A Study On The Management Of Guestroom Comfort In High-star Rated Hotels Based On Customer Satisfaction

Guestroom comfort, in particular, as an important concept, receives ever-increasing attention in the latest rating system for tourist hotels, which is published by the National Tourism Administration of China in2010. However, research on guestroom comfort still rests on the ice-breaking stage with few literatures on this field, in consequence of which the empirical research based on the reality of hotel operation is quite spare. Meanwhile, hotel managers fail to meet the real customer demands and thus a great cognitive gap emerged between hotels and customers, which in return, caused disproportionate burden of irrational resource allocation and functional improvement. Thus, a grasp of customers’feeling of influencing factors of guestroom comfort and a good optimization scheme on guestroom products is imperative.Under such a severe circumstance, this paper, focusing on high star-rated hotels, conducted a study on guestroom comfort by combining theoretical knowledge and empirical research method. Firstly, based on an integrated literature reviews on guestroom comfort, environmental psychology, customer perceived value and customer satisfaction, the logical proofs and loopholes are found. Secondly, this paper constructs the conceptual framework, proposes the research hypotheses, and initially establishes evaluation indices of guestroom comfort in high star-rated hotels via interview survey and Delphi method, based on which the questionnaire is formed. Thirdly, the factor structure of guestroom comfort is extracted and thus the evaluation index system of guestroom comfort is settled through questionnaire survey and exploratory factor analysis. The research model is revised based on factor analysis; and empirical analysis on customer perception and hotel performance in term of guest comfort is conducted via IPA and critical incident technique. Finally, the factor structure of guestroom comfort is verified by confirmatory factor analysis and the relationship among variables is discussed. The final research model is established and hypotheses are verified. The paper comes up with five main conclusions:(1) the variable guest comfort can be explained by six factors including fundamental accommodation comfort, decoration and designing comfort, indoor environment comfort, spatial awareness comfort, recreation and leisure comfort, and guestroom service comfort, according to which the evaluation index system of guestroom comfort is established;(2) there is a big gap between guestroom comfort that customers care and that the current situation presents in high star-rated hotels. Managers in high star-rated hotels fail to fully understand customer demands, which then causes unsatisfactory performance;(3) the six factors play different roles in customer perception of functional value and emotional value;(4) guestroom comfort has a significantly positive impact on customer satisfaction, which is mainly mediated by customer perceived value.(5) different customer backgrounds and hotel characteristics result in the variance of customer perception, which is characterized by individuation and differentiation. Based on those findings, tail-made promotion strategies are proposed from three different angles:(1) emphasizing effective communication for understanding customer demand;(2) focusing on customer concerns and optimizing the guestroom products;(3) increasing humanistic care and creating fabulous experience for the customers. The research creatively establishes the evaluation index system of guestroom comfort, analyzes the difference between customer perception on the importance of factors and hotel performance in guestroom comfort, verifies the relationship among guestroom comfort, customer perceived value and customer satisfaction, and finally proposes corresponding strategies. The achievements, although insufficient in depth and width, still provide valuable reference for management practice in high star-rated hotels.