The role of digital transformation in improving customer satisfaction: An empirical study on Egyptian hotels

Abstract

Nowadays, the acceleration toward digital transformation changes both the way business is done and customers behavior; so hotels have to keep pace with this rapid evolution and seek to digital transformation by adopting the advanced information technologies. This research was conducted with the aim of examining the effect of digital transformation on customer satisfaction so the research focuses on the most prominent information technologies related to the guest-cycle stages. The problem of this paper is summarized in the absence of the related literature in this subject concerning to the Egyptian hotels, as well as the lack of hotel managers and employees' awareness of the optimal utilization of information technologies, in addition to the shortage of the implemented advanced ITs in hotels. So, a survey was applied on 400 respondents in four and five-star hotel guests in three Egyptian cities, Cairo, Sharm-Elshiekh and Hurghada, to investigate the impact of guest-cycle ITs on customer-satisfaction in order to determine which set of ITs in the guest-cycle stages can affect the customers satisfaction, as well as determine the differences between guests perceptions toward the study variables and the differences between their preferences toward using ITs according to their demographic features including; nationality, age and gender. The results revealed the importance of all guest-cycle ITs for customer satisfaction, as each of them has a significant effect on customer satisfaction. As well as, the guests' preferences toward using ITs differ only according to their nationality.