Domestic Tourist Satisfaction in a Colonial Hotel and Its Implications for Management

Abstract

The most important job and the biggest challenge in contemporary management in service industries, is making the customers satisfied. It can be argued that the difficulty faced by managers committed to customer satisfaction, is designing specific customer satisfaction strategies. This task becomes a challenge due to the lack of studies done to measure customer satisfaction in hospitality industry, which result in the lack of understanding of the governing factors and the level of customer satisfaction. In Bandarawela Hotel the significant differences between the satisfaction of domestic and foreign tourists and the dominant dissatisfaction of domestic tourists have been recognized. The reasons for dissatisfaction were studied using the mixed methodology of the research. The factors affecting their satisfaction were recognized to be in two categories; tangible and intangible. As the significant findings, some features of the hotel that exists due to the Colonial concept were recognized as the main factors that contribute to the domestic tourists' dissatisfaction.