Catheryn Khoo-Lattimore

The antecedents of relationship quality in Malaysia and New Zealand

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between the relational dynamics, namely trust, personalisation, communication, conflict handling and empathy, and relationship quality in the banking industry of two culturally dissimilar nations – Malaysia and New Zealand.Design/methodology/approach – Bank customers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Dunedin, New Zealand were surveyed using a questionnaire. Bank intercept technique was used in administering the instrument. A total of 358 customers (comprising 150 from Malaysia and 208 from New Zealand) provided the data for the study. Multiple regression analysis was used to estimate the hypothesized relationships.Findings – The results of the study show that the five relational dynamics explain 84 percent and 76 percent of variations in relationship quality in Malaysia and New Zealand respectively. Communication, trust, and empathy are significantly related with relationship quality in both countries, whereas personalisation has a significant...

Air the Anger: Investigating Online Complaints on Luxury Hotels

Purpose – Given the importance of negative word of mouth and growing number of hotel customers who leave their complaints on the web, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the complaints posted by guests who have stayed at luxury hotels in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.Design/methodology/approach – The dataset for this paper is a compilation of hotel reviews collected from TripAdvisor between November 2010 and January 2011. A thematic analysis was used in order to identify emergent themes from the dataset, which were explored and discussed in relation to the existing literature on complaining behavior as well as the aims of the study. The six phases of analysis outlined in the relevant literature was used to guide data analysis.Findings – Analysis of the 320 scripts produced a total of 1,453 different incidents. Results of the analysis produced 54 different themes. A frequency analysis conducted to rank these 54 themes in terms of how frequently they are stated. Some of the extracted themes and their frequ...

Profiling Service Failure and Customer Online Complaint Motives in the Case of Single Failure and Double Deviation

This study compares the profile of service failure in single-failure and double-deviation situations differentiates the complaint motives in both. It content-analyzed online customer complaints in two popular Malaysian foodservice chains. The first part discusses the four main service failure categories: (a) product related, (b) people related, (c) process related, and (d) physical-evidence related. The second section compares the six different types of complaint motives in single-failure and double-deviation situations. The results revealed that one case of double deviation occurred in every six cases of service failure. In addition, service failure profile and the complaint motive profile in single failures and double deviations were found to be similar. Given the findings, several important recommendations for academicians and industry practitioners were made.

ZMET: a psychological approach to understanding unsustainable tourism mobility.

This paper examines the work done by tourism researchers to understand why tourists make travel decisions that lead to high levels of greenhouse gas emissions and find it difficult to change their transport mode and destination choice towards more sustainable outcomes. It notes the growing recognition of an understanding of the psychological factors underlying tourist behaviour and the growing use of photography and photo elicitation in tourism research. It makes a case for using the Zaltman metaphor elicitation technique (ZMET) to develop a deeper understanding of the reluctance of consumers to choose environmentally friendly transport modes. ZMET is a technique for eliciting inter-related notions that influence thought and behaviour. Derived from Freudian psychology, ZMET is a projective technique based on the notion of unconscious and repressed thoughts – thoughts that patients were unwilling or unable to reveal to their psychologists. It uses respondents’ pictures as entry points to understanding the respondents’ actions. The ten steps used by ZMET are described. An evaluation of the techniques use in non-tourism research is given, along with a discussion about why ZMET has rarely been used in many academic studies.

Kids on board: methodological challenges, concerns and clarifications when including young children's voices in tourism research

A knowledge gap exists concerning the dearth of childrens voices in tourism research. One of the main reasons for this is attributed to the methodological challenges that confront researchers when interacting with child respondents. Based on a recent study conducted with young children between the ages of 5 and 6 years, this article discusses five methodological issues to contemplate prior to conducting research with children. This article raises important considerations for childrens developmental phase, the use of appropriate props and prompts during data collection, and the positionality and pre-requisites of the researcher when designing methodologies for research with children.

Heritage Tourism in Malaysia: Fostering a Collective National Identity in an Ethnically Diverse Country

As the processes associated with globalisation swiftly erode distinct cultures and identities, it has been argued that heritage attractions have emerged as powerful communicators in developing collective national identities. Although many countries reveal histories and collective pasts that are universally representative of homogenous populations, Malaysia represents a distinctly contrasting scenario. Malaysian heritage attractions do not necessarily represent a singular population but three distinctive ethnic groups. Thus, selecting heritage attractions that appropriately represent Malaysia remains a complicated issue. Using photographs as “real-world” variables to supplement focus-group interviews, this article reveals that young Malaysians exhibit a limited understanding of religious heritage attractions and have developed identities that are highly specific to their ethnicity and own religious beliefs. However, the stories told by several respondents also show that Malaysias ethnic- or religious-centred heritage attractions have the power to foster a simultaneous collective national identity if promoted effectively.

Eat to Live or Live to Eat? Mapping Food and Eating Perception of Malaysian Chinese

The purpose of this study is to explore the perception of Malaysian Chinese towards food and eating by using a qualitative marketing research tool, known as the Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique. Twelve Malaysian Chinese were asked to collect photographs that represented their thoughts and feelings about food and eating. The results surfaced six broad meaning themes Malaysian Chinese have about food and eating: (a) health, (b) trying new food, (c) people, (d) home cooked food, (e) enjoyment, and (f) happiness. The findings were supported by rich description and meaningful images that capture both the spoken and tacit thoughts and feelings of the respondents. The findings reflected the health concerns and food neophilia tendency of Malaysian Chinese. The findings also revealed the positive emotional value of food and eating linked to enjoyment and pleasure. These findings suggest numerous important implications for scholars and practitioners in the industry.

Understanding women's accommodation experiences on girlfriend getaways: a pragmatic action research approach

In the realm of womens travel, while the accommodation experiences and preferences of female business travellers have been investigated, little is known about the female leisure-traveller in this regard. This study investigates one of the growth sectors in womens travel – girlfriend getaways (GGAs), which are holidays taken by females with other females. An action research approach was employed to explore the accommodation needs of all these female travel groups in the Malaysian context. Using a five-stage approach which included in-depth interviews, a hotel stay for three groups of women on a GGA, focus groups and secondary data analysis, four themes were identified. These themes address feminine comforts, facilitating friendship, safety, and shopping and the use of discount promotions with GGA. Findings suggest that the needs of female leisure-travellers are distinct from those of women who travel on business. Recommendations for hotel management are made to enhance the GGA experience for women, notably providing spaces and activities to facilitate female bonding.

A narrative review of Asian female travellers: looking into the future through the past

Following the rise of tourism in Asia, a growing female travel market has been observed in the region. Nevertheless, limited research has considered the travel experience of Asian women. In response to the dearth of research on Asian female travellers, this study employs a narrative synthesis approach through a postcolonial feminist lens to review the extant literature on Asian female travellers, with the aim to contribute to a cultural understanding of the historical and contemporary travel practices of Asian women. Based on this review, it is evident that Asian women’s travel behaviour is influenced by cultural identities and gender stereotypes. However, existing literature has also demonstrated the agency of Asian women in resisting discriminatory gender practices in tourism, which is represented in the transformation of the identity of Asian female travellers. Accordingly, an agenda for future research is proposed and some implications for the industry are discussed. This study addresses the western-centric and androcentric criticisms in tourism field and provides an alternative reading of women’s travel behaviour from an Asian perspective. This study has contributed to the critical tourism scholarship in Asia and has built an important foundation for future research on Asian female travellers, an area that is not well investigated.

Power in praise: Exploring online compliments on luxury hotels in Malaysia

Compliments are not only an indication of satisfaction but a broader range of motives relating to consumer behavior. They represent a potent form of feedback to businesses and their potential for helping to shape both organizational and individual behaviors may be greater than that of customer complaints. Despite the constantly increasing number of published work on the use of internet in hospitality literature, relatively little has been written on how guests use the internet to share their positive experiences. Keeping this in mind, this present research seeks to examine the compliments posted by guests who have stayed at five-star hotels in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This paper identifies, through a qualitative analysis of 220 scripts, the kinds of compliments given and provides important implications to hoteliers. The results show “rooms,” “staff,” “food,” “services,” and “location” are the top five factors that guests applause. Discussion of these findings and implications of the results are also provided.