Eric S.W. Chan

Hotel selection: When price is not the issue

To maintain desired room occupancy rates, one of the common strategies a hotel will normally adopt is cutting price. This trend greatly affects a hotels profits and may result in the deterioration of a hotels status. Many hotels consequently discover new competitors and fail to retain guests in the long run as the guests tend to be sceptical about the level of the advertised price reduction. This implies that hoteliers need to have a better understanding of how such factors beyond ‘price’, such as the quality of their services and their facilities, influence the booking behaviour of customers. This study, which surveyed 573 Frequent Individual Travellers (FITs) to the Hong Kong SAR, found that beyond ‘price’, ‘convenient hotel location’ and ‘good service’ were the key factors influencing FITs in their final selection of hotel. Business travellers tend to place more emphasis on their previous hotel experience; good service; convenience and company recommendation; whereas leisure travellers and those with a lower level of education valued travel agents’ recommendation. Repeat male visitors and western travellers valued good hotel reputation, while the impact of subjective norms on big spenders was high.

Implementing Environmental Management Systems in Small- and Medium-Sized Hotels: Obstacles

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) make up the vast majority of businesses in Hong Kong. However, a review of the literature about environmental management and environmental management systems (EMSs) reveals that very few studies have examined EMS implementation in small- and medium-sized hotels (SMHs). This study aimed to identify the barriers to the adoption and implementation of a formal EMS by SMHs in Hong Kong. Exploratory factor analysis indicated that nine factors can hinder the adoption of such a system by SMHs, five of which are unique to these hotels. In descending order, they are (a) lack of a sense of urgency, (b) ambiguity of EMS standards, (c) lack of qualified verifiers/consultants, (d) conflicting guidance, and (e) inconsistent support. The findings offer some explanation for the limited action taken by these hotels to improve their environmental performance. The policy implications for hotel managers who are committed to implementing an EMS are also discussed.

Quality of work life and job satisfaction among frontline hotel employees: A self-determination and need satisfaction theory approach

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to achieve three objectives: to investigate perceived quality of work life (QWL) need attributes among frontline employees in the lodging industry, to assess the asymmetric relationships between QWL attributes and job satisfaction (JS) and to prioritize QWL attributes for the effective management of JS. Design/methodology/approach – Data were analyzed using exploratory factor analysis, impact range-performance analysis and impact-asymmetry analysis. Findings – Each QWL attribute showed significant and various asymmetric or linear impacts on JS or job dissatisfaction (JDS). Practical implications – Study results provided critical information for hotel managers to prioritize several attributes, such as safe work place, fair pay, empowerment and effective training, to enhance JS and reduce JDS for frontline personnel. Originality/value – This study sheds light for identifying the underlying structure of QWL and further investigate the asymmetric relationship between QWL...

Service failures and recovery actions in the hotel industry: A text-mining approach

The purpose of this article is to cluster service failures and recovery actions in the hotel industry. Keywords were extracted from the descriptive responses of hotel guests and systematically clustered to identify major areas of service failures and recovery actions in the hotel industry. Two sets of textual data (service failure and service recovery) were collected from 75 hotel guests using the critical incident technique and content-analyzed with a text-mining program. Text-mining analysis identified 50 keywords in eight clusters from the service failure data and 50 keywords in seven clusters from the service recovery data. The identified keywords were conceptually graphed to map meaningful findings that are logically precise and computationally tractable. The major theoretical and practical implications are also discussed in this study.

Environmental management research in hospitality

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to review and synthesise 149 hospitality-related studies published in the past two decades pertaining to environmental management (EM). The review was divided into three main stages: 1993-1999, 2000-2009 and 2010-2014 and provided future research directions. Design/methodology/approach The study sample consisted of articles published between 1993 and 2014 in four leading hospitality journals. The four journals chosen were the International Journal of Hospitality Management, Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management and Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research. The title, abstract and the content, as needed, of all EM-related full-length articles from these four journals were content analysed. Editors’ notes, book reviews, industry news, conference papers and research notes were excluded from this paper. Findings EM research in the hospitality industry during the first two stages focused on the development of environmental policies and practices, green consumerism, managers’ environmental attitudes, indoor air quality and smoke-free environments, sustainable development, environmental performance, environmental cost control and environmental management systems (EMSs). During the third stage from 2010 to 2014, topics about environmental benchmarking and indicators have surfaced. Notwithstanding this, EM in the environmental reporting, and green marketing have been pursued less enthusiastically. Research limitations/implications Compared with the mainstream management literature and considering the future development of EM, hospitality scholars are encouraged to extend their research to include green marketing, environmental technologies, environmental reporting, carbon footprint, employees’ green behaviour, the effects of EM on hospitality firms’ stakeholders and small- and medium-sized hospitality firms. In addition, more effort should be spent on developing hospitality-specific theories for EM. Originality/value Little has been done to determine the main research agendas in hospitality EM. A review of recent research on this topic provides an inventory of existing knowledge and points out areas requiring further knowledge exploration.

Green Marketing: Hotel Customers’ Perspective

ABSTRACT Green marketing should appeal to the needs and desires of environmentally concerned customers. The aim of this study was to investigate hotel customers’ perceptions of hotels’ green marketing strategies. A questionnaire containing 30 statements was used to gauge respondents’ perceptions of different hotel green marketing strategies. Using exploratory factor analysis to identify interpretable orthogonal factors, five factors were identified and interpreted: (1) Green Partnership; (2) Development of Green Products and Services; (3) Genuine Green Products and Services; (4) Higher Price for Green Products and Services; and (5) Credibility of Green Promotion. Independent t-tests and one-way analysis of variance were conducted to examine significant differences between hotel customers’ ratings of the importance of the identified factors according to demographic variables. This is one of the first research studies to examine green marketing in the hotel industry. The discussion of the findings includes some practical implications to help hotel marketers implement more effective green marketing strategies.

An analysis of the gap in the perceptions of hotel marketing managers and business travelers regarding information technology facilities in hotel guestrooms in Hong Kong

This article reports on an analysis of the perceptions of business travelers and hotel marketing managers regarding in-room information technology (IT) facilities in hotels. Usable data were analyzed for 650 business travelers and 40 hotel marketing managers in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (China). One-Way ANOVA and independent t-tests were employed to examine significant differences between preferences and demographic variables and to examine whether there was a significant difference between the way business travelers and the managers rated the importance of inroom IT facilities. This study found that “adequate jacks and plugs,” “satellite/cable TV,” and “highspeed Internet access” were ranked by business travelers as the top three in-room IT facilities, whereas hotel marketing managers perceived “high-speed Internet access” to be the most important IT facility to business travelers, followed by “adequate jacks and plugs” and “satellite/cable TV in room.” Both business travelers and hotel marketing managers indicated there was a strong demand for hotels to provide assistance to guests who make use of IT devices in their room. However, over 50% of hotel marketing managers stated that their hotels had encountered difficulties in providing some of the IT services because of limited budgets and fast-changing technology.

Barriers to Environmental Technology Adoption in Hotels

This study investigates potential barriers to the adoption of environmental technologies used in Hong Kong hotels. Data were collected via in-depth semistructured interviews with senior hotel professionals including general managers, financial controllers, directors of engineering department, and environmental management system managers. The research findings illustrate several specific barriers to adoption of environmental technologies which are grouped under three categories: (1) product-related barriers, (2) external barriers, and (3) internal barriers. The study findings are discussed and specific recommendations for overcoming these barriers are put forward. Conclusions and suggestions for future research are also provided.

An Empirical Study of Environmental Practices and Employee Ecological Behavior in the Hotel Industry

This study examines the relationships among environmental knowledge, environmental awareness, environmental concern, and employee ecological behavior to implement green practices across the hotel industry. Structural equation modeling with a bootstrapping estimation was used with 385 employees from international tourist hotels in Hong Kong. The results show that environmental knowledge positively influences environmental concern and ecological behavior. In addition, employee environmental awareness mediates the relationship between environmental knowledge and concern, while both environmental awareness and concern appear to mediate the relationship between environmental knowledge and ecological behavior. The theoretical and practical implications of study results are discussed and suggestions for future research are provided.

The Applications of Environmental Technologies in Hotels

ABSTRACT This article investigates the use of environmental technologies in the hotel industry. Data was collected via a series of in-depth, semistructured interviews with hotel professionals. The research findings reveal that the environmental technologies most commonly used in the sampled were light-emitting diode lights, T5 fluorescent tubes, motion sensors, the key-card system, and water-cooled chillers. When not faced with budget or technical constraints, the hotel professionals preferred solar-based renewable energy-related technology, food-waste decomposers, and energy-saving chillers. This study provides a framework for hospitality researchers and practitioners to better understand the use of environmental technologies in the hotel industry. This study offers theoretical and practical implications.