers perceive and they are satisfied with hotel services to customize services while enhancing the overall experience for customers. This research is experimented in the SPSS tool regarding analyzing the customers' perceptions of SQ in hotels. A standardized questionnaire was implemented to survey 550 hotel customers and the results were analyzed in terms of the demographics of the participants. To determine whether there were any significant associations or distinctions, the t-test for independent samples (IS) and the “Chi-square test” was employed. Significant variations were found in the outcomes of the 4 dimensions regarding SQ. It was typical to find that, depending on their demographics, hotel customers' opinions of the quality of the services offered differed greatly. The hotels throughout India were frequented by people from a wide range of backgrounds. Customer demographic traits probably have an impact on how well they perceive the quality of the services provided by hotels.

Emotional Alchemy in Hospitality: Transforming Discontent to Delight through Servant Leadership and Strategic Emotional Labor in Hotel Service Recovery Performance

Hotel service dissatisfaction necessitates recovery for sustainable operations. Frontline employees, crucial for customer interactions, ensure quality service delivery and bear responsibility for rectifying service failures. Swift service complaint resolution is customer’s priority, with leader support impacting emotional labor and performance outcomes. This study explores servant leadership's vital role in fostering an environment where employees feel valued, contributing to successful service recovery. Employing SPSS, AMOS, and SEM, this study empirically extends existing leadership literature by exploring the uncharted relationship between servant leadership and service recovery performance within an underdeveloped nation's hotel industry, significantly contributing to the conservation of resource theory. Using a comprehensive survey of 625 frontline employees, findings of the study reveal servant leadership's positive impact on deep acting and negative effect on surface acting. The study confirms servant leadership fosters deep acting, positively influencing service recovery. Grounded in the conservation of resources theory, it proves hotels with servant leadership exhibit effective service recovery. This research contributes theoretically by linking emotional labor to the servant leadership and service recovery performance relationship, demonstrating its impact on genuine customer interaction restoration.

Determinants for labour productivity improvement in hotel service: empirical evidence from Vietnam

Determinants for labour productivity improvement in hotel service: empirical evidence from Vietnam

The Quality of Spa Services in Unique Hotels Under The Crisis Conditions of a Pandemic Covid-19 And War in Ukraine

The Quality of Spa Services in Unique Hotels Under The Crisis Conditions of a Pandemic Covid-19 And War in Ukraine

СУЧАСНІ ТЕНДЕНЦІЇ ПІДГОТОВКИ ФАХІВЦІВ СПЕЦІАЛЬНОСТІ «ГОТЕЛЬНО-РЕСТОРАННА СПРАВА» ЯК ЧИННИК ПІДВИЩЕННЯ КОНКУРЕНТОСПРОМОЖНОСТІ ГАЛУЗІ

The article is dedicated to exploring contemporary trends in the training of specialists in the field of Hotel and Restaurant Management as a factor in enhancing the industry's competitiveness. The growth of international tourism and the development of global communication technologies open up new opportunities for hotels and restaurants, but at the same time, pose new challenges. Therefore, the tourism and hospitality sector demands new skills and knowledge from professionals in hotel and restaurant management. The implementation of innovative technologies is the future for the development of any business and requires professionals to possess not only technical skills but also flexibility and adaptability. Modern guests expect more than just comfortable accommodation or tasty food. They want to receive services from staff who can create a unique experience for them, taking into account their individual needs and desires. Professionals in hotel and restaurant management must be adequately trained to work with clients of different types, including empathy, communication, and conflict resolution skills. The ongoing military actions in Ukraine significantly impact the current trends in the training of specialists in Hotel and Restaurant Management. Firstly, there's a change or decrease in tourist flows to the country and certain regions. This significantly affects the demand for hotel and restaurant services, which in turn will require adaptation from domestic hotel and restaurant businesses and demand knowledge in crisis management from professionals in hotel and restaurant management. Despite everything, the hospitality sector remains attractive for investment because it is the industry that most actively responds to changes in society, the economy, the social sphere, and to some extent reflects the prosperity of the population. Overall, understanding and considering contemporary trends in the training of professionals will remain an important element in achieving success in this field, as well as enabling increased competitiveness, economic efficiency, and contributing to the recovery of the industry in the future.

ВСЕРОССИЙСКОЕ ЧЕМПИОНАТНОЕ ДВИЖЕНИЕ ПРОФЕССИОНАЛЬНОГО МАСТЕРСТВА «ПРОФЕССИОНАЛЫ» И МЕЖДУНАРОДНОЕ ДВИЖЕНИЕ WORLDSKILLS: СРАВНИТЕЛЬНЫЙ АНАЛИЗ (НА ПРИМЕРЕ КОМПЕТЕНЦИИ «АДМИНИСТРИРОВАНИЕ ОТЕЛЯ»)

The article is devoted to the problem of developing a new championship movement in Russia. Currently, championships of professional excellence play an important role in the development of the secondary vocational education system. Russia has been a participant in the championship movement since 2012. A comparative description of the international movement WorldSkills and the All-Russian movement “Professionals” helps to identify the similarities and main differences between them. The «Professionals» movement is also considered from the point of view of its relationship with the Federal Project «Professionalism» and as an instrument for realizing its main goal. The author studies the organization and conduct of competitions, having practical experience of participating in the regional stage as the main expert. In the issue of Russian Championship Movement, it is important to take into account the opinions of political leaders, experts, representatives of the education sector and leading enterprises of the country. In modern conditions, the participation of industrial partners in the championship movement is multidirectional. The scientific work is based on the «Hotel Reception» competency. During present research it was identified its features and Russia’s achievements at different levels. Competition tasks are of great importance for the formation of professional skills of future hotel service specialists. Special attention in the article is paid to the issue of training hotel service specialists at the request of employers. The issue of foreign language training within the framework of participation in the «Hotel Reception» competency was studied. The article examines the concept of intercultural communication in the sphere of hospitality. Competition tasks and competency assessment criteria are considered from the point of view of international standards. In conclusion, the author says about the effectiveness of the implementation of activities within the framework of the «Professionals» movement. It believes that the creation of domestic competitions contributed to the modernization of the mechanism for their organization and conduct, as well as the improvement of the system of training and evaluation of participants in the «Hotel Reception» competency.

Discussion on Informatization Teaching Design and Practice of English Course for Higher Vocational Hotel Service Majors in the Internet Era

Abstract This study explores the design and practice of informatization teaching in English for senior hospitality service majors, based on the ARCS model, and optimizes the teaching process through the Analysis of learning situation and the design of teaching practice sessions. The study adopts the classroom attention model (PA model) to analyze students’ behaviors with multivariate behavioral models and predicts students’ English scores based on the NB algorithm. The experimental results show that there is a significant difference between the reform class and the regular class in terms of the total scores of the basic English post-test, and the speaking, Listening and reading scores of the reform class are significantly higher, where the value of the full score significance (two-tailed) is 0.022. In addition, a cluster analysis of 400 students was conducted, and the correlation between students’ attention and their scores was explored. The Analysis of the teaching model showed that students were satisfied with the blended teaching, especially in “overall design and effectiveness” and “choosing the reformed teaching course again”.

Exploring the influence of online word-of-mouth on hotel booking prices: insights from regression and ensemble-based machine learning methods

<abstract> <p>Previous studies have extensively investigated the effects of online word-of-mouth (eWOM) factors such as volume and valence on product sales. However, studies of the effect of eWOM factors on product prices are lacking. It is necessary to examine how various eWOM factors can either explain or affect product prices. The objective of this study is to suggest explanatory and predictive analytics using a regression analysis and ensemble-based machine learning methods for eWOM factors and hotels booking prices. This study utilizes publicly available data from a hotel booking site to build a sample of eWOM factors. The final study sample was comprised of 927 hotels. The important eWOM factors found to affect hotel prices are the review depth and the review rating, which are moderated by a number of reviews to affect prices. The effect of the number of positive words is moderated by the review helpfulness to affect the price. The review depth and rating, along with the number of reviews, should be considered in the design of hotel services, as these provide the rationale for adjusting the prices of various aspects of hotel services. Furthermore, the comparison results when applying various ensemble-based machine learning methods to predict prices using eWOM factors based on a 46-fold cross-validation partition method indicated that ensemble methods (bagging and boosting) based on decision trees outperformed ensemble methods based on k-nearest neighbor methods and neural networks. This shows that bagging and boosting methods are effective ways to improve the prediction performance outcomes when using decision trees. The explanatory and predictive analytics using eWOM factors for hotel booking prices offers a better understanding in terms of how the accommodation prices of hotel services can be explained and predicted by eWOM factors.</p> </abstract>

Research on the role of residential hotels in rural tourism in the context of big data

Abstract The development of residential hotels has new practical significance in today’s rural tourism which is heating up and getting more and more attention and development. This paper constructs a service quality evaluation system for residential hotels based on SERVQUAL service quality model and introduces gray correlation analysis and multiple linear regression to analyze the role and influence of residential hotels on rural tourism development. Taking the data of residential hotels in Province S as the research sample, the gray correlation degree and service quality gap of residential hotel service quality were verified, and the interaction between them was verified by regression analysis under different fixed effects. The results show that the gray correlation of safety in the service quality of residential hotels is the highest at 0.7812, the gap of service quality advantage is 0.46 points higher than the mean value of rural tourism tourists’ expectations, and the explanatory degree of the service quality of residential hotels to the development of rural tourism reaches 72.4% in all dimensions. The development of rural tourism can be boosted by improving service quality in residential hotels and meeting the expectations of tourists regarding rural tourism.

The Future of The Hotel Sector in the Context of Risks Caused by the Pandemic

The hotel sector is particularly exposed to pandemic risk. This risk has the characteristics of a systematic and random risk, but its impact is focused on the profitability of hotel services. The nature of this risk determines the limited influence of the hotel company on its sources, which means that the time in which losses from this risk are incurred is varied and unpredictable. The purpose of this article is to try to collect and evaluate the conclusions of research on the economic situation and future of hotel enterprises, from the perspective of risks caused by the pandemic. For this purpose, the method of critical analysis of the literature on the subject was used. The results of the study lead to the conclusion that the reduction of losses depends to a large extent on the effectiveness of the measures taken, known as crisis management. As a result, the future of the hospitality sector in particular depends on innovation, organizational culture, the ability to compete and the ability to use modern communication technologies.