Expected benefits of people interactions and guest experiences

Abstract

PurposeThis research aims to grasp hotel guests' motives and potential benefits sought when interacting with other guests, service personnel and residents and examines how these benefits can contribute to the total guest experience.Design/methodology/approachMixed methods are adopted for the purpose of this study comprising individual interviews and a questionnaire survey.FindingsFive groups of advantages emerge from individual interviews, including friendliness in interaction, social benefits, information acquisition, curiosity gratification and hospitality services. In the survey, which gathers 326 questionnaires, this study reveals that the five types of benefits derived from hotel guests' interactions could be further categorized into two dimensions: civility (e.g. friendliness and social) and utility (e.g. information, curiosity and service). The study confirms that four out of five potential or expected benefits from this personal interaction is significantly associated with the total hotel experience.Research limitations/implicationsRespondents of this study are culturally homogenous; as a result, multi-cultural settings should be considered for future research.Originality/valueTourism and hospitality literature on people's interaction is mostly center around social aspects of interaction. The current study comprehensively explores all expected utilities of interaction, occurring in all sorts of interactions (e.g. customer-to-resident and customer-to-service personnel). Specifically, the findings of this study uncover the underlying factors which prompt the tourists to interact with other people in a lodging setting and examine the relative importance of those underlying factors to the total lodging experiences.

Online innovation and repurchase intentions in hotels: the mediating effect of customer experience

“…They suggested consistent further research on the total experience of hotel websites since website technologies keep evolving and vary widely between hotels. Again, Chen et al (2020) also studied the effect of person-to-person interaction on repurchase intention in a hotel setting and recommended that future studies examine the effect of other forms of interactions, such as digital interactions (social media, websites, etc.) on service experience and its effect on repurchase intention, in the post-COVID-19 era.…”

“…Following this model, we propose that hotel services' repurchase intention will be precipitated by customer satisfaction and the service innovation experience. Hotel clients' experiences can be illustrated in four dimensions of hedonics, peace of mind, involvement and recognition (Chen et al, 2020;Otto and Ritchie, 1996). Thus, a hotel's website is expected to deliver these values as part of the customer experience.…”

“…Hotel clients' experiences can be illustrated in four dimensions of hedonics, peace of mind, involvement and recognition (Chen et al , 2020; Otto and Ritchie, 1996). Thus, a hotel's website is expected to deliver these values as part of the customer experience.…”

Tourist-to-Tourist Interaction: The Case of an All-Inclusive Hotel Business

“…Örneğin Andriotis (2016), turistlerin ziyaret etkileri destinasyonlardaki dilencilerle kurdukları etkileşimi irdelemektedir. İlgili araştırmalara göre turist deneyimi turizmin yarattığı bu sosyal etkileşim ekseninde şekillenmektedir (Chen, Chen & Liu, 2020).…”

Building a system dynamics model to analyze scenarios of COVID-19 policymaking in tourism-dependent developing countries: A case study of Cambodia

“…For example, teleworking can assure the social distance requirement and business continuity during the epidemic (Martin, 2020) but is also sometimes problematic (e.g., work–family conflict, stress, loneliness, burnout, turnover intentions, ineffective communication, procrastination, and lower job satisfaction) (Kaduk et al, 2019; Wang et al, 2021). It still seems difficult to say that telework will be an appropriate solution to the issues faced by the tourism industry, as the guest–host interaction is an important component affecting tourists’ experience and satisfaction (Chen et al, 2020; Harkison, 2017).…”