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Hospitality Management Strategy Importance of Human Resources Customer Cultural Awareness The case of the Asian Market
University Forum for Human Resource Development Conference 2024 Human Resources Development in a Digital Age
Year (definitive publication)
2024
Language
Portuguese
Country
Portugal
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Abstract
Purpose –This study examines the strategy of luxury hotels operating in Portugal concerning Asian
Market in general and Chinese and Japanese in particular, identifying factors behind Japanese and
Chinese customers’ satisfaction or dissatisfaction with hotel attributes.
Theoretical framework – Comparing with Western, Asian tourists prefer the basic and practical
aspects of service, giving higher ratings for variables such as “staff understanding your problems
and needs,” and “responding effectively.”. (Tsang and Ap, 2007). Expectations of hotel hospitality are
influenced by personal factors (Ariffin and Maghzi, 2012). Compared with the Chinese, the Japanese
seem less comfortable when they are not shown politeness in situations where they would expect it
(Tao, 2013). Luxury hotels should focus on staff training, cleanness of rooms and location choice to
improve customer satisfaction (Chang et al., 2023).
Asian Customers are not all the same and hotels strategy should take in consideration the customer
country of origin to retain, attract and recover these customers and markets seen as very profitable,
delighting them (Tavares de Carvalho and Reis, 2023).
Design/methodology/approach – A three-steps methodological approach is used: literature review;
1.354 booking.com content analysis of customers reviews, 501 questionnaires had been sent to
managers, valid responses were analysed using SPSS (Principal Components, Hypothesis test and
Structural Equation Modelling).
Findings – Tools of digital age (online travel agencies reviews) can be an useful tool to discuss and
improve the customer strategy approach and to the development of Hospitality Human Resources.
Findings of content reviews analysis reveal that Japanese and Chinese customers are pleased
differently concerning hotel attributes and it falls into six dimensions: location, facilities, room,
breakfast, staff-service, finance. The hotels strategy is not taking in consideration the customer
origin, having negative customer satisfaction implications. Training to hotels human resources in
Asian culture (Japanese and Chinese) should be made.
Research, Practical & Social implications – Asian Customers are not all the same and hotels strategy
should take in consideration the customer country of origin to retain, attract these customers.
Originality/value – There are few studies made about this subject. This study contributes for the
understanding of the improvement that Hotel Management should do if they want to attract and
delight the Asian customers, confirming that the use of digital platforms are a big help in the
understanding of the customers ‘satisfaction and dissatisfaction factors with hotel attributes.
Acknowledgements
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Keywords
Asian Market,Japanese customers,Chinese customers,hospitality strategy,hotel attributes,customer satisfaction.