Bonnie J. Knutson

DINESERV: a tool for measuring service quality in restaurants.

Dining consumers determine which restaurants meet their quality and value standards. Restaurateurs who fail to measure up will soon see declining customer counts as guests switch to competing restaurants. “Dineserv” is proposed as a reliable, relatively simple tool for determining how consumers view a restaurants quality. The 29-item Dineserv questionnaire comprises service-quality standards that fall into five categories: assurance, empathy, reliability, responsiveness, and tangibles. By administering the Dineserv questionnaire to guests, a restaurant operator can get a reading on how customers view the restaurants quality, identify where problems are, and get an inkling of how to resolve them. Dineserv also provides restaurateurs with a quantified measure of what consumers expect in a restaurant. Those expectations are important, because unfulfilled expectations drive guests away.

College students and fast food—: How students perceive restaurant brands

College students like their fast-food restaurants to be above all else clean, friendly, and inexpensive—yet no chain is positioning itself to be the cleanest or friendliest.

Identifying the Dimensions of the Experience Construct

ABSTRACT This article identifies the underlying dimensions of a consumers experience. Data are collected through a Web-based survey using samples from three Internet distribution channels (n = 397). Exploratory factor analysis is employed. Scale-development procedures result in a seven-factor model consisting of Environment, Benefit, Accessibility, Convenience, Utility, Incentive, and Trust. Implications for management and future research are presented.

Ten laws of customer satisfaction

The best way to satisfy your customers is to exceed their expectations for service. Heres how to please your customers “by the numbers”

Identifying the dimensions of the guest's hotel experience.

This article identifies the underlying dimensions of a guests hotel experience, using data from a web-based survey of guests at a midwestern hotel and conference center. This study finds that the dimensions obtained in exploratory factor analysis can be replicated by confirmatory factor analysis with the same data set. These scale-development procedures result in an eighteen-item index consisting of four factors: environment, accessibility, driving benefit, and incentive. This four-factor structure of Hotel Experience Index also shows evidence of both convergent and discriminant validity.

Identifying the dimensions of the experience construct: development of the model.

SUMMARY This article proposes a holistic, three phase model structured to incorporate the major components of the Experience construct. While speculation about what constitutes an experience abound, the complex relationship among value, service quality, satisfaction, and experience is in its infancy. Before this relationship can be fully examined, dimensions of these four critical components need to be incorporated into a unified, holistic model that includes the three primary constructs of Service Quality, Value, and Satisfaction. This article focuses on the first challenge by developing a model and offering some propositions to encourage future research about the experience construct in hospitality.

An argument for providing authenticity and familiarity in tourism destinations.

ABSTRACT This paper presents a case for the equilibrium between authentic features of a tourist destination and familiar elements provided for tourists. Support for this proposal is offered and the variables influential in defining this equilibrium point are identified. Implications for research and the hospitality industry are presented.

Relationships Among Customer Satisfaction, Delight, and Loyalty in the Hospitality Industry

Customer satisfaction has been a focus of researchers and marketers as an important antecedent of customer loyalty. Some recent studies propose that customer delight possibly produces greater customer loyalty than satisfaction. Loyalty has also become of greater interest to researchers and marketers as a multiphase concept as well as a useful segmentation of customers with accompanying targeted strategies. As one of few empirical studies on customer satisfaction, delight, and loyalty, the primary objectives of this research is to understand how customer satisfaction and delight influence loyalty and to understand the multiphase framework of loyalty, including cognitive, affective, and conative loyalties. This study contributes to the body of knowledge on customer satisfaction, delight, and loyalty and provides theoretical and applied suggestions for the hospitality industry.

Research on China Outbound Market: A Meta-Review

ABSTRACT This article presents a meta-review of 30 academic articles that have been published about Chinas outbound tourism market. The articles have been categorized into three research streams: market overview, destination specific from secondary data, and destination specific from primary consumer data. Implications for future research are included.

Development and testing of the Consumer Experience Index (CEI)

Purpose – The primary purpose of this paper is to develop a parsimonious Consumer Experience Index (CEI) and then identify and validate the dimensionality of the experience concept.Design/methodology/approach – The study employed a four‐step methodology. After conducting a pre‐test and pilot test, data were collected from 397 adults via an online survey. A split‐sample technique was used for the data analysis. The first‐split sample (n=199) was used to conduct the exploratory factor analysis. Reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity were evaluated with a second‐half split sample (n=198) from confirmatory factor analysis.Findings – Scale‐development procedures resulted in a seven‐factor model comprised of the following dimensions: environment, benefits, convenience, accessibility, utility, incentive, and trust. Overall, the 26‐item CEI is a reliable and valid measure to determine the underlying components of a consumers experience.Research limitation/implications – This study concentrat...