Summaries of Academic Articles on Research in Hospitality (Feiertag Collection)
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Here you will find concise summaries of peer-reviewed journal articles targeted to industry practitioners. These summaries provide a quick resource for busy hospitality industry managers and executives so that they can learn the latest academic research in a timely manner.
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- Factors affecting customers’ intention to use of location-based services (LBS) in the lodging industry [Summary](Virginia Tech, 2020-12-06)The research suggests that LBS service providers should acknowledge that location awareness is the most influential attribution among variables that affect user attitudes. Practitioners should know that developing technology to provide more accurate user location would lead to the elevation of their reputation and user satisfaction. Secondly, developers should strive to find fun and entertaining factors in their LBS services such as location-based games and location-based SNS because those will create added value for users.
- Hotel social media metrics: The ROI dilemma [Summary](Virginia Tech, 2020-11-07)In order to be successful in social media marketing in the hotel business, it is recommended for hotel management to set up a structured human resources formant and define specific tasks by allocating the necessary time. Moreover, hoteliers should set up possible goals and comply with the overall organization’s goal. For social media vendors, it is suggested to develop special features that can help hoteliers understand the social media ROI in the context of various platforms and customize their service and products better. It also would be helpful to implement consulting services and exact metrics for profit calculating in advertisement and marketing campaigns.
- A comparative analysis of major online review platforms: Implications for social media analytics in hospitality and tourism [Summary](Virginia Tech, 2020-11-07)The research shows that review websites are not created equal. That means each website has different qualities and traits such as customer segments. Hospitality industry practitioners should know that and make a clever decision when it comes to choosing channels to communicate with their guests to give feedback regarding the review they left. Moreover, businesses can observe social media in order to make their service better by finding hints from social media data. Also, it is suggested for them to develop decent tools to make guests share their experience at the property in a positive attitude.
- What can big data and text analytics tell us about hotel guest experience and satisfaction? [Summary](Virginia Tech, 2020-11-07)Through this research done by analyzing an enormous amount of texts, it is implied that the hygiene factor is important for hotel guests enjoying the hotel experience. Moreover, since there is a strong association between satisfaction and guest experience, hotel management can utilize to infer customer satisfaction through text analysis from social media’s comments that guests have left.
- Technology innovations towards reducing hospitality human resource costs in Langkawi, Malaysia [Summary](Virginia Tech, 2020-12-06)Though this research was planned for Malaysia’s hospitality industry development, it left lessons to learn. It is showed that hotels in Langkawi implemented ICT for reducing labor costs from a human resource management perspective. Also, it is suggested that hotel managers in developing countries should implement ICT for their management in terms of cost-saving.
- Role of user-generated photos in online hotel reviews: An analytical approach [Summary](Virginia Tech, 2020-12-06)The research shows photo-embedded online hotel reviews contain informational values just like the textual contents. Especially, it turned out from the study that guests who stayed at the two-star hotels put more core product- related pictures, while guests who stayed at the three-star hotels posted more facility-related photos and guests who stayed at the four and five-star uploaded more value-added products related pictures. This implies that hotel managers should acknowledge the importance of online reviews with photos to figure out their hotels’ strengths and weaknesses through the contents of reviews. Moreover, they should focus on user-generated reviews to learn which factors make guests contented or dissatisfied to respond to their needs effectively.
- Does Airbnb have a homogenous impact? Examining Airbnb’s effect on hotels with different organizational structures [Summary](Virginia Tech, 2020-11-07)The research indicates that measures of incumbents to lower the price to compete with Airbnb type of lodging might eventually lead to weakening their competitiveness in the long term. It is suggested for incumbents to prepare for the battle against Airbnb listings. For independent hotels, it would be hasher for them since they are lack resources compared to global chain hotels. But they can position themselves personalized home type of lodging with unique amenities and experiences like cooking class or wine tasting. Meanwhile, chain hotels should develop alternative measures like Accor Hotel’s SquAIR that shares the hotel’s public spaces with local residents aiming for active communication between residents and guests.
- The Channel That Offers the Lowest Online Room Rates: Case Study of Hotels in Hong Kong [Summary](Virginia Tech, 2020-11-29)Regarding the result of the research, hotel managers should provide their lowest room rate to more OTAs in order to expand their customer base. And it appears that some three-star hotels’ room rates are higher than those of 4-star hotels. Since it is hard to track all the price channels, it is recommended to use an automated channel management program to track prices of them and competitors. Also, two approaches are suggested for hotel managers. For hoteliers in three-star hotels, they should pick Cheaptickets, Expedia, and Orbitz to stand out among the search results. However, managers work in four or five-star hotels, they should pick Zuji and Orbiz since they offer the same lowest daily rate almost. Those might prefer to differentiate themselves by providing almost the same low room rate as those of other hotels and higher-level of services or amenities.
- Challenges of marketing and sales management in a city hotel - Using the example of hotel zeitgeist vienna [Summary](Virginia Tech, 2020-11-29)From the study, several suggestions were given for service and experience-oriented tourism and hospitality industries in Vienna. First, setting and maintaining a CRM database is required the first step in order to make marketing and sales effectiveness. Secondly, hotels should hold regular meetings with employees from all departments that meet clients for more cooperation and interaction. Last, regular training and suitable motivation also should consider important.
- Online Hotel Reviews: Rating Symbols or Text… Text or Rating Symbols? That Is the Question! [Summary](Virginia Tech, 2020-11-29)This study results strongly support the standpoint that rating or symbols on the hotel booking platform are more effective than the review content itself. Also for hospitality managers, it is recommended to take a look at the reviews on the platforms to get an insight into their services by analyzing them. Moreover, if they could give a prompt response to customer reviews, they would get more chances to receive more positive reviews. Also, when they manage their marketing strategy they need to keep in mind that positive reviews affect more than a negative reviews on consumer behaviors.
- Motivating senior employees in the hospitality industry [Summary](Virginia Tech, 2020-11-29)According to the research, it is suggested for executives to try to meet the employees’ needs by incorporating motivators and hygiene factors affordably with low costs and to increase job satisfaction, decrease job dissatisfaction, and turnover intentions. In detail, “ Job redesign” and checking employee’s job satisfaction towards the job itself regularly might be the framework as the endeavor to make the job interesting in order to increase job satisfaction. Secondly, since the recognition is related to the relationship with peer employees and superior’s recognition closely, regular supervisor training could make supervisors try to meet employee’s recognition needs actively. One thing was pointed out that family life could be the only factor that management cannot control easily for employee satisfaction. However, in the text, ‘family survey’ could be the way to understanding part of the interest of employee families in order to resolve family members of employees concerns. Lastly, the management needs to figure out the job security by making their senior employees feel that they belong to the organization and acknowledge themselves as essential human resources to their employers. The Mentor-mentee program could be one of the solutions for that.
- What Hotel Sales and Marketing Executives Should Know Before Investing Dollars in Sales Technology [Summary](Virginia Tech, 2020-11-29)This study was done almost 15 years ago, so it does not seem to be adequate to discuss technologies that they can implement since those in the article are quite old already. However, we can find the lesson still from the suggestion that major hotel groups should keep track of what their employees think about the investment in the technology for sales regularly so that they could decide where they invest in their technology and that there is a return on investment by being important to sales operation and meeting their expectation.
- An American hotel expatriate’s view on Chinese culture: Perspectives on cultural dimensions and managerial philosophies [Summary](Virginia Tech, 2020-11-29)This study can provide industry practitioners with actual practical guidelines when employees encounter people from East Asian countries as peer colleagues or customers at the property. It is recommended to make them notice the cultural difference that could lead to making a substantial difference for customer satisfaction. And it has to be really specific and practical. Some examples are provided such as; Asian culture is not accustomed to holding the door for the next person coming, the way to ordering food and eat at the restaurant in the United States might be the challenge for the Asian customers, etc. Those misunderstandings can be critical for employers in the hospitality industry when they try to hire culturally diverse employees or serving guests from different cultural backgrounds.
- The Complex Matter of Online Hotel Choice [Summary](Virginia Tech, 2020-09-20)It is suggested for OTA to limit the number of options that customers can choose by obtaining from users’ purchase history due to the limitation of cognition. Moreover, sometimes the attention paid to the options is not relevant to their actual popularity ranking. So conversion rate of hotels located at the top of the second page is higher than the one of hotels located at the bottom of the first page of search results. Lastly, since pictures and texts are processed in different ways for humans, it is recommended for hotels with lower-ranking to equip more diverse materials with attractive pictures and videos.
- Hotel revenue management for the transient segment: taxonomy-based research [Summary](Virginia Tech, 2020-09-20)This article tried to examine previous researches in hotel revenue management using the methodology named taxonomy used in the information system field and compare practitioner system in terms of functionality. Finally, it is suggested how related research should be categorized with an empirical focus.
- Understanding Satisfied and Dissatisfied Hotel Customers: Text Mining of Online Hotel Reviews [Summary](Virginia Tech, 2020-09-20)This article examines the satisfaction and dissatisfaction of hotel customers through Text mining hotel reviews online. The study shows that satisfied customers often mentioned that they liked intangible factors during their stays such as service by staff. However, dissatisfied customers didn’t like the hotel’s tangible aspects such as furnishing and payment. It is suggested for hotels to analyze their online reviews regularly so that they can identify the strengths and weaknesses of their property against competitors.
- What do hotel employees think about service robots? A qualitative study in Turkey [Summary](Virginia Tech, 2020-12-13)According to data from the interview with 40 Turkish employees, it seems that employees think using robots for their services would lead to increasing the reputation for the property and more guests, having a competitive advantage in the market with diverse products and services. However, at the same time, employees tend to feel anxious about the implementation of robots since it would bring them unemployment, communication problems, failures in the operation, and High maintenance cost. Therefore, it is recommended for employees to get training to get the idea that technological developments are essential and useful. Also, it is suggested to the schools to implement the contents related to the technological developments so that the future leader of the industry can equip the insight for the importance of technology.
- Hotel managers’ perceptions towards the use of robots: A mixed-methods approach [Summary](Virginia Tech, 2020-12-13)From the study, few findings can be discovered. First, robots can be used for dirty and dangerous tasks like cleaning and disinfection for human employees’ health and fewer workplace accidents. Moreover, repetitive and dull tasks could be given for robots while human employees’ better working environment for creativity and time-saving. For hoteliers, it can be applied in operation processes by increasing service capacity to serve more customers. For robot providers, it is required to make their clients sure that their products can be used properly by offering regular training to use robots for employees. Lastly, property managers should go through analyzing the cost and benefit comprehensively from every aspect including operations, marketing, HR, and security and safety.
- Staying in a hotel or peer-to-peer accommodation sharing? A discrete choice experiment with online reviews and discount strategies [Summary](Virginia Tech, 2020-12-13)According to the research result, it is suggested for all lodging industry to reduce their effort on designing pricing strategies for consumer attractions. Second, P2P and hotel management should implement different strategies to induce potential customers. Lastly, for P2P business, it is recommended to encourage guests to leave positive reviews rather than writing more views in just numbers.
- The determinants of a culture of partying among managers in the hotel industry [Summary](Virginia Tech, 2020-11-22)This article is very unique in terms of handling the party culture at work in the hospitality organization. From the survey results, it is suggested for hotel executives who want to enhance organizational health through reducing employee partying to changing not only company policies but also organizational culture such as the storytelling in order to reduce career consequences using work-family benefits and organizational time expectations.