University of Amsterdam
Faculty of Economics and Business
Bachelor in Business Administration
Bachelor Thesis
“Causes of customer delight among
different travel modes”
University of Amsterdam
Angela Scheibler
11884614
June 22nd 2020
Supervisor:
Dr. Daphne M. Dekker
Statement of originality
This document is written by Angela Scheibler who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.
I declare that the text and the work presented in this document are original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.
The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.
Student Number: 11884614
Signature:
Abstract
Hotel reputation can be enhanced on travel platforms such as Tripadvisor.com, through positive reviews written by satisfied customers. Customer delight is the act of outperforming the benefits of merely satisfying customers and exceeding one’s expectations through a positive surprise generated from a service. While many scholars studied the causes triggering delight among different customer segments, there is an unexplored segment involving the customer’s travel mode, whether travelling for business or leisure. To explain the potential causes driving business and leisure travel delight, this study draws on empirical evidence describing the characteristics of each traveler type and uses Magnini et al.’s (2011) study as a guideline for the categorization of delight causes. This study hypothesizes that delight among both traveler types differ, such that business travel delight is caused by the hotel’s customer service and facilities, while leisure travel delight is driven by value and amenities. To test these hypotheses, content-analysis is carried out on 120 delighted reviews sourced from Tripadvisor.com. The results show that despite customer service being the main driver for both travel types, inconsistencies are found between the underlying components. Moreover, their delight is followed by the hotel’s location for business travelers and food for leisure travelers, thus not supporting the hypotheses. The results suggest that in order to delight business and leisure travelers, hotels need to adopt unique service approaches accordingly.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ... 1
2. Literature Review ... 4
2.1 What is customer delight? ... 4
2.2 Drivers of customer delight ... 5
2.3 Business Travelers ... 8 2.4 Leisure Travelers ... 10 3. Methodology ... 12 3.1 Data Acquisition ... 12 3.2 Content Processing... 14 4. Results ... 15
4.1 Comparison to Magnini et al.’s (2011) delight causes ... 15
4.2 Delight Causes Business vs. Leisure Travelers ... 16
4.2.1 Business Travelers ... 17
4.2.2 Leisure Travelers ... 19
4.3 Customer service – Business vs. Leisure Travelers ... 20
5. Discussion & Implications ... 22
5.1 New drivers of delight ... 22
5.2 Differing causes of delight ... 23
5.2.1 Business travel delight ... 24
5.2.2 Leisure travel delight ... 25
6. Limitations & Future research ... 28
7. Conclusion ... 29
References ... 31
Appendices ... 37
Appendix 1. List of Hotels (Tripadvisor.com) ... 37
Appendix 2. %of frequency of new delight causes ... 38
Appendix 3. Topics found within "Comfort"- Business & Leisure Travelers ... 38
Appendix 4. Topics found within "Hotel Ambiance"- Business & Leisure Travelers ... 38
Appendix 5. Topics found within "Hotel Reputation"- Business & Leisure Travelers ... 39
Appendix 6. Topics found within "Customer Service" - Business Travelers ... 39
Appendix 7. Topics found within "Location" - Business Travelers ... 39
Appendix 8. Topics found within "Customer Service" - Leisure Travelers ... 40
List of Tables
Table 1. Magnini et al.’s (2011) causes of customer delight ... 6
Table 2. Comparison of delight causes with Magnini et al.'s study (2011) ... 15
Table 3. Causes of Delight - Business Travelers ... 17
List of Figures
Figure 1. Generic Model of Customer Delight (Goswami & Sarma, 2019, p.407) ...………. 5
Figure 2. Example of a Customer Review on TripAdvisor ...……… 12
Figure 3. Causes of Delight - Business Travelers ...……….. 16
Figure 4. Causes of Delight - Leisure Travelers ...……… 16
Figure 5. Customer Service components Busienss vs. Leisure Travelers ...……….. 21
1. Introduction
How often have you experienced excellent service in a restaurant and have shared this experience with family or friends? Or perhaps stayed at a hotel where you have been treated superbly and recommended the hotel to close colleagues? The aforementioned Word-of-Mouth (WOM) practices are not limited to the physical world, rather they have evolved through online mediums, which we now identify as customer reviews. Online reviews are deemed to be more successful in influencing consumer behaviour than traditional WOM practices (Gretzel & Yoo, 2008). Moreover, in terms of targeting new customers, the advantages of online reviews are substantial, as personal experiences are shared to a larger number of people, are accessible to anyone and occur in real time (Macdonald, 2012). These advantages are further enhanced through the rise of online travel platforms, such as Tripadvisor.com.
Tripadvisor.com eases the access for potential buyers to compare hotels and restaurants in terms of their ratings and reviews given by former customers (Neirotti et al., 2016, p.1133). This has significantly impacted the hotel industry through its intangible services, which customers find difficult to evaluate prior to consumption and thus depend on public reviews assessing the perceived reputation of hotels (Ghazi, 2017). In conjunction, the hotels’ “sense of control over their online reputation” is diminished through the volume of public opinions (Proserpio & Zervas, 2018). This occurs as the content of reviews, whether negative or positive, impacts the way hotels build credibility and a reputable brand image (Perez-Aranda et al., 2016). Not surprisingly, positive reviews increase the hotel’s performance (Nieto et al., 2014), as these have shown to increase the number of hotel bookings and consequently, sales and profitability (Ye et al., 2009; Anagnostopoulou et al., 2020). Therefore, hotels are competing for the generation of positive reviews in order to enhance their image and reputation on travelling platforms like TripAdvisor. It is hence crucial to analyse the leading customer motivations behind the generation of positive reviews.
According to Stringam et al. (2010), a strong correlation exists between the formulation of positive review ratings and customer satisfaction, which occurs when expectations of a service are exceeded (Berman, 2005). Moreover, satisfied customers bring many benefits to hotels such as higher rates of return (Berezina et al., 2015) which may increase the hotel’s profit, as it is cheaper to keep an existing guest rather than investing in new ones (Tyrrell & Woods, 2008). Nevertheless, scholars have found a dimension beyond customer satisfaction which may bring superior advantages to hotels, known as customer delight (Berman, 2005).
Customer delight is defined as the positive surprise beyond a customer´s expectations (Magnini et al. 2011, p.335). The point of difference compared to satisfaction lies in the surprise factor achieved through a service (Berman, 2005, p.134). This surprise factor is a mixture of joy and arousal which makes the experience more emotional when compared to customer satisfaction. Its importance in the hotel industry has been studied by numerous scholars, who found that delighted customers tend to be more loyal than simply satisfied customers and therefore generate greater profits for hotels (Reichheld & Sasser Jr., 1990; Berman, 2005). Additionally, delightful experiences have been found to be more memorable than satisfying experiences which may increase the likelihood of action, such as WOM (Berman, 2005). Given the many advantages, understanding what customer delight is driven by may be of extreme value.
According to Crotts et al. (2008), customer delight is achieved through service attributes which generate a delightful experience. Scholars have found these delight attributes to differ depending on the customers’ personal characteristics including their culture (Torres, 2014, p.255), if they have been travelling domestically or internationally and the destination of travel (Magnini et al., 2011). The latter findings indicate that by segmenting customers, more information on the drivers of delight can be identified.
However, there is an unexplored segment of customer delight within the hotel industry. This segment involves the customer’s travel mode, namely whether they have travelled for business or leisure. Its relevance in the hotel industry is highlighted by the fact that the two major customer groups served by hotels, are business and leisure travelers (Yavas & Babakus, 2005, p.360). Additionally, Hampton (1989, as cited in Yung & Chan, 2002, p.29) states that the spending power of business travelers is twice that of leisure travelers. Thus, understanding how business travelers can be delighted has the potential to increase the probability for them to become loyal, as a result from a customer base with greater purchasing power and greater frequency of travel. Similarly, understanding what drives leisure travel delight may increase their WOM practices and thus their spending power can be raised to that of business travelers if leisure traveler bookings increase.
The aim of this paper is to provide a greater explanation into what hotel attributes trigger delight between the customer’s different travel modes. Accordingly, this research aims to answer the following question, what are the causes of customer delight among business and
leisure travelers?
In order to answer this question, a deductive research approach is adopted where Magnini et al.’s (2011) study is used as a basis for this study’s hypotheses on what may drive leisure and business travelers’ delight. Accordingly, delighted reviews will be sourced from the website Tripadvisor.com. Content analysis will be carried out to identify what drives delight. Lastly, the frequencies of delight causes are noted and compared among business and leisure travelers.
This study makes contributions to the hospitality industry as it serves to provide greater understanding on what hotel attributes require greater attention in order to delight different types of customers, in this case business and leisure travelers. Moreover, it provides a fundamental basis for managers to refine their business strategies by providing an indication
on how and where resources should be allocated within hotels to achieve customer delight. Lastly, marketing contributions are also made. Knowing what drives business and leisure delights may give insight into creating more sound communication targeting strategies in order to attract customers based on proven factors of delight.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows, the relevant literature which motivates this study is presented in Section 2. Section 3 includes the methodology approach adopted in this paper. Section 4 presents the results and an analysis of the latter. Section 5 discusses the findings and elaborates on the practical implications for the hotel industry. Section 6 addresses the limitations and directions for future research. Finally, Section 7 provides a conclusion.
2. Literature Review
2.1 What is customer delight?
Many definitions on customer delight have been outlined by scholars. This paper will utilise Crott’s (2008) definition, which defines customer delight as the positive emotional reaction when receiving a service that provides unexpected value leading to a sense of surprise. The underlying principle of customer delight is further explained through Berman’s (2005, p.135) model showing how the latter results as the interplay between one’s expectations and one’s perceived experience of a product or service. More specifically, delight is achieved when there are no prior expectations and the performance is perceived as positive. The lack of expectations combined with the positive performance of a service or product generates an unexpected feeling. Unexpectedness has been found to be correlated to a feeling of surprise which is further correlated to delight (Ma et al., 2013, p.373). This element of surprise is what differentiates delighted customers from simply satisfied customers (Magnini et al., 2011, p.535).
Nonetheless, Rust & Oliver (2000) state that expectations may still be present but exceeded by a surprising degree. This can be showcased by Goswami & Sarma’s (2019, p.407) generic
model of customer delight explaining how it may be reached. The model is shown in Figure 1 below.
Goswami & Sarma (2019) state that by surpassing expectations a sense of pleasant surprise may be achieved which leads to a positive feeling affecting a customer’s happiness and consequently causing delight. They further state that expectations are surpassed by providing hotel services or attributes which provide unexpected benefits along with the basic service (p.405). The latter is related to the delight categorization system developed by Kano which identified product or service factors causing different customer experiences (Berman, 2005, p.129). Through this model, greater understanding is provided into how customer delight is achieved through hotel specific attributes.
2.2 Drivers of customer delight
Kano’s Model categorizes service attributes into must-be requirements, satisfier requirements and attractive requirements which lead to feelings of indifference, satisfaction and delight respectively (Berman, 2005, p.129). Must-be requirements are those that customers
Surpassing Expectations
Pleasant Surprises
Excitement and positive feelings
Happiness and
Guest Delight
Leads to
Leads to
Leads to
expect from a service, such as providing a clean hotel room to guests. When not provided, guests feel greatly dissatisfied. When they are met guests are left feeling indifferent. Satisfier requirements are services that have the potential to increase customer satisfaction beyond the basic criteria such as providing free streaming options on the TV’s located within the rooms. When provided, these features lead to satisfaction and when not provided the customer is not dissatisfied. Lastly, attractive requirements are those neither explicitly expressed nor expected by the customer. Competitors find these hard to copy as they unexpectedly surprise customers when included in the service. These attractive requirements are drivers of customer delight. A study conducted by Magnini et al. (2011, p.539) found 11 main drivers to cause customer delight in the hotel industry and constructed a list of delight causes which included customers
service and cleanliness to name a few. The other drivers are shown in Table 1 below.
Table 1. Magnini et al.’s (2011) causes of customer delight
Causes of Delight
Amenities Cleanliness Customer Service Décor of guestroom
Facility (other than guestroom) Food Location of hotel Quietness of hotel Renovation/Newness Size of guestroom Value
Drivers of customer delight have found to be dependent on the customer segment being served (Füller & Matzler, 2008). This explanation is in line with Bi et al. (2020, p.2), who found that expectations differ per customer segment, including within different types of travelers and hotels. As drivers of customer delight are contextually dependent, they may lead to different evaluations on the customer experiences. Perceived experiences have been identified as subjective (Torres et al., 2013, p.255), and hence may differ among different types of hotel guests. Accordingly, Magnini et al. (2011, p.540) found differences in key drivers causing customer delight among guests traveling domestically compared to those traveling internationally, as well as travelling to less and more developed countries. The results showed that cleanliness triggers delight more for those travelling domestically, while food triggers delight more for those traveling internationally. Similar results were found when travelling to less and more developed countries. By further segmenting customers, Torres et al. (2014, p.255) found differences in delight drivers between the customer’s cultures. The analysis showed that Canadians put more emphasis on friendliness, while Americans assigned value to experiences that would make them feel valued.
However, empirical studies are lacking on a more specific customer segment, namely the customer’s travel mode. According to Walker (2000, as cited in He & Findley, n.d), the two main reasons people travel are for pleasure and business. Consequently, their motives behind traveling have found to differ as business travelers are driven by the need to complete their business dealings (He & Findley, n.d) while leisure travelers are driven by personal needs (Leiper et al., 2008). Hence, preferences and demands of both customer types differ when staying in a hotel (Yadav & Roychoudhury, 2019) which creates different forms of expectations between business and leisure travelers respectively. Using Goswami & Sarma’s (2000) generic model of guest delight, as previously mentioned, it can be assumed that business and leisure travelers may be delighted differently as their hotel expectations vary in the first
place. Thus, the means hotels may use to surpass these expectations through their services and attributes, in order to create positive feelings and surprises, may differ. This brings us to the first hypothesis, namely that:
H1. Causes of customer delight differ among business and leisure travelers.
In order to understand how causes of delight differ specifically among business and leisure travelers, one needs to understand the characteristics of each traveler type in terms of their needs and preferences as this influences their perceived experience evaluation.
2.3 Business Travelers
Middleton & Clarke (2001) define business travel as the “work related travel to an irregular place of work”. The connection to work usually makes this travel obligatory (Leiper et al., 2008) and tends to occur within a small time frame (Marin-Pantelescu, 2011, p.74). As business trips tend to be short, travelers have shown to suffer from jet lag and sleep deprivation (Burkholder et al., 2010) and often work more hours than they would at their home office (Radojevic et al., 2018). This explains why business travelers tend to be more stressed than leisure travelers (Chen, 2019) and therefore prefer quick services in terms of punctuality and reliability (Marin-Pantelescu, 2011, p.74). Indeed, when analysing the attributes important to them in relation to hotel choice, Yavas & Babakus (2005, p.364) found that convenience is one of the most highly ranked attribute. This includes the ease of making reservations and the check-in and check-out facilities at reception.
Moreover, business travelers have also been found to feel more isolated as they tend to travel frequently and alone, thus missing family and friends (Radojevic et al., 2018). This explains how Liu et al. (2015, p.145) found business travelers to emphasize the importance of
relationship equity within hotels through trust building and commitment. Business travelers may visit the same hotels over several years and thus build customer loyalty where they develop an emotional attachment to the hotel. Using Magnini et al.`s (2011, p.538) list of delight causes, it can be assumed that customer service drives business travel delight as it involves the personal interaction with service providers at the hotel. Wambua & Yahaja (2018, p.365) provide a clear overview of what encompasses customer service and differentiate two main components namely customer relation and customer care service. Customer relation typically includes the guest intimacy and interaction between the guest and service provider, like checking customers in and establishing an emotional attachment with the customer. Customer care service involves providing specialized and complimentary services which may include loyalty programmes and benefits for guests frequently visiting the hotel.
A further aspect characterizing business travelers lies in their lower price sensitivity in comparison with leisure travelers (Holloway, 2004, as cited in Marin-Pantelescu, 2011, p.73). This occurs as the booking of their business travel is undertaken by another member of their business and thus the actual business traveller pays little attention to the price worthiness of hotels. However, Dolnicar (2002) found that price sensitivity of business travelers depends on the hotel classes they stay in. Indeed, Kashyap and Bojanic (2002) analysed the differences in value, quality and price perceptions among customers and found that business travellers’ perceived hotel value is influenced by the price of hotels as well as the quality of public areas. Nevertheless, the quality of public areas was deemed more important, as it influenced the revisit intention of business travelers. This can be explained by the fact that business travelers use hotels primarily for business meetings, conferences and training sessions (Yavas & Babakus, 2005), and therefore spend less time in their rooms. Thus, by using Magnini et al.`s (2011, p.538) list of delight causes, it can be assumed that facility is a second driver of business travel delight, as the scholars define it as encapsulating all of the hotel’s public areas. Taking
both arguments into account, one can assume business travel delight to be driven primarily by the customer service and the hotel’s facilities, which leads on to the second hypothesis:
H2: Business travel delight is predominantly caused by the hotel’s customer service and
facilities.
2.4 Leisure Travelers
Leisure is defined as the recreational experience pursued with a sense of freedom and is regarded as personally pleasurable (Leiper et al., 2008, p.3). The sense of freedom explains how leisure traveling is driven by personal motivation and is characterised by a combination of needs which Leiper et al. (2008, p.4) defines as states of deprivation. Examples of such needs include nostalgia, rest and relaxation and social interaction. Contrary to business travelers, leisure travelers have the autonomy to book hotels themselves and hence, may pick hotels that better suit their specific needs. Through their hotel selection process, leisure travelers take various decisions such as determining their spending budget. Kashyap & Bojanic (2000) found leisure travelers to be more price sensitive as they spend their own money for hotel expenses. As their perception on price worthiness is higher during their stay in hotels, they tend to be more critical about hotel attributes impacting their experience (Bi et al., 2020, p.8). As outlined by Zins (1998), leisure travelers seek value for money when picking hotels. Accordingly, using Magnini et al.`s (2011, p.538) list of delight causes, it can be assumed value to be a predominant driver of leisure travel delight as the scholars define it to be “the ratio of perceived benefits to price”.
An additional aspect of the hotel selection process leisure travelers face is the uncertainty when booking hotels online. Particularly relevant as they avoid going to the same hotels frequently and are faced with a higher amount of unknown hotel choices on the web (Liu et al.,
2015, p.145). Nevertheless, this uncertainty may be mitigated with the hotel’s image and reputation. Ananth et al. (1992) reported that leisure travelers are more concerned about the hotels reputation and the name familiarity compared to business travelers. Liu et al. (2015, p.140) consider this focus on the hotel’s image to be brand equity which they define as the “subjective and intangible assessment of a brand”. While brand equity is composed of several factors, the aspect of brand assets, i.e hotel physical services, are closely related to the amenities hotels provide. It can thus be assumed, as leisure travelers are focused on the image of hotels during the selection process and combined with their price sensitivity, their emphasis on what amenities the hotel provides during their stay may be accentuated. Indeed, leisure travelers have been found to emphasize the importance of general amenities the hotel provides, such as dry cleaning and access to computers, when selecting an hotel (Yavas & Babakus, 2005). Especially in the case of upscale hotels, their expectations tend to be higher on the aforementioned aspect (Liu et al., 2015). Other scholars found leisure travelers value the hotel’s innovativeness (Victorino et al., 2005), such as providing amenities like room iPads or portable phones. However, academic evidence surrounding this aspect is still minimal. Once again using Magnini et al.`s (2011, p.538) list of delight causes, it can be assumed amenities to be a second driver of leisure travel delight as the scholars define it to encompass “items provided to guests in order to enhance their experience”. Taking both arguments into account, leisure travel delight may be driven primarily by the hotel value and the hotel’s amenities which leads on to the third hypothesis:
3. Methodology
3.1 Data Acquisition
This paper will collect online reviews from Tripadvisor.com, the biggest online website for user generated reviews which covers more than 190 countries and 7 million hotels (Wang et al., 2020, p.4). User-generated content is easy to collect and provides high validity as the data is more “objective, immense and without sample bias” (Schuckert et al., 2015, p.143). Moreover, online reviews are a great source of information as users post comments spontaneously about their experiences and opinions while emphasizing aspects of experiences important to them (Yadav & Roychoudhury, 2019, p.156).
TripAdvisor provides information on the review content, the hotel, the customer, the overall customer satisfaction and ratings on six possible attributes. For this study, the focus lies in the hotel, the customer and review content information depicted in Figure 1.
Review Content
Travel Mode Hotel
This study selected hotels specifically located in London, as the city is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world, attracting more than 30 million visitors every year (“London’s Economic Plan”, n.d). Not only does London attract leisure travelers, it is also one of the largest business hubs in the world. The data will be focusing specifically on luxury hotels, which Bi et al.(2020, p.5) categorize as hotels with 4, 4.5 and 5-stars. The reason for this selection is that customers have shown to have higher expectations for luxury hotels compared to economy hotels (p.8), which creates an interesting analysis on how the aforementioned expectations can be exceeded. There are currently 356 hotels in London which fall into the predefined luxurious category. This study will focus on 26 hotels in total, 8 4-star hotels and 18 5-star hotels. This number has been obtained due to the aim of collecting exactly 60 reviews for each traveller type, business and leisure. However, it must be noted that there were less delighted reviews among 5-star hotels and hence, a larger number of 5-star hotels were needed in order to achieve 60 reviews. On the other hand, 4-star hotels included an abundant amount of delighted reviews and thus, to increase diversity and validity, a maximum of 5 delighted reviews were used per hotel. Hotel selection was dependent on highest traveller rank, which TripAdvisor defines as the “highest rated hotels based on travelers reviews” (“Tripadvisor.com”, n.d). More indications of customer delight causes are assumed to be found within this constraint factor, as higher ratings indicate either high satisfaction or delight. A list showing the names of hotels used is given in Appendix 1.
Moreover, the data acquisition process involves extracting delighted reviews from TripAdvisor by using the search tool provided on the website and searching for keywords based on Magnini et al.’s (2011, p.538) keyword criteria. These keywords include pleasantly
surprised, delightful surprise, excellent surprise and positive surprise. Their keyword criteria
contributes to this paper’s content validity as their study showed the criteria to be successful in detecting delighted reviews. In order to differentiate business and leisure reviews,
Tripadvisor.com provides the option to select reviews specifically written by the separate traveler types. This categorization option will be used to differentiate the reviews. Taking all criteria into consideration, 120 reviews are used in total, 60 written by business and 60 by leisure travelers between the date of February 2006 and March 2020.
3.2 Content Processing
Business and leisure reviews will be grouped separately into an Excel file. Once the reviews are grouped, text processing is started through content analysis. While Magnini et al. (2011) used the two sentences surrounding the specific keyword to detect the delight cause, this was not possible in this study as hotel guest would sometimes not mention the cause within the two sentences. Therefore, detecting the cause of delight involved analysing the reviews extensively by reading each individually. In cases where customers explicitly stated their delight cause, that cause was noted. When customers did not explicitly state the delight cause and mentioned several aspects, all aspects were assumed to contribute to their delight and thus were all noted. Consequently, the amount of total delight causes may be higher than the total number of reviews analysed. The causes noted are based on Magnini et al.’s (2011) list of delight causes as a guideline, which are shown in Table 1. Reviews will be allocated to Magnini et al.’s list and when reviews show causes not applicable to their list, a new driver will be created. Therefore, this qualitative study uses a deductive research approach as it tests Magnini et al.’s theory within a different context, by differentiating travel modes. Nevertheless, it can be noted that this study moves towards an abductive research approach as new causes of delight are created when they are not applicable to Magnini et al.’s list. Hence, the analysis involves an extension to Magnini et al.’s study.
Lastly, in order to improve content validation of this study, 10 reviews are removed from each traveler type to analyse whether any changes in delight causes are found. The remaining
50 reviews per traveler type are then used to draw conclusions on what causes each traveler’s delight.
4. Results
4.1 Comparison to Magnini et al.’s (2011) delight causes
Table 2. Comparison of delight causes with Magnini et al.'s study (2011)
Table 2 shows a comparison between causes of delight identified by Magnini et al. (2011) and causes of delight identified in this study. As can be seen in the table, this study has identified three additional causes, namely comfort, hotel ambiance and hotel reputation. As a cause of delight, comfort was mentioned 9 times over a total of 189 delight cause occurrences among business and leisure travelers. Compared to Magnini et al.’s (2011) causes it was mentioned 4,8% of the time, which can be seen in Appendix 2. Under comfort, customer
Delight Causes - Magnini et al. (2011) Delight Causes – Current Research
Amenities Amenities Cleanliness Cleanliness Customer Service Customer Service Décor of guestroom Décor of guestroom Facility Facility
Location of Hotel Location of Hotel Quietness of Hotel Renovation/Newness Renovation/Newness Size of guestroom Size of guestroom Value
Value * Comfort
* Hotel Ambiance
statements comprised two main categories namely the comfort of beds and rooms (Appendix 3). The second new driver identified is hotel ambiance, which was found to be mentioned 4 times over the total delight cause occurrences. Compared to Magnini et al.’s (2011) causes it was mentioned 2.1% of the time (Appendix 2). Statements under this cause typically involved customer feelings on the hotel environment and setting including its “vibe” and “coziness” (Appendix 4). Lastly, hotel reputation was mentioned once over the total delight cause occurrences and only encompassed 0.5% of delighted reviews (Appendix 2). Under this cause, the parent organization behind the hotel brand was mentioned (Appendix 5).
Moreover, this study found no reviews to be attributed to Magnini et al.’s (2011) delight cause quietness of hotel. While some customers mentioned this driver as satisfactory, it did not appear as a driver of delight and thus was not included in the current list of delight causes.
4.2 Delight Causes Business vs. Leisure Travelers
Figure 2 and 3 show the frequencies of delight causes found among business and leisure travelers. As can be seen in the figure, business and leisure travelers do not differ in their main
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
delight cause, which represents customer service. However, delight causes vary after the main delight driver which is followed by the hotel’s location and amenities for business travelers and the hotel’s food and renovation/newness for leisure travelers. Accordingly, hypothesis 1 is partially supported such that the main cause of customer delight is the same among business and leisure travelers but is followed by inconsistent drivers thereafter. The extent by which these causes differ for both travel modes is analysed in the next section.
4.2.1 Business Travelers
Table 3. Causes of Delight - Business Travelers
60 Reviews 50 Reviews
Cause of Delight Frequency Percentage Frequency Percentage
1. Customer Service 38 34.5 31 34.8 2. Location 14 12.7 11 12.4 3. Amenities 12 10.8 11 12.4 4. Value 8 7.3 7 7.9 5. Size of guestroom 6 5.5 4 4.5 6. Food 6 5.5 4 4.5 7. Facility 6 5.5 5 5.6 8. Décor of guestroom 6 5.5 6 6.7 9. Comfort 6 5.5 3 3.4 10. Hotel Ambiance 3 2.7 3 3.4 11. Cleanliness 3 2.7 3 3.4 12. Renovation/Newness 2 1.8 1 1.0 Total 110 100 89 100
Table 3 shows the frequencies and percentages of delight causes among business travelers. It can be observed that business travel delight is mainly caused by customer service. Mentioned 34.5% of the time among business travelers, customer service represents one third of their delight causes. Within customer service, two main categories have been mentioned most frequently (Appendix 6). These comprise staff’s friendliness (42.1%), including statements such as “what makes this hotel is attitude of staff which without exception has been friendly”, and staff’s performance (21%) which include statements like “pleasantly surprised to be instantly checked in”. Other categories include receiving a personalized service, getting a room upgrade, the attentiveness of the staff and receiving surprise goods.
The table further shows the following cause of delight to be the hotel’s location. Hotel location is mentioned 12.7% of the time by business travelers, which is significantly lower than customer service. Under the hotel’s location, the most frequent categories mentioned by guests involve the hotel’s proximity to sightseeing areas (35.7%) as well as the location being excellent in general (35.7%) which is depicted in Appendix 7. Typical statements mentioning the sightseeing proximity include examples such as “right next to Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, which allows for exploration by foot, as well as the sight-seeing tours”. Other categories include the transportation, restaurant’s proximity and the airport accessibility.
In order to assess the accuracy of the results, 10 reviews have been removed among business travelers. Results showed no major difference in the causes of delight. Customer service remains the major business delight driver as it is mentioned 34.6% of the time. A minor inconsistency is found for the second driver. Location becomes mentioned equally as frequently as amenities (12.4%). This may be due to the condensed amount of reviews analysed, as a larger number of reviews may show varying results. Overall, hypothesis 2 is only partially supported, such that business travel delight is mainly caused by customer service
but not by facilities. Facilities were only mentioned 5.5% of the time and hence is not validated as the second driver of delight for business travelers.
4.2.2 Leisure Travelers
Table 4. Causes of Delight - Leisure Travelers
Table 4 shows the frequencies and percentages of delight causes among leisure travelers. As can be seen in the table, leisure travel delight is most frequently caused by customer service, as it accounts for 57% leisure travel delight. The two main categories mentioned under this cause are the surprise goods received (62.2%) and the staff friendliness (13.3%), which are shown in Appendix 8. Typical statements under surprise goods include “service arranged our
60 Reviews 50 Reviews
Cause of Delight Frequency Percentage Frequency Percentage
1. Customer Service 45 57 39 60 2. Food 6 7.6 4 6.2 3. Renovation/Newness 5 6.3 3 4.6 4. Amenities 5 6.3 4 6.2 5. Décor of guestroom 4 5 4 6.2 6. Location 3 3.8 2 3.1 7. Comfort 3 3.8 2 3.1 8. Value 2 2.5 2 3.1 9. Size of guestroom 2 2.5 1 1.5 10. Facility 2 2.5 2 3.1 11. Hotel Reputation 1 1.3 1 1.5 12. Ambiance 1 1.3 1 1.5 Total 79 100 65 100
bedroom the first night with magnificent red rose petals, chocolate covered strawberries and candles everywhere”.
The table further shows the following cause of leisure delight to be the hotel’s food. The latter is mentioned 7.6% of the time, which is significantly lower compared to the customer service driver. Two main categories are found under the hotel’s food, namely the breakfast (83.3%) and the dinner experience (16.6%) found in Appendix 9. Examples of statements under the hotel’s breakfast include “Breakfast is the best ever” and “were surprised to see the head chef come out and personally cook the starter at our table” under dinner experience.
Similar to the business travel analysis, 10 reviews have been removed among leisure travelers. Results showed no major difference in the main causes of delight. Customer service remains the major business delight driver as it is mentioned 60% of the time. A minor inconsistency is found for the second driver. Food is mentioned equally as frequently as amenities and décor of guestroom (6.2%). Once again, this may be explained due to the condensed number of reviews analysed, which shows that more information on the leisure travelers can be derived form a larger review pool. Nevertheless, hypothesis 3 is not supported as leisure travel delight is not mainly caused by the hotel’s value and amenities. Surprisingly, leisure travel delight is mainly caused by customer service. Moreover, while amenities do show to be a second driver when 50 reviews are used, this result is eliminated when the review pool is increased making food is a clear second driver.
4.3 Customer service – Business vs. Leisure Travelers
The results show how business and leisure travel delight are mainly caused by customer service. The frequency of how often customer service is mentioned differs largely compared to the second delight driver identified for both travel modes. For this reason, this study was motivated to analyse the different customer service categories mentioned by business and
leisure travelers found in Appendix 6 and Appendix 8. Accordingly, the individual categories have been grouped into two main components representing customer service, namely complementary service provided and the interaction and guest intimacy. Under complementary service the categories room upgrade and surprise goods were added. Under interaction and guest intimacy the categories caring and friendly, staff performance, personalized service and
attentive were added. The results are depicted below in Figure 4.
Figure 4 shows the frequency of complementary service and interaction and guest intimacy between business and leisure travelers. As can be seen in the figure, business travelers mentioned the interaction and guest intimacy more often (81.6%) as a delight driver under customer service compared to leisure travelers (26.7%). Leisure travelers mentioned the complementary service received as a delight driver under customer service more often (73.3), compared to business travelers (18.4%).
18.4% 73.3% 81.6% 26.7% 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
Business Travelers Leisure Travelers Complementary service Interaction & Guest intimacy
To summarize the results, the graph below shows the explanatory scheme depicting the relationship between the hotel attributes this study found and the customer delight triggered between business and leisure travelers.
5. Discussion & Implications
5.1 New drivers of delight
This study aimed to examine the causes of delight among business and leisure travellers. Magnini et al.’s (2011) list of delight drivers was used to categorize the causes identified in this research. The results showed that three new causes where found; comfort, hotel ambiance and hotel reputation. Under comfort, the main reason for delight involved the comfort of the hotel’s bed, which is surprising as a comfortable bed would typically be categorised as a basic service. Following Kano’s model (Bermann, 2005), customers would expect the hotels’ bed to satisfy the basic need of sleep and thus should provide an indifferent feeling if this expectation is met. Yet, our study found the bed’s comfort to be a surprising
Location Customer Service Food Complementary service Interaction & Guest
Intimacy
Business travel delight
Leisure travel delight Figure 6. Explanatory Scheme
factor, indicating that customers’ expectations on the comfort of beds must be quite low such that when surpassed, guests feel surprised and happy. Additionally, the second new driver identified involved the hotel’s ambiance. As previously mentioned, guests who have been delighted by this cause mentioned the feeling of “coziness” and good “vibe”. This feeling may vary depending on the personal preference of guests and thus may be subjective. Nevertheless, guests’ personal preferences need to be recognized, as identifying the needs of customers and expressing empathy is what comprises customer delight (Berman, 2005). Lastly, hotel reputation also emerged as a new driver of delight, however, this cause was mentioned only once. This may be explained due to the luxury class of hotels analysed in this study. High-end guests may be less concerned with the hotel’s image and reputation, as we expect them to take this factor for granted when making a booking online.
5.2 Differing causes of delight
The initial part of this study involved analysing whether any differences in causes of delight existed between the two travel modes. The results led to partially support the first hypothesis, which states that causes of customer delight differ among business and leisure travelers. This indicates that both business and leisure travel delight is mainly driven by customer service and only differs in drivers thereafter. The second delight driver for business travelers consists of the hotel’s location while for leisure travelers it involves the hotel’s food. The inconsistency in the secondary drivers can be explained by Yadav & Roychoudhury’s (2019) study showing that different traveller types indeed have different preferences and demands and thus may develop diverse expectations when staying at a hotel. Additionally, this result further proves that by segmenting customers based on their characteristics, like Torres et al. (2014) and Magnini et al. (2011) carried out, more information can be gathered on hotel guests, which
provides additional insight on how they become delighted. The specific results of business and leisure travelers and their implications will be discussed in more detail in the next section.
5.2.1 Business travel delight
The second hypothesis supposed that business travel delight is mainly caused by customer service and the hotel’s facilities. The results showed partial support for this hypothesis. This indicates that while the main business delight driver is customer service, it is followed by the hotel’s location and not the facilities. Within customer service, the two most frequently mentioned categories included the staff’s friendliness and the staff’s performance (Appendix 6). Delight caused by staff performance holds with previous findings, as business travelers tend to be more stressed than leisure travelers and therefore become delighted when services are quick, typically involving fast check-in and out at the reception (Marin-Pantelescu, 2011). The latter shows the significance of the staff at reception, as it is the first contact guests experience with the hotel and plays an important role in efficiently accommodating business travelers. An example depicting this result included a delighted business traveler being “instantly checked in […] in the most courteous and caring way”. The example also shows how business travelers are highly delighted through the staff’s friendliness, which is not surprising given that business travelers travel frequently and alone (Radojevic et al., 2018). Hence, they may increasingly value the interactions they have with the staff. As business travelers become delighted when they interact with friendly members of staff, it indicates that expectations on the hotel’s staff behaviour, prior to their stay, is relatively low. Therefore, hotels should give a particular focus on training their employees to insure premium hospitality comes as standard, such that all members of staff, form reception to cleaning service, transmit a friendly and caring attitude towards the customer. Especially at reception where first contact occurs, staff should be trained to welcome guests in a warm manner.
Business travel delight is followed by the hotel’s location, where the most mentioned category involved the hotel’s proximity to sightseeing areas. This finding is very surprising as scholars found business travelers to work more hours during business trips than at their home office (Radojevic et al., 2018). While our study assumed business travelers have little time to go sightseeing, the results indicate that they make time for pleasure activities, in spite of their work obligations. In line with Chen’s (2019) research, it can be deduced that business travelers tend to be stressed during their trips and thus may create some time for relaxation and mental-health activities. This finding provides an important advance to research, as it depicts an unfamiliar trend in business traveler’s behaviour. Hotels should use this result as an opportunity to develop promotional strategies in order to attract more business travelers to their hotels. For example, packages can be offered which combine business conferences with complementary guided tours to explore the city. This may delight more business travelers who may share their experiences with other colleagues and thus benefit the hotels reputation.
Regarding facilities, some business travelers expressed delight by the standards of facilities (Table 3), however, it was not the main driver of delight. This non-significant result may be attributed to the fact that pervious research showed business travelers to value the hotels’ public areas (Kashyap and Bojanic, 2002). Therefore, a certain level of performance from high facility standards may be expected, making it harder to surpass customers’ expectations. Nevertheless, this should motivate hotel managers to focus on their public facilities in order to create a surprising feeling when experiencing this attribute.
5.2.2 Leisure travel delight
The third hypothesis supposed that leisure travel delight is predominantly caused by the hotel’s value and amenities, however, the results did not support this hypothesis. This indicates that leisure travel delight is not mainly driven by the hotel’s value, but by customer
service, which is followed by the hotel’s food rather than amenities. Within customer service, the two main categories mentioned involved the surprise goods provided to guests and the staff’s friendliness. It should be stressed, leisure travelers mentioned being delighted by surprise goods 67% of the time compared to the staff’s friendliness. This can be explained in keeping with previous findings (Kashyap & Bojanic, 2000), that leisure travelers are price sensitive and therefore may have a higher perception on price worthiness during their stay. Consequently, when receiving free goods, their delight is triggered. This shows how the attribute of value may not be a cause of leisure travel per se, but is a characteristic of leisure travelers, which may moderate the effect of feeling delighted when receiving surprise goods.
Moreover, there is a marginal difference between the surprise goods leisure travelers receive and what Magnini et al. (2011, p.538) define as hotel amenities, namely “items provided to guests in order to enhance their experience”. Both are tangible items provided by hotels to positively benefit the customer. However, surprise goods involve aspects such as the staff checking the guest’s birth- and anniversary-date and sending personalized goods to the customer. An example showing this involved “the delightful receptionist whom I think must have been instrumental to the birthday surprise left in our room”. It can hence be argued that through personalized amenities provided by customer service, leisure travelers become delighted. This finding embodies the definition of customer delight and how it differs from customer satisfaction. While customer delight involves recognizing each customer’s specific needs and surpassing their expectations in a surprising way (Berman, 2005), in this case through personalized surprise goods, customer satisfaction involves merely pleasing the overall customer through amenities. The latter finding has important implications for hotels. The services hotel provide should be reviewed and focused towards personalization with the goal of triggering customer’s delight. For example, hotels may ask customers prior their arrival for
their reason of stay. If guests mention a specific occasion, such as birthdays, staff can organize the delivery of surprise goods.
Lastly, leisure travel delight is followed by the hotel’s food, whereby the main category triggering delight involved the hotel’s breakfast. This result was unexpected, as the hotel’s breakfast was assumed to be a basic service under Kano’s model (Berman, 2005). Nevertheless, our findings show that leisure travelers may have low expectations on the hotel’s breakfast and thus are delighted when these expectations are surpassed (Goswami & Sarma, 2019). Delight caused by a hotels breakfast can be explained by the fact that leisure travelers go sightseeing and therefore spend less time inside the hotel during the day. Breakfast may be the only time these types of guests fully interact with the hotel and experience the service. For this reason, it is crucial managers recognize the importance of timing when providing services among different types of travelers. As leisure travel delight was found to be triggered in the mornings during breakfast, more focus should be given to the factors contributing to this breakfast experience.
5.3 Customer Service
The results showed that both traveler types are mainly delighted by the hotel’s customer service. However, among the most mentioned categories (Appendix 6 & 8) inconsistencies were found. Business travelers are mainly delighted by the interaction and guest intimacy developed under customer service and leisure travelers are mainly delighted by complementary service. The aforementioned two segments are clear dichotomies, as one highlights the relationship with the staff and the other the tangible goods provided to guests. This finding follows the components of customer service as proposed by Wambua & Yahaja’s (2018), namely the customer relation, meaning the interaction with staff, and customer care, the complementary service provided. The latter is in line with Liu et al.’s study (2015), which identified business travelers to value the hotel’s relationship equity more, involving trust and
commitment, and leisure travelers valuing the hotel’s brand equity, emphasizing the brand’s assets. The reason for this result can once again be attributed to the characteristics of both travel types (Radojevic et al., 2018; Kashyap & Bojanic, 2000). Managers need to consider the inconsistencies this study has outlined, by understanding how the components underlying customer service trigger delight differently among business and leisure travelers.
Given the findings identified in this study, the research question of what causes business and leisure travel delight may be answered as follows: business and leisure travel delight are both primarily caused by customer service but are followed by the hotel’s location for business travellers and the hotel’s food for leisure travelers.
6. Limitations & Future research
The findings in this study must be interpreted in light of several limitations. Firstly, the sample size of reviews used for this research is relatively low compared to the total hotels available on Tripadvisor.com. While this research focused on 26 hotels and 120 reviews in total, TripAdvisor.com reveals 356 available hotels. This makes the formation of the new identified delight causes disputable, as a larger sample size may show varying results. Future research should hence utilize a larger sample size of reviews in order to generate more sound outcomes. Secondly, this study used a deductive research approach which may generate marginal biased results as the theory used for the hypotheses creation is assumed to be true. This was showcased as business and leisure traveler’s showed to be delighted by the same hotel attribute by using Magnini et al.’s (2011) list, however when analysing deeper into the cause, inconsistencies were found. Nevertheless, this study also moved towards an abductive approach as delight causes not attributable to the theory researched were created into new delight drivers, which increases the external validity of this study. Future research may consider using an abductive or inductive research approach in order to reduce the constraints
posed on outcomes identified. Finally, the generalizability of this study may be limited as this study focused on luxury hotels, specifically in London. Replicating this study among economy hotels and across a variety of cities, may show different outcomes. It would therefore be advised that future research to investigate the different delight causes of business and leisure travelers staying in economy hotels and across a variety of different cities.
7. Conclusion
Previous research studied the causes of customer delight in the hotel industry among customer segments involving their culture and destination of travel. However, research was lacking on the segment involving the customer’s travel mode and thus the present study examined the causes triggering delight among business and leisure travelers. Results show delight causes to differ among business and leisure travelers. While both travelers showed to be mainly delighted by the hotel’s customers service, differences were found between its specific components and consequently delighting both travelers differently. Whereas business travelers are delighted by the interaction and relationship with staff, leisure travelers were delighted by the complementary surprise goods received. Moreover, business travel delight was followed by the hotel’s location, more specifically the proximity to sightseeing areas. For leisure travelers this involved the hotel’s food and most importantly the breakfast served. This study further identified three additional drivers of delight, namely comfort, hotel ambiance and reputation, which contributes to existing literature and provides an extension to Magnini et al.’s (2011) list of delight causes.
Lastly, the study showcased the importance of segmenting customers as more information on their preferences and needs may be uncovered, which are extremely valuable to hotels. Understanding each customer’s needs enables hotels to provide personalized services which ultimately is what delights customers. In short, this study points out that business and leisure
travelers have diverse needs and thus should be approached differently in order to delight them and increase the hotel’s performance.
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Appendices
Appendix 1. List of Hotels (Tripadvisor.com)
Stars Hotels
5-Star 1. Hotel 41
2. The Egerton House Hotel
3. The Montcalm London Marble Arch 4. The Connaught
5. Montcalm Royal London House – City of London 6. The Beaumont
7. The Hari
8. The Stafford London
9. Taj 51 Buckingham Gate Suites and Residences 10. Hotel Cafe Royal
11. The Soho Hotel 12. The Savoy 13. Haymarket Hotel
14. The Chilworth London Paddington 15. Bankside Hotel
16. The Goring 17. Batty Langley's 18. The Langham, London
4-Star 1. The Chesterfield Mayfair
2. The Montague on The Gardens 3. The Kensington
4. The Marylebone 5. Vintry & Mercer
6. Royal Lancaster London 7. Park Grand London Kensington 8. The Bloomsbury
Appendix 3. Topics found within "Comfort"- Business & Leisure Travelers
Appendix 4. Topics found within "Hotel Ambiance"- Business & Leisure Travelers
Topics Frequency Percentage
1. Bed comfort 5 55.6
2. Room comfort 4 44.4
Total 9 100
Topics Frequency Percentage
1. Hotel Ambiance 2 50
2. Vibe 1 25
3. Cosiness 1 25
Total 4 100
Appendix 5. Topics found within "Hotel Ambiance"- Business & Leisure Travelers
4.80% 2.10%
0.50%
92.60%
Comfort Hotel Ambiance Hotel Reputation Magnini Causes
