UNRAVELING THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE PUZZLE: FACTORS AFFECTING SATISFACTION IN THREE STAR HOTELS

Abstract

This study aims to facilitate sustainable growth in hotels by understanding tourists’ preferences. Though there is existing research on customer satisfaction in hotels (Radojevic et al., 2017), this study narrows the scope to three star category hotels in Chandigarh, India, with its unique data collection approach based on traveller rankings of Trip Advisor (2023) to select the top twenty hotels, ensuring a representative sample of highly ranked establishments. The five-point Likert scale was used in a closed-ended questionnaire to gather primary data from visitors who stayed in the city’s hotels between March 5 and April 5, 2023. Convenience sampling was used, resulting in 385 participants selected from the chosen hotels. Mean ratings were calculated for 25 hotel service attributes from the respondents’ responses and used for the importance performance analysis (IPA). The results indicate that hotels need to prioritize specific attributes, such as spaciousness of rooms, quietness of rooms, bathroom amenities, value for money, taste and variety of food, and prompt service. The study also identified areas where the hotels performed well, such as cleanliness, safety and security, staff communication and friendliness, and multiple modes of payment. Overall, the study provides valuable insights for hotel managers to meet customer expectations.