Luxury services

Abstract

PurposeThe market for luxury is growing rapidly. While there is a significant body of literature on luxury goods, academic research has largely ignored luxury services. The purpose of this article is to open luxury services as a new field of investigation by developing the theoretical and conceptual underpinnings to build the luxury services literature and show how luxury services differ from both luxury goods and from ordinary (i.e. non-luxury) services.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses a conceptual approach drawing upon and synthesizing the luxury goods and services marketing literature.FindingsThis article makes three contributions. First, it shows that services are largely missing from the luxury literature, just as the field of luxury is mostly missing from the service literature. Second, it contrasts the key characteristics of services and related consumer behaviors with luxury goods. The service characteristics examined are non-ownership, IHIP (i.e. intangibility, heterogeneity, inseparability, and perishability), the three additional Ps of services marketing (i.e. people, processes, and physical facilities) and the three-stage service consumption model. This article derives implications these characteristics have on luxury. For example, non-ownership increases the importance of psychological ownership, reduces the importance of conspicuous consumption and the risk of counterfeiting. Third, this article defines luxury services as extraordinary hedonic experiences that are exclusive whereby exclusivity can be monetary, social and hedonic in nature, and luxuriousness is jointly determined by objective service features and subjective customer perceptions. Together, these characteristics place a service on a continuum ranging from everyday luxury to elite luxury.Practical implicationsThis article provides suggestions on how firms can enhance psychological ownership of luxury services, manage conspicuous consumption, and use more effectively luxury services' additional types of exclusivity (i.e. social and hedonic exclusivity).Originality/valueThis is the first paper to define luxury services and their characteristics, to apply and link frameworks from the service literature to luxury, and to derive consumer insights from these for research and practice.

Service providers’ perspective on the luxury tourist experience as a product

“…Chen & Peng, 2014;Harkison et al, 2018a;Manthiou et al, 2017), indicating that the luxury tourist experience product is a holistic experience where quality, a hasslefree atmosphere, unique convenience for the customer, and ease and comfort are the central elements. However, the findings suggest that there is a difference in the expectations of the service level and composition of the product based on different customer groups, which confirms the notion of Wirtz et al (2020) that luxury services should not be categorized as such but rather they should be seen as a continuum. In the highest ultimate luxury level or as described by as Wirtz et al (2020) the "elite luxury" level, the product offering is tailor-made in collaboration with the customer in the pre-trip phase.…”

“…However, it is argued that the material elements do not define luxury anymore, rather for the consumer it is the perceived value and the experience (Kiessling et al, 2009). Wirtz et al (2020) argue that determining something as luxury based on physical experience elements is not possible for services, which should also be approached via subjective perceptions, determined by the customer's situational interpretation of the experience, processes, and tangible cues.…”

“…Furthermore, the study contributes to the discussion on luxury by researching experiential luxury services (e.g. Wirtz et al, 2020) in the context of unconventional (e.g. Thomsen et al, 2020) and inconspicuous (e.g.…”

“…Scholars have not yet adequately addressed the features of luxury service (Wirtz et al, 2020), and there is a demand for further study in the area of experiential luxury in the context of hospitality and tourism (Correia et al, 2016;Park & Reisinger, 2009). According to Wirtz et al (2020), most studies that have been conducted in the luxury context have not researched luxury services as such; a gap that this study aims to fill.…”

“…Because of the multifaceted concept of luxury, and to accommodate this shift in consumer tastes, academics and practitioners need to understand experiential luxuries, which have been neglected in academic research (Yang & Mattila, 2016; luxury research has been overlooked in service literature, and service literature is lacking in luxury literature (Wirtz et al, 2020). Scholars have not yet adequately addressed the features of luxury service (Wirtz et al, 2020), and there is a demand for further study in the area of experiential luxury in the context of hospitality and tourism (Correia et al, 2016;Park & Reisinger, 2009). According to Wirtz et al (2020), most studies that have been conducted in the luxury context have not researched luxury services as such; a gap that this study aims to fill.…”