Feeling (un)welcome in Switzerland: The perception of commercial hospitality by domestic and international tourists

Abstract

Hospitality has been identified as one of the vital enhancing services of tourism organizations. However, insights about how tourists perceive the hospitality of touristic service providers and how these perceptions vary between guests of different origins are still scarce. Using the case of Switzerland, we conducted a survey of 600 tourists to investigate the different perceptions of hospitality by domestic and international guests in touristic service encounters. The results confirm the idea that domestic tourists are more demanding and less satisfied with the hospitality of touristic service providers than international guests. The regression analyses further indicate that tourists’ gender and age influence their hospitality perceptions. Importance–performance analyses on single dimensions of the hospitality concept suggest that touristic service providers’ professional expertise is a key area in which to improve the hospitality perceptions of both domestic and international tourists.

Making memories: a consumer-based model of authenticity applied to living history sites

“…However, commercial hospitality is increasingly used to refer to the attitude and behavior of hosts: e.g. "hospitableness" and "hospitable hosting behaviors" (Steffen et al, 2021;p. 44).…”

“…Authenticity and sincerity are significant to hospitality and tourism in at least two major respects. First, contemporary consumers increasingly seek sincere and authentic experiences, underpinned by trust and tailored to their expectations (Kim and Bonn, 2016;Prince, 2017;Steffen et al, 2021;Taheri et al, 2020). Second, hospitality and tourism organizations are cognizant of the imperative roles authenticity and sincerity play in enriching the quality of their experiential offerings (Gannon et al, 2019;Lee, 2015;Penrose, 2018).…”

Hospitable Non-verbal Staff Behaviour as a Means to Create Value to Customers

“…However, the growing academic attention to the meaning of the concept of hospitality is gradually decreasing the knowledge gap on this topic. Academics have addressed the meaning of the concept of hospitality, predominantly in the context of the hospitality business, such as hotels or restaurants (Ariffin & Maghzi, 2012; Ariffin et al, 2018; Steffen et al, 2020; Tasci & Semrad, 2016). However, with the growing interest in hospitality outside the hospitality sector, more academic attention has also been paid to the concept of hospitality for the service sector in general (Pijls et al, 2017).…”

“…In conceptualizing and measuring customer experience, some authors only use experience-related variables to define the experience (Heide & Gronhaug, 2009; Pijls et al, 2017; Tasci & Semrad, 2016). Others also include service aspects that influence the experience (Ariffin & Maghzi, 2012; Brunner-Sperdin & Peters, 2009; Steffen et al, 2020). However, they often combine different levels of concretion, without making a distinction between experience-related variables that concern feelings of the customer and concrete aspects of the service delivery that influence the customer experience.…”

“…However, when is service staff experienced as hospitable? Operationalization of hospitable service staff has resulted in several distinguishing dimensions of hospitality (Ariffin & Maghzi, 2012; Pijls et al, 2017; Steffen et al, 2020; Tasci & Semrad, 2016). However, in order to improve the hospitality provided by service staff, organizations need to know what specific employee characteristics influence the experience of these various hospitality dimensions.…”