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This document summarizes a study that examines how the environment of a hotel service influences customers' emotions. The study adapted the S-O-R model to the hotel context, identifying factors like design, employees, and activities that create stimuli influencing customers' emotional states. A questionnaire surveyed hotel guests across Europe, finding that leisure experiences, employee interactions, and design elements most strongly impacted emotions. Statistical analysis showed strong correlations between emotional state, satisfaction, and return visits. The results suggest hotel managers should optimize service encounters and focus on eliciting positive emotions through atmosphere, employees, and guest experiences.
This document summarizes a study that examines how the environment of a hotel service influences customers' emotions. The study adapted the S-O-R model to the hotel context, identifying factors like design, employees, and activities that create stimuli influencing customers' emotional states. A questionnaire surveyed hotel guests across Europe, finding that leisure experiences, employee interactions, and design elements most strongly impacted emotions. Statistical analysis showed strong correlations between emotional state, satisfaction, and return visits. The results suggest hotel managers should optimize service encounters and focus on eliciting positive emotions through atmosphere, employees, and guest experiences.
This document summarizes a study that examines how the environment of a hotel service influences customers' emotions. The study adapted the S-O-R model to the hotel context, identifying factors like design, employees, and activities that create stimuli influencing customers' emotional states. A questionnaire surveyed hotel guests across Europe, finding that leisure experiences, employee interactions, and design elements most strongly impacted emotions. Statistical analysis showed strong correlations between emotional state, satisfaction, and return visits. The results suggest hotel managers should optimize service encounters and focus on eliciting positive emotions through atmosphere, employees, and guest experiences.
It is all about the emotional state: Managing tourists experiences
To understand the emotional experience of a customer during the consumption of a service is highly important for the providing company, as it is an important determinant for the consumers satisfaction with the service. A lot of research already exists about measuring customer satisfaction, many of them comparing consumers prior expectations and subjective perceptions of the service. Also well-known are theories about consumer behavior, like the S- O-R Model developed by Mehrabian and Russel in 1972, which shows how to measure emotions and reactions of customers in a holistic context. The model illustrates that certain environmental Stimuli have an effect on the Organism of people, which finally leads to a certain Response. Simply spoken, the setting of a service influences consumers emotions and because of that, their behavioral response. Although there is a lot of existing research on customer satisfaction and consumer behavior, there is still a lack of empirical research concerning the question of how the environment of a service influences the customers emotions. Furthermore, as existing research already suggests that emotion is one of the most important components of customer satisfaction, the question of the time emotions should be measured at the retrospective level or during the consumption represents another research gap and is also addressed in this study.
The first research question this study aims to answer is which factors concerning the service setting influence customers emotions, satisfaction and behavior. Furthermore, the question of at what time consumers emotions should be measured is included in this study. To answer these questions properly a theoretical framework is provided. Reviewed in the study is literature about the influence of physical environments on customers reactions like the already mentioned S-O-R Model and other prominent research about what effects emotions and consumer behavior. The empirical research of this study was based a conceptualization of the S-O-R Model adapted to hotel services and activities. This model is based on different dimensions concerning the service setting that is creating stimuli: the service environment, social surroundings, the leisure experience and situational variables. Concerning the service environment the study integrates software and hardware variables more precisely design, lightning, color, scent and sound, the behavior of the service customers and the perception of the hotels image. To assess the social surrounding of a service, empathy, expertise and responsiveness of employees are factors integrated in the study. The dimension of leisure experience includes different flow items, such as feel to be in good hands, forget everything around, do not realize how time is passing, enjoy the activity, being lost in what I am doing, sense of potential control and being happy. Furthermore, there are situational variables ePortfolio Hammertinger Lisa included in the study like age, duration of stay, gender or how many times the customer has visited the hotel before. Between the service stimuli and the response consumers show lays a persons organism; his or her emotional state. Finally, concerning the response guests show towards the service setting of a hotel, this study uses satisfaction as a variable that directly affects approach-avoidance behavior.
The research method used for the study is a questionnaire. Included in the survey are eight 4 and 5 star hotels in Austria, Southern Germany and Italy that all provide a typical alpine and/or spa oriented service. In total there were 720 questionnaires distributed and the response rate was 33.2% - consequently 239 filled out questionnaires are used for the statistical analysis. All the questions included used a five-point Likert-scale. The hotels that participated asked guests to fill out the questionnaire during their stay, handling it like a well- feeling diary. In this manner hotel guests assessed different activities including the variables mentioned above and finally the effect the different situations had on their emotional state.
The questionnaire includes a large number of variables and for that reason, a factors analysis was conducted before the testing of the hypotheses stated. The three factors hardware, human-ware and leisure experience were identified by the analysis factors that are almost identical to the ones mentioned by the literature that is presented in the paper. The statistical analysis furthermore included linear regressions to investigate the hypothesis, the enter method and the stepwise method all of them strengthen the prior results. The factors with the strongest influence on the emotional state of the consumers are the leisure experience, the human ware and the hard ware. Furthermore, a Spearmans Rho test showed a strong significance between the customer satisfaction and the emotional state. These results implicate on the one hand an optimization of the service encounter for hotel managers. Besides creating a desirable atmosphere within the tangible service encounter like the reception, it is also highly important that managers are aware of the high influence employees have on the customers emotional states. Furthermore, a focus should lie on the so-called moment of truth, which describes the intangible interpersonal interaction that consumers seek to enjoy. Hotel managers should also recognize that traditional quality measurement often isnt enough to really explain customer satisfaction or loyalty and that emotional aspects should be included in the analysis to get more profound results. For the creation of the right mood in a hotel a focus on customers emotional dimensions might be of high relevance.
Brunner-Sperdin, A./Peters, M./Strobl, A. (2011): It is all about the emotional state: Managing tourists experiences. International Journal of Hospitality Management 31(2012), p. 23-30