The Impact of Status Seeking on Consumers’ Word of Mouth and Product Preference - A Comparison between Luxury Hospitality Services and Luxury Goods [Summary]

Abstract

Prior research on luxury hospitality consumption has focused mainly on understanding luxury consumer attitude, values, and luxury brand management. This study provides important managerial implications for luxury hospitality practitioners. Results indicate that compared with patricians, parvenus rely heavily on tangible evidence of their luxury consumption and are less likely to choose luxury hospitality services over luxury goods with the intention of advancing happiness and enjoyment. Therefore, luxury hotels and fine-dining restaurants in countries where the majority of luxury consumers are parvenus might want to incorporate some forms of tangible evidence into their service offerings. For example, they might offer complimentary products such as creative photos and videos, bumper stickers, T-shirts, and coffee-table books that showcase the luxury experiences to others either during the service consumption or as follow-up “thank you for your business” gifts. In addition, luxury hospitality firms aiming at parvenus might want to downplay the hedonic value of their services. In this context, luxury hotels can identify leading East Asian influencers and encourage them to promote brand use in social networking sites and other marketing strategies.

Description
Keywords
luxury consumption, luxury hospitality services, word-of-mouth, status consumption, experience recommendation
Citation