Standards, Training, and Guests' Perceptions in Luxury Hotels Sarah Peterhans Eastern Michigan University

Standards, Training, and Guests' Perceptions in Luxury Hotels Sarah Peterhans Eastern Michigan University

Eastern Michigan University DigitalCommons@EMU Senior Honors Theses Honors College 2010 Standards, Training, and Guests' Perceptions in Luxury Hotels Sarah Peterhans Eastern Michigan University Follow this and additional works at: http://commons.emich.edu/honors Part of the Hospitality Administration and Management Commons Recommended Citation Peterhans, Sarah, "Standards, Training, and Guests' Perceptions in Luxury Hotels" (2010). Senior Honors Theses. 246. http://commons.emich.edu/honors/246 This Open Access Senior Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Honors College at DigitalCommons@EMU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Senior Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@EMU. For more information, please contact lib- ir@emich.edu. Standards, Training, and Guests' Perceptions in Luxury Hotels Abstract Very few hotels are able to consider themselves to be truly luxury. These hotels hold a certain mystique that invites their guests to continually return, no matter what the cost is. While luxury is providing something exclusive that is not found everywhere, it is also becoming more about the experience (Allcock, 2007). Today, luxury hotels are aiming for ultra-luxury, and to do this, service and people factors make a huge difference (Tungate, 2009). The luxury concept includes being exclusive, sophisticated, and indulging your guests (Allcock, 2007). It is crucial that the design and service follow these concepts (Gunter, 2005). These hotels are expected to provide their guests with the best of everything (Sheehan, 2007). Maintaining this level of service is done through understanding guests’ expectations, setting service standards to meet these expectations, training the staff ot follow these service standards, guiding the guests’ experiences, and identifying and closing service gaps. Degree Type Open Access Senior Honors Thesis Department Technology Studies Subject Categories Hospitality Administration and Management This open access senior honors thesis is available at DigitalCommons@EMU: http://commons.emich.edu/honors/246 STANDARDS, TRAINING, AND GUESTS’ PERCEPTIONS IN LUXURY HOTELS By Sarah Peterhans A Senior Thesis Submitted to the Eastern Michigan University Honors College in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Graduation with Honors in Technology Studies in Hotel and Restaurant Management Approved at Ypsilanti, Michigan, on this date April 22, 2010 ________________________________________________________ Supervising Instructor (Print Name and have signed) ________________________________________________________ Honors Advisor (Print Name and have signed) ________________________________________________________ Department Head (Print Name and have signed) ________________________________________________________ Honors Director (Print Name and have signed) Table of Contents Table of Figures ............................................................................................................................................ iii Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 1 Literature Review .......................................................................................................................................... 3 Guest Expectations ................................................................................................................................... 3 INVESTIGATING GUEST EXPECTATIONS ........................................................................................................ 3 IMPACTS ON EXPECTATIONS ...................................................................................................................... 4 Setting the Service Standards ................................................................................................................. 5 AAA DIAMOND RATING STANDARDS ......................................................................................................... 5 Training and Calculating the Return on Investment ................................................................................. 8 HIRING PROCESS ...................................................................................................................................... 9 Training ................................................................................................................................................... 10 TRAINING DESIGN MODEL ....................................................................................................................... 10 TRAINING COSTS .................................................................................................................................... 12 CALCULATING THE RETURN ON INVESTMENT FROM TRAINING .................................................................... 12 Guests’ Experiences ................................................................................................................................ 13 Service Gaps in Luxury Hotels ................................................................................................................. 14 Methodology ............................................................................................................................................... 15 Results ......................................................................................................................................................... 18 Guest Expectations ................................................................................................................................. 18 INVESTIGATING EXPECTATIONS ................................................................................................................ 18 IMPACTS ON EXPECTATIONS .................................................................................................................... 19 Service Standards .................................................................................................................................... 20 SETTING THE SERVICE STANDARDS ........................................................................................................... 21 IMPLEMENTING SERVICE STANDARDS ....................................................................................................... 21 EVALUATING SERVICE STANDARDS ........................................................................................................... 22 Training and Calculating the Return on Investment ........................................................................... 22 TRAINING METHODS .............................................................................................................................. 22 TRAINING FREQUENCY ............................................................................................................................ 23 TRAINING COSTS .................................................................................................................................... 24 TRAINING TOPICS ................................................................................................................................... 24 TRAINING EVALUATION AND RETURN ON INVESTMENT .............................................................................. 24 Guests’ Experiences ................................................................................................................................ 25 Service Gaps ............................................................................................................................................ 26 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................... 26 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................................ 34 Appendix ..................................................................................................................................................... 36 Appendix A .............................................................................................................................................. 36 Appendix B .............................................................................................................................................. 37 Appendix C .............................................................................................................................................. 38 Appendix D .............................................................................................................................................. 39 Appendix E .............................................................................................................................................. 40 Appendix F .............................................................................................................................................. 41 Appendix G .............................................................................................................................................. 42 Table of Figures FIGURE 1: CONCEPTUAL MODEL OF THIS STUDY 3 FIGURE 2: PARTICIPATING HOTELS 16 FIGURE 3: METHODS OF INVESTIGATING GUESTS' EXPECTATIONS 18 FIGURE 4: SETTING SERVICE STANDARDS 21 FIGURE 5: NEW HIRE TRAINING PROCESSES 23 FIGURE 6: METHODS TO EVALUATE

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