Hotel Patrons Research Articles

The effect of customer participation on brand preference: Do hotel brand type and star rating matter?

Drawing on value co-creation theory, this study proposes a novel model that incorporates the hotel brand type and star rating into the “customer participation—customer brand engagement—brand preference” model to explore their impacts on the formation of customer brand preferences. Data collected from 330 hotel patrons were analyzed to test the proposed model. The results suggest that customer participation positively affected three dimensions of brand engagement, viz., cognitive engagement, affective engagement, and behavioral engagement, which in turn positively influenced brand preference. Contrary to expectation, hotel brand type and star rating weakened the relationships between affective engagement and brand preference. This study enriches the discussion on the determinants of brand preference and describes its formation path. Implications, as well as future research opportunities, are offered.

The Riviera Exposed: An Ecohistory of Postwar Tourism and North African Labor. By Stephen L. Harp

Ruben Östlund’s 2014 film “Turist” follows a rich, handsome Nordic family on vacation in the French Alps. The façade of their perfect life crumbles when pater familias Tomas abandons his wife and children during an apparent avalanche, which turns out to have been a controlled explosion to maintain the slopes. I thought about this film often as I read Stephen Harp’s engrossing environmental and social history of the French Riviera. The film satirizes luxury “nature” travel by reminding the audience of the work behind it. There is the nocturnal army of snowblowers, tractors, and cannon that make the place appealing to wealthy tourists like Tomas’s family. And then there is the figure of the janitor who always happens to be cleaning the halls whenever Tomas and his wife take their fighting out of earshot of their kids. Custodial staff may typically go unnoticed by hotel patrons, but in their unhinged state the couple see him, and the sight is a provocation. They yell at him to go away, to give them “privacy” in the public hallways that he is employed to clean. The janitor has no lines, but he is coded as an immigrant, Southern European, perhaps, or North African. That such a man would bear witness to the crisis of white European bourgeois masculinity is depicted as intolerable and makes the crisis more poignant.

Service Encounters and Guests Patronage of Hotels

In service oriented businesses, interactions between service providers and customers are inevitable. These interactions create impressions in the minds of the parties which to some extent define patronage outcome. For a meaningful outcome, an understanding of the creators of satisfactory patronage is germane. This study investigates the influence of customers’ encounters in defining the outcome of hotel patronage. This study adopted a cross-sectional design using a structured questionnaire survey of guests of 3 star and above rated hotels in Yenagoa, Bayelsa state Nigeria .Four hundred copies of questionnaire were distributed in ten strategically selected hotels, and 290 copies were found useful. This represents about 73% response rate . The SPSS 23.0 statistical software package were used for data analysis. Multiple regression analysis and Pearson correlation was employed to test the formulated hypotheses at 5% significance level. This study reports that youth are in majority of hotel patrons. Empirical analysis further reveals that all the dimensions of service encounters reports a significant relationship with word- of- mouth recommendations. Furthermore, the regression analysis reveals that peace of mind, moment of truth, outcome focus and product experience could explain about 53% variation in patronage outcome. The paper conclude that all the dimensions of customer experience has a significant influence on word- of- mouth recommendations of guests. This paper recommend among others things the training and retraining of service personnel. This training should equip frontline employees with the requisite skills that would enable them create and manage pleasurable experiences.

Influencing Hotel Patrons to Use Reef-Safe Sunscreen

The health of Hawaiian coral reefs is threatened by sunscreen ingredients (e.g., oxybenzone). This study sought to determine factors leading to the pro-environmental behavior of using reef-safe sunscreen (RSS) and identify practices hoteliers could implement to influence patrons to engage in this behavior. The study applied a framework to model pro-environmental behavior in the hospitality industry. It proposed that attitudes, personal capabilities, and habits are causal variables that influence pro-environmental intention, the predictor of pro-environmental behavior. Contextual factors were proposed as moderating variables for the relationship between pro-environmental intention and pro-environmental behavior. Past Hawaiian hotel patrons (n = 400) were the subjects for this survey. Intention to use RSS and the factors that influenced intention were investigated. Responses were analyzed using multiple linear regression and ANOVA. Results suggested that hotel patrons’ intention to use RSS was primarily influenced by three determinants: attitudes, personal capabilities, and contextual factors. Targeting the development of personal capabilities and employing contextual factors that facilitate the behavior were shown as effective methods to influence RSS use. Findings supported educational campaigns and complimentary RSS programs as practices that Hawaii hotel operators could use to influence patrons’ intention to use RSS.

Social media customer behavioral engagement and loyalty among hotel patrons: does customer involvement matter?

PurposeDespite wide acknowledgment in research of the benefits of customer engagement to firms, the customer engagement process and how it leads to positive marketing outcomes remains underexplored. Extending existing research, this paper aims to develop and test a conceptual model that outlines the effect of passive and active customer behavioral engagement on customer loyalty and the role of customer involvement in the process, as both an antecedent and a moderator.Design/methodology/approachData collected from 362 millennials in Johannesburg, South Africa through a scenario-based experiment was submitted to a partial least square structural equation modeling and moderated-mediation analyses after examining the manipulation effectiveness of the experimental scenarios. The unit of analyses is hotel patrons.FindingsThe findings include customer involvement is a significant predictor of passive and active customer behavioral engagement both of which consequently influence customer loyalty; customer involvement moderates the effect of passive engagement on active engagement; and not only is passive engagement indirectly related to customer loyalty through active engagement, the indirect relationship is the strongest at the highest level of customer involvement.Research limitations/implicationsThe current study provides notable insights into the relationship between customer involvement, customer behavioral engagement and customer loyalty. However, there is need for further studies to validate our model across different brand categories and different social media platforms as well as in offline settings with a more diverse sample because the scope of this study is limited to millennials that use Facebook brand communities.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the customer engagement literature by rationalizing and demonstrating the importance of customer involvement as a precursor of the behavioral engagement process (comprising the passive and the active components) and loyalty among hotel patrons.

Hotel attributes and customer’s choice behavior: evidence from port Harcourt city, Nigeria

This paper tested a structural model that examines the proposed relationships between hotel attributes and hotel choice in respect to customers in Port Harcourt, Rivers Nigeria. The study used a structured questionnaire hence, a quantitative research design. Multiple regression analysis was used for analysis of data collected using statistical package for social science (SPSS) software version 23. The result shows that all the six hotel attributes have positive and significant relationship with customer’s hotel choice behavior in respect to the study area. Result further validates the proposed Hotel Choice Indicators (HCI) Model for hotels in Port Harcourt City. This study contributed to the body of knowledge by proposing and validating the HCI Model for hotels in an emerging economy and Port Harcourt City in particular. It authenticates attribute that influence hotel choice behavior among hotel patrons in Port Harcourt. The study also increased the explanatory power of the push-pull theory in explaining hotel choice attribute or attributes in an emerging economy.

The Antecedents and Consequences of Value Co-Creation Behaviors in a Hotel Setting: A Two-Country Study

This study examines the antecedents and consequences of value co-creation behavior in a hospitality context. An online questionnaire with samples of hotel patrons in the United States and Australia was used to obtain data and partial least square modeling was used in the analysis. The results suggest patron fairness perception enhances trust and identification with a hotel, which encourage engagement in the value co-creation behavior. Furthermore, this behavior enhances patron well-being and respect for the hotel. The study contributes to the literature by suggesting a value co-creation behavior model in the hospitality context and empirically examining the antecedents and consequences of this behavior. The results have important implications for managers designing service encounters that can encourage hotel patrons to engage in the value co-creation behavior.

대구지역 호텔투숙객의 온라인여행사 선택속성과 관계품질에 관한 연구

최근 대구지역의 호텔들은 타 도시와 비교해 증가하고 있는 관광객의 유입으로 인해 호텔업체의 수가 증가하기는커녕 몇 년 전에 비해 그 수가 줄어들었다. 외국인 그리고 국내의 개별 여행객 및 비즈니스 여행객의 증가로 인하여 수준 높은 호텔들과 그에 적합한 서비스에 대한 요구가 높아지고 있다. 지역의 호텔들은 고객과의 상호작용에서 점점 더 고객들의 감정에 개의치 않고 많은 요구 사항들이 관철될 수 있도록 요구받는다. 왜냐하면 호텔산업의 특성이 초창기에는 고객과의 개인적 접촉이 많고 호텔 종사원의 친절한 태도가 고객의 의사결정에 중요한 영향을 미칠 수 있으며 종사원의 감정 또한 상품화가 될 수도 있기 때문이다. 따라서 사회가 점차 상호 대면적인 관계에서 편리함을 추구하는 온라인 환경을 추구함으로 호텔에서도 온라인에 대한 관리가 매우 중요하다고 할 수 있다.BR 이 연구의 목적은 온라인상에서의 고객접점이 추후 더 치열해질 수밖에 없는 상황을 대비하고 온라인상으로 호텔을 예약하는 고객의 수가 점점 늘어나는 시점에서 대구지역에서 호텔이용객이 온라인여행사를 선택하는 속성과 대구지역에 머물면서 가지는 만족도를 살펴보는데 있다. 또 다른 중요한 연구의 목적은 대구지역에서 호텔이용객이 온라인여행사를 통해 호텔에 체류하고 재 방문의사를 가지고 있는지를 알아보는데 있다.BR 본 연구의 가설들을 검증하기 위하여 설문방법을 이용하였다. 대구지역의 호텔에 투숙중이거나 투숙한 경험이 있는 20대 이상 이용객을 대상으로 200부의 설문조사를 실시하였으며 부적절한 샘플을 제외하고 최종적으로 187명의 데이터를 통계분석에 활용하였다.BR 본 연구의 결과는 다음과 같다.BR 첫째, 온라인여행사의 선택속성은 만족도에 긍정적 관계를 나타내는 것으로 검증 되었다.BR 둘째, 온라인여행사의 선택속성은 재방문 의도에 긍정적 관계를 나타내는 것으로 검증 되었다.BR 셋째, 만족도는 재방문 의도에 긍정적 관계를 나타내는 것으로 나타났다.BR 마지막으로 본 연구의 결과에 대한 시사점과 본 연구를 진행하면서 나타난 한계점과 향후 연구방향을 제안하였다.

Turning off the Lights: Consumers' Environmental Efforts Depend on Visible Efforts of Firms

Firms can save considerable money if consumers conserve resources (e.g., if hotel patrons turn off the lights when leaving the room, if restaurant patrons use fewer paper napkins, if airline passengers clean up after themselves). In two studies conducted in real-world hotels, the authors show that consumers' conservation behavior is affected by the extent to which consumers perceive the firm as being green. Furthermore, consumer perceptions of firms' greenness and consumer conservation behavior depend on (1) whether the firm asks consumers to conserve resources, (2) the firm's own commitment to the environment, and (3) the firm's price image. In addition, firm requests to consumers to save resources can create consumer reactance and can backfire when firms themselves do not engage in visible costly environmental efforts. Such reactance is more likely for firms with a high-price image. Finally, the authors show that by spending a little money to signal environmental commitment, firms can save even more money through consumers' conservation of resources, resulting in wins for the firm, the consumer, and the environment.

Technology-enabled services: imporTance and role of Technology readiness

Set in the tourism/hospitality context, this study explores consumer perceptions of technology-enabled services (TESs) and their relationship to technology readiness (TR). Data were collected through a web-based survey from air travelers and hotel patrons. The results suggest that customers generally separate TESs into three categories: peripheral, standard, and network access related, with standard TESs being most important. The perceived importance of TESs is found to be positively associated with consumers' technology readiness, and the strength of this association is stronger in the airline case, suggesting a moderation effect of service category on the relationship between perceived importance of TESs and TR. The findings of this study should help organizations make technology-related decisions and develop the right technological infrastructure for achieving competitiveness and customer satisfaction.

Implementing sustainable business practices in a hotel and expanding green certification markets in the Midwestern United States

The hotel industry is known for catering to travellers' demands for accommodation away from home, occasionally bringing the objective to provide comfort and services into conflict with the goal of environmental conservation. Utilising a sustainable business certification previously created by the Illinois Green Business Association (IGBA) for office buildings and restaurants, a new set of hotel-specific certification standards was developed. A trial certification of one hotel was performed to ensure that the proposed IGBA standards would effectively address the unique challenges to implementing behavioural and structural changes in the pursuit of environmental sustainability. Finally, a survey of hotel patrons' preferences was performed regarding sustainable business practices in hotels. It was assessed whether those participating hotels in the certification process could anticipate a decrease in operating costs and environmental externalities by targeting several key consumption points. By demonstrating ...

The psychological effects of music: Implications for hotel firms

If used properly, music can be a useful tool employed by hoteliers. This article synthesizes most, if not all, of the recent and seminal work from a variety of disciplines to outline the positive effects that atmospheric music can have on a hotel's patrons and employees. Specifically, the psychological influences of music in a hotel's physical environments, a hotel's telephone system, and a hotel's proprietary website are discussed. In terms of the physical environment, music can: 1) cause guests to spend more time and money in an establishment; 2) influence buyer/ seller interactions; 3) improve customers' attitudes during a wait; 4) amend guests' perceptions of brand personality and décor; and 5) enhance employee productivity. Regarding telephone interactions, evidence suggests that the proper use of music can bolster customers' satisfaction with the telephone encounter. Lastly, emerging research indicates that website music can enhance viewers' arousal, interest, satisfaction, and learning.

A stochastic approach to hotel revenue optimization

Owning to similar business nature, it should be possible to directly migrate successful airline revenue management techniques to the hotel domain. However, one of the salient differences between airlines and hotels is rarely highlighted—the network structure of length of stay or the displacement effect. The hotel patrons go from a first stay-over night to a last stay-over night in consecutive night stays. The arrival demands for multi-night stays and the lengths of stay are stochastic in nature. In this paper, we propose a network optimization model for hotel revenue management under an uncertain environment. The network optimization is in a stochastic programming formulation so as to capture the randomness of the unknown demand (unknown number of arrivals and length of stays). A novel approach of robust optimization techniques for stochastic programming is applied to solve the problem. We also discuss the strategies for hotel management to take into account of risk trade-off; different pricing policies; cancellations and no-show; early check-outs; extended stay and over-booking are discussed. We showed that our proposed model can be modified to adopt these strategic considerations.

Extending the Boundaries of Customer Accounting: Applications in the Hotel Industry

In the context of the accounting, hospitality, and marketing literatures, this article explores the potential of applying novel customer accounting methodologies to hotel management. A review of the accounting literature has revealed little consideration given beyond allocating costs differentially across customers. The restricted nature of this approach is highlighted by considering differences in hotel patrons’ purchasing patterns occurring subsequent to the purchase of accommodation. Attention is also drawn to the minimal degree to which accounting commentaries have built on the “relationship marketing” philosophy that has recently commanded much attention in the marketing literature. In light of this philosophy, the notion of customers as assets is promoted and consideration is given to the methodology and implications of valuing customers as assets.

The inertia of self-regulation: a game-theoretic approach to reducing passive smoking in restaurants

Two alternate regulatory approaches can be used to reduce exposure to environmental tobacco smoke in workplaces. The first is voluntary, self-regulation introduced by management, which is supported by common law and occupational health legislation that emphasises the employers’ ‘duty of care’. The second is public health legislation that bans smoking outright in enclosed places. In Australia, self-regulation has succeeded in restricting tobacco smoking in most indoor workplaces but has been a relative failure in the hospitality industry. Claims that this reflects consumer preference by diners, club and hotel patrons are not backed by survey evidence, typically showing large majority support for non-smoking establishments. Insights from game theory show why reliance on the duty of care is unlikely to succeed even when establishment operators collectively support a non-smoking policy. Using plausible assumptions about the net costs of unilaterally introducing smoking restrictions, what makes good sense for society as a whole is likely to be the least profitable option for an individual operator acting alone. Operators find themselves in the classic prisoner’s dilemma. If the aim of policy is to restrict smoking in public places in order to protect the health of employees then game-theory predicts that public health legislation banning smoking in enclosed places will be more effective than self-regulation and reliance on the duty of care.

A Comparative Revenue Analysis of Hotel Yield Management Heuristics

ABSTRACTYield management is the dynamic pricing, overbooking, and allocation of perishable assets across market segments in an effort to maximize short‐term revenues for the firm. Numerous optimization heuristics for allocation and overbooking exist for the airline industry, whose perishable asset is the airplane seat. When an airplane departs, no revenue is gained from the empty seat(s). In the hotel industry, the perishable asset is the hotel room‐once a room is left empty for a night, that night's revenue cannot be recaptured. The literature on yield management heuristics for the hotel industry is sparse. For the hotel operating environment, no research has adequately (1) integrated overbooking with allocation, (2) modeled the phenomenon of hotel patrons extending or contracting their stay at a moment's notice, or (3) performed a realistic performance comparison of alternative heuristics.This research develops (1) two hotel‐specific algorithms that both integrate overbooking with the allocation decisions, (2) a simulation model to reproduce realistic hotel operating environments, and (3) compares the performance of five heuristics under 36 realistic hotel operating environments. Seven conclusions are reached with regard to which heuristic(s) perform best in specific operating environments. Generally, heuristic selection is very much dependent on the hotel operating environment. A counterintuitive result is that in many operating environments, the simpler heuristics work as well as the more complex ones.

Promotion of responsible drinking in hotels

This study reports on an intervention programme to promote responsible drinking in hotels. The licensees of eight hotels agreed to participate in a trial of measures designed to assist patrons to avoid drink-driving, and seven other hotels were used as controls. The interventions acceptable to licensees comprised commercial-quality promotional material with the theme "0.05 Know Your Limits", and a breath analysis machine and poster on its use. Patrons leaving the hotels on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights were interviewed and breath-tested. Although the intervention material had been seen by one-third of patrons in the intervention hotels, there was no significant difference between them and control hotel patrons in either median BAC or the proportion who were going to drive with BAC over the legal limit. There was poor compliance by hotels with the intervention procedures, indicating that a major impediment to the implementation and evaluation of programmes to promote responsible drinking is a lack of motivation by many licensees, despite support by some licensees and the Australian Hotels Association.

Alcohol consumption and driving intentions amongst hotel patrons

To examine the extent to which hotel patrons drink in excess of current health recommendations, and to identify risk factors for excessive drinking, hotel patrons were invited to participate in a survey of social drinking, which included a free breath test. Patrons were approached at 15 min. intervals, and 1000 subjects were studied. Amongst this group of hotel patrons interviewed, 1 in 2 had consumed alcohol in excess of the daily limit recommended by the National Health & Medical Research Council. One in 10 intending drivers had a BAC over the legal limit. Excessive drinking and drink driving appear to be prevalent amongst hotel patrons, and hotels should be targets for interventions designed to reduce these problems. For example, the National Guidelines for the Responsible Serving of Alcohol should be more widely practised.

Legionnaires' Disease: An Epidemiologic Overview

The development of any infectious disease, from an epidemiologic perspective, requires three conditions: a reservoir for the etiologic agent, a mode of transmission, and the presence of a susceptible host. The article by Band and colleagues in this issue ofThe Journal(p 2404) describing an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease (LD) addresses all three of these conditions. Water in an air conditioning cooling tower contaminated with Legionella pneumophila constituted the reservoir for this outbreak of LD. The mode of transmission was airborne, as convincingly demonstrated by environmental studies and epidemiologic analysis. Smoke-tracer studies showed that aerosolized exhaust from the cooling tower could be transmitted down a hotel chimney, out of a fireplace, and into a hotel meeting room. The attack rate of LD was highest for those hotel patrons occupying the meeting room with the fireplace. The susceptible host in this outbreak, as in other outbreaks of LD, was the