VTechWorks staff will be away for the winter holidays starting Tuesday, December 24, 2024, through Wednesday, January 1, 2025, and will not be replying to requests during this time. Thank you for your patience, and happy holidays!
 

Customer Perceptions of Restaurant Cleanliness: A Cross Cultural Study

Simple item page
dc.contributor.authorYoo, Seung Ahen
dc.contributor.committeechairMurrmann, Suzanne K.en
dc.contributor.committeememberSingal, Manishaen
dc.contributor.committeememberKim, Beom Cheol Peteren
dc.contributor.departmentHospitality and Tourism Managementen
dc.date.accessioned2014-03-14T20:41:50Zen
dc.date.adate2012-08-14en
dc.date.available2014-03-14T20:41:50Zen
dc.date.issued2012-07-09en
dc.date.rdate2012-08-14en
dc.date.sdate2012-07-23en
dc.description.abstractWhat is a clean restaurant in customers' viewpoints? Restaurant cleanliness is considered one of the most significant conditions when customers evaluate overall restaurant quality or decide their levels of satisfaction. However, there have been few studies of perceptions of restaurant cleanliness in customers' eyes. Previous studies were found to use inconsistent concepts of restaurant cleanliness when evaluating restaurant cleanliness. For example, some measurement scale of restaurant quality or customer satisfaction includes only items related to a restaurant's interior appearance to measure the restaurant cleanliness. Some researchers have also included items related to server's appearance. In other studies, overall images of a restaurant were used to evaluate its cleanliness. This study attempts to investigate the customers' perceptions of restaurant cleanliness. Understanding what customers consider when they evaluate a restaurant's cleanliness can be beneficial for hospitality managers who can use the information to increase their restaurant's quality and to satisfy their customers. In addition, this study was conducted with two different cultural groups of customers: Westerners and Asians. Understanding how different cultures perceive restaurant cleanliness can help hospitality managers who plan to expand their business in the global market. The results of this study indicated that the items of restroom personal hygiene, restroom appearance and server behavior all have a positive relationship with customers' restaurant quality evaluations. The level of importance of restaurant cleanliness dimensions was found to be similar between the Western and Asian samples. The server's behavior, restroom appearance and signage were found to be the most important dimensions for both groups. However, restroom personal hygiene was found to be the only dimension ranked differently by the two groups in the study. Westerners weighed the restroom personal hygiene as more important than did Asian respondents. Asian groups were found to have higher expectations for overall restaurant cleanliness dimensions than Western groups.en
dc.description.degreeMaster of Scienceen
dc.identifier.otheretd-07232012-152526en
dc.identifier.sourceurlhttp://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-07232012-152526/en
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10919/34127en
dc.publisherVirginia Techen
dc.relation.haspartYoo_SA_T_2012.pdfen
dc.rightsIn Copyrighten
dc.rights.urihttp://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/en
dc.subjectCultureen
dc.subjectRestaurant Cleanlinessen
dc.subjectService Qualityen
dc.titleCustomer Perceptions of Restaurant Cleanliness: A Cross Cultural Studyen
dc.typeThesisen
thesis.degree.disciplineHospitality and Tourism Managementen
thesis.degree.grantorVirginia Polytechnic Institute and State Universityen
thesis.degree.levelmastersen
thesis.degree.nameMaster of Scienceen

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Yoo_SA_T_2012.pdf
Size:
1.17 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Download

Collections

Masters Theses
Theses and Dissertations, Hospitality and Tourism Management (HTM)