Research On Consumption Of Wedding Reception In Hotel

Wedding reception is a grand banquet organized by the newlywed couple in order to thank guests for their attendance on the wedding day. With the improvement of living standards and the transformation of consumer awareness, people tend to pursuit the diversification of consumption patterns and self-reflection from wedding reception, which is more than a luxury feast.The market of wedding reception is booming with a strong demand according to the massive consumers and reservations in hotels from different areas, which has become the focus of attention and the hotel is no exception. The wedding reception will not only bring higher economic benefits for the hotels, but also help to expand its popularity, attract more customers,and thus enhance its competitiveness. The hotels need to consider currently the issues about the development and marketing of products related to the wedding reception. Although people often value the wedding reception's form than content,they always have different ideas and requirements for consumption of wedding reception because of their different life background, economic affordability and spending habits. And wedding reception is quite different from other types of food and beverage consumption in hotel with more unique consumptive characteristics. Therefore, it will be useful for the hotel's in-depth exploration and detailed division of the target market to consider the consumer features and influence factors of wedding reception in hotel and the significance of such behavior from the perspective of the newlyweds, where realism meaning of this study lies on. On the other hand, some bad consumption behaviors such as extravagance, waste and comparison appeared in the wedding reception, making the newlyweds miserable and helpless. This paper hopes to upgrade these phnomena to the theoretical level and detail the reasons that people blindly go for grand wedding banquet on the purpose of enriching the theoretical study on the hotel wedding reception.Based on the understanding of consumption profiles of the newlyweds' wedding reception, analysis of interviews and review of literatures, this paper makes some basic conclusion, which can be summarized as follows:First, the newlyweds's wedding reception in hotel takes on different consumption level, with some problems such as crowding consumption, prevailing "hidden rules", extravagance and waste, etc. and consumption characteristics such as the relative concentration of spending time, higher emotional needs, flexible consumption patterns, higher tolerance for service failure and so on.Second, the newlyweds'consuming behavior of the wedding reception in hotel is due to the comprehensive effect of various factors including personal consumption concept, family, group consuming trends, media, hotel, traditional practices and specific social surroundings. Specifically, the personal attitudes and values towards life, economic affordability or past experience of participating others'wedding reception will all influence the newlyweds'consuming behavior in a certain degree. The family not only affects consumer's decision-making, but also provides financial resources and other support for their consumption of wedding reception, which tends to the performance of family-based behavior. Reference group defines the rules of conduct and standards of consumption for the members,provides consumer information and objects for comparison, and becomes the main body for the evaluation that the newlyweds judge whether they are satisfactory in the consumption of wedding reception, where "face" has been a measure of satisfaction. The media especially the Internet communicates a variety of information about wedding reception for the newlyweds and guides their consumption concept. The traditional folk is the main cause for the newlyweds to arrange the wedding reception. Doing their best to seek its excitement and decency is so popular that sometimes they may be disdained if taking austerity measures. The advanced equipment and service in hotel are provided for the newlyweds' free-spending behavior, particularly five-star hotels can represent the newlyweds'status in a certain degree.Third, in the hotel wedding reception the newlyweds consume objects as well as its atmosphere, grade and meaning, etc. The fundamental motive for them to input so much money and material resources into wedding reception is not to meet the basic physiological demand, but to comply with the requirements of customary practices and meet some emotional needs of individuals. They pay more attention to the emotional and social value of hotel's wedding producets than material value. The significance of wedding reception consumption is mainly in the following two aspects:1. It is a status identification. Through the organization of wedding reception, the newlywed couple can show their status, transfer personal image, mediate interpersonal relationships or express their wishes of affiliation to a higher social group, and so on. Some exaggerated forms of material consumption and unique packaging in wedding reception indicate the identification of their own personality. There are different levels of consumption in the hotel wedding reception, so do the same levels. The gorgeous wedding reception demonstrates their recognition of the social consumption trends with personality and decency.2. It is the requirements of complying with customary rites and ceremonies. Wedding reception is a kind of ritual consumption. By holding wedding reception, the newlyweds show people the legitimacy of their marriage, make themselves realize clearly the sanctity of marriage and their responsibilities as the transformation of social role,and thank guests for their witness and blessing. For good luck, the newlyweds snapped up "good day" to hold wedding reception, however, it is the sense of insecurity, uncontrollability of the fate and uncertainty for the future that make people subconsciously seek "asylum from figures". According to consumption norms of communication, both "collect" and "echo" cash gifts are the obligations of social interation, making the wedding reception alienated as a money game to some extent. The amount of cash gifts, which follows some "hidden rules", is used to measure interpersonal intimacy. The wedding reception often has a big consumption size and large expenditure, sometimes beyond the economic affordability of the newlyweds and their family. In that case, people who present cash gifts can be taken as the social sharing network for the newlyweds's wedding expenses.Finally, this paper discusses some personal opinions about how to conduct the newlyweds'consumption behavior and hotel's marketing of wedding products. Certainly, there's a lot of shortcomings in this paper. Because of the limitations of the author's own personal experience, theoretical level, research capabilities and data collection, some conclusions in this paper may need further renovation and in-depth study, such as the difference between selection criteria before wedding reception consumption and evaluation criteria after consumption, the distinction of consumer behavior among different areas, etc.