Influence of empathy on hotel guests’ emotional service experience
ISSN: 0887-6045
Article publication date: 24 October 2017
Issue publication date: 9 November 2017
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to assess the comparative influence of two empathy dimensions (cognitive and emotional attributes) on emotional service experience and behavioral intention among business and leisure hotel guests. Studies relevant to empathy dimensions are relatively scarce in tourism and hospitality.
Design/methodology/approach
The current study reviewed the concepts of empathy, and empirically compared perceptions of empathy attributes between the two groups. The survey was intended to examine how well the hotel employees emotionally handle hotel guests’ incidents or inquiries related to any discomforts through personalized attention. The data were collected from 330 hotel guests who had actually complained about service failures while staying at the hotel during the record-breaking summer of 2013 in terms of number of visitors to Jeju. An active empathetic listening (AEL) tool has been taken to measure the hotel guest’s cognitive views and behavioral intentions, as well as emotional empathy measures under the empathic concern and emotional contagion.
Findings
The results revealed that empathetic dimensions strongly influenced the service experiences of hotel guests. While the emotional service experience of business guests was almost completely determined by the cognitive empathy, the emotional service experience of the leisure guests was mainly governed by the emotional empathy.
Practical implications
These outcomes suggest that the empathetic services through a “purpose of visit”-oriented manner might enhance the guest’s overall emotion positively.
Originality/value
According to the prior literatures and empirical findings in hospitality and tourism, empathy can be seen as subscale in SERVQUAL instrument. This paper focus on insights of empathy dimensions, and it was revealed that the interaction of both the cognitive and emotional dimensions of empathy conjointly determines the overall emotional service experience and intention of hotel guests.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Barr Jacob, Jeju National University, Republic of Korea for improving the use of English, and Navaneethaiyer Umasuthan, Nihon University, Japan for critical constructive comments that greatly improved the manuscript. This work was supported by the Hongik University New Faculty Research Support Fund.
Citation
Umasuthan, H., Park, O.-J. and Ryu, J.-H. (2017), "Influence of empathy on hotel guests’ emotional service experience", Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 31 No. 6, pp. 618-635. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSM-06-2016-0220
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2017, Emerald Publishing Limited