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This study focuses on tourists’ perceptions of a capsule hotel, a budget form of accommodation with a unique appearance and the small size of a sleeping pod. The data were obtained in Bangkok from 402 foreign travellers from over 30 countries. The results indicate that room size, sleep ambient control system and in-room television were the three main attributes that were positively correlated with decisions to stay in such hotels. Tourists with previous experience of staying in capsule hotels had more positive perceptions regarding room size and indicated higher intentions to stay than those without such experience. The researchers also found that budgetary considerations negatively moderated the relationship between room size and intention-to-stay. Additionally, the relationship between intention-to-stay and three other hotel attributes, including room size, the service scape and perceived security, was weaker for female travellers than for male travellers. Lastly, risk avoidance also positively moderated the relationship between intention-to-stay and location and security.

This research compares youth tourists’ trip preferences and their perceptions of accommodation in Switzerland among visitors staying at three different types of properties (e.g., hard budget, budget, and mid-sector). Attractive price was found to be the most critical reason for the selection of accommodation for those staying at hard budget properties. Proximity to points of interest represents the main reason for choosing budget and mid-sector accommodations. When examining the differences in preferences for eating outlets, the respondents from the mid-sector lodging facilities prefer full-service restaurants while the other groups of visitors prefer to use self-service eateries. The study further finds that the youth guests of hard budget properties express reluctance in joining evening activities that are fee-paying. Managerial implications along with suggestions for future study are provided in the conclusion.

The paper discusses how market orientation impacts marketing performance in the hotel industry of Ghana. The research was a qualitative research that covered a sample of nineteen19 hotels in Ghana by using a two-stage nonprobability sampling comprising convenience sampling and purposive sampling. Personal interviews were conducted to collect primary and qualitative data from hotel managers of the sampled hotels. Template analysis was used to analyze the data in order to understand how market orientation impacts selected marketing performance indicators. The study has provided insight into how market orientation impacts marketing performance indicators, precisely sales growth, customer complaints, customer satisfaction, and customer retention. The limitations of the study are that it is a cross-sectional study and it involved only officials of the hotels as participants. Also, the study does not explain how customers perceive market orientation practices and how market orientation affects customer buying behavior. Research implications are that longitudinal research design and involvement of customers as participants should be considered in future-related qualitative studies. The contribution of this study to knowledge is that it has given some explanations to how market orientation impacts sales growth, customer complaints, customer satisfaction, and customer retention in the hotel business.

Operations management involves utilizing given resources as efficiently as possible to deliver services to customers and meet business goals. Developing efficient business operations requires a hospitality organization to design efficient service environments, as part of its mission. This chapter articulates the key design and planning strategies for the development of a successful hospitality organization. The first section covers the process of location selection, as the most important factor leading to the success of a hospitality organization. The second section discusses strategies for estimating the number of users (service employees and customers) during peak and idle times to justify a costly financial investment. The third section concerns the readers with the topic of layout planning, with the goal of service optimization for a targeted number of customers. The fourth section deliberates workflow conditions, and finally, the last section addresses the ambience and design of the physical hospitality environment, which is crucial for customer evaluation of a hospitality organization as it creates a first impression.

This study conceptualizes commercial hospitality in the form of a conceptual framework, which it operationalizes by means of a questionnaire. A survey using this questionnaire was conducted in Switzerland and Thailand in order to investigate tourists’ levels of satisfaction with commercial hospitality in Switzerland and Thailand and to assess the conceptual framework. The questionnaire was filled in by 1001 tourists in both countries, 601 in Switzerland and 400 in Thailand. The results suggest that tourists in Switzerland are more satisfied with the hospitality in the context of tourism service than tourists in Thailand. The results also serve as an indication that the questionnaire used in this study is able to uncover cultural differences in hospitality in a tourism service context. It is assumed that domestic tourists are accustomed to local practices and are therefore more critical in assessing tourism employees’ hospitality skills and behavior.

Budget hotels are becoming an emerging industry for convenience and affordability, where consumer sentiments are of paramount importance. Tourism has become increasingly dependent on social media and online platforms to gather travel-related information, purchase travel products, food, lodging, etc., and share views and experiences. The user-generated data helps companies make informed decisions through predictive and behavioural analytics.

Design/Methodology/Approach: This study uses text mining, deep learning, and machine learning techniques for data collection and sentiment analysis based on 117,151 online reviews of the customers posted on the TripAdvisor website from May 2004 to May 2019 from 197 hotels of five prominent budget hotel groups spread across India using Feedforward Neural Network along with Keras package and Softmax activation function.

Findings: The word-of-mouth turns into electronic word-of-mouth through social networking sites, with easy access to information that enables customers to pick a budget hotel. We identified 20 widely used words that most customers use in their reviews, which can help managers optimise operational efficiency by boosting consumer acceptability, satisfaction, positive experiences, and overcoming negative consumer perceptions.

Practical Implications: The analysis of the review patterns is based on real-time data, which is helpful to understand the customer’s requirements, particularly for budget hotels.

Originality/Value: We analysed TripAdvisor reviews posted over the last 16 years, excluding the Corona period due to industry crises. The findings reverberate in consonance with the performance improvement theory, which states feed-forward a neural network enhances organisational, process, and individual-level performance in the hospitality industry based on customer reviews.

This paper analyses expansion strategies of international hotel operators in Eastern Central Europe (ECE) in relation to the changes in tourism supply and demand in ECE. Potential market sectors for the ECE region are explored, with the most promising for Eastern Central Europe being an emphasis on green or nature tourism, cultural tourism, the tourist business market and, finally the rejuvenation of the traditional spas and medicinal tourism of the region. Two groups of International hotel companies are identified. The majority group who are pursuing a follow-the-customer approach for the international business client in Prague, Budapest or Warsaw, and the smaller group who have expressed interest in supplying the budget and mid markets in secondary and tertiary locations.

The study examines organization citizenship behavior (OCB) as a mediating variable between instrumental work values (IWVs) and organizational performance; and group differences between family manager and nonfamily manager for integrated models in family hotels. Data were collected from 189 hotels (n = 921) ranging from budget to three-star family hotels in Ghana using questionnaire administered conveniently. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Work value positively influences OCB and organizational performance of family hotels. OCB mediates the relationship between work values and organizational performance. The study also found significant support for group differences between family and nonfamily firms for IWVs and mediating effect of OCB on the relationship between IWVs and performance.

The aim of this chapter is to present in a pedagogical way the main digital tools used by tourism-related businesses, especially by hospitality businesses. The main purpose of this chapter is to illustrate our discussion with concrete examples and to give a set of advices for efficient use of those tools.

Literature review was conducted on conceptual issues, as well as managerial and marketing aspects of digital tools, their value and use in the hospitality industry.

This chapter highlights the fact that needs in terms of digitalisation depend on the size of the hotel. The main differences can be explained by differences in terms of hotel capacity, and digital technologies should be customised to different types of structures.

This chapter is exploratory in nature, based on a literature review.

It provides clear and practical guidance about the way independent hospitality businesses could use digital tools for marketing purposes. It also suggests the most efficient digital technologies to improve their performance in the field of marketing and customer relationship management.

The chapter demonstrates the huge gap between best practices in the hospitality industry and the way independent enterprises really use, in practice, the digital tools for marketing purposes. It shows how digital technologies could be used in a more efficient way, to take advantage of their full potential.

This chapter introduces its readers to the concept of tourism. It sheds light on the rationale for tourism, as it explains the tourists’ inherent motivations to travel. It also describes different aspects that together make up the tourism industry. Tourists travel to destinations that are accessible to them. They require accommodation if they are visiting a place for more than 24 hours. Leisure and business travellers may also visit attractions, and engage in recreational activities. Hence, the tourist destinations should have the right amenities and facilities. In this light, this chapter clarifies how destinations may offer different products to satisfy a wide array of tourists. Tourism products can include urban (or city) tourism, seaside tourism, rural tourism, ecotourism, wine tourism, culinary tourism, health tourism, medical tourism, religious tourism, cultural (or heritage) tourism, sports tourism, educational tourism, business tourism (including meetings, incentives, conferences and events), among others.