Influence of Customer Delight on Word-of-Mouth for Design Hotel: the Moderating Effect of Customer Personality Traits

• Main Authors: LO, YI-FANG YVONNE, 羅儀芳
• Other Authors: HUANG, HUI-Chun
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2019
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/6yc6tn

碩士 === 實踐大學 === 餐飲管理學系餐飲產業創新碩士班 === 107 === Influenced by the accelerating progress of communications technology, word-of-mouth (WOM) from various sources have become indispensable information for consumption assessments. Comments shared by experienced consumers are essential for purchasing evaluation especially in the tourism industry. WOM marketing has become a critical topic for both hospitality academics and practitioners. Previous research has indicated that customer satisfaction plays a significant role on WOM. However, some scholars suggested that only customer satisfaction is insufficient enough, instead; customer delight may have a deeper and significant impact on customer loyalty and WOM. “Design” has been regarded as the best differentiation strategy, with image enhancement, value addition and taste uniqueness, etc., to attract customers’ attention. In addition to satisfy the basic request of accommodation quality, design hotels are with more emphasis on offering aesthetic space to encourage people to taste greatly by their five senses, and providing in-depth travel experience with linkage to local culture. Design hotels themselves are becoming a travel destination. Therefore, it becomes a question worthy of discussion whether the driving factors of customer delight in design hotels are different from those traditional hotels. The study is intended to explore the influence of customer delight on the spread of WOM for the guests of design hotels. The specific objectives include: (1) exploring factors driving customer delight in design hotels, (2) investigating the impacts of customer delight on WOM, and (3) identifying the moderating effect of personality traits on this process. A total of 290 usable questionnaires are collected from web travel forums and social media. Statistical results revealed that customer delight in design hotels had significant influence on WOM and service is the key factor to drive customer delight. However, personality trait showed a limited impact on the relationship between customer delight and WOM.