2.3.4 Loyalty in hotel industry

2.3.4 Loyalty in hotel industry

Shoemaker and Lewis ,(1999) defined loyalty as it pertains specifically to the hospitality industry. When it comes to describe  what is loyalty it always deal with customer’s feelings and attitudes. the industry should provides the best to meet the requirements  of the customer   and then only they can  achieve the target.  After building the customer  loyalty  the organization  becomes their hotel. In recent years, studies in hospitality industry has given far more importance (Tideswell & Fredline, 2004).

Knutson (1988) investigated a customer’s likelihood to return to a hotel property based on the most important features offered at the hotel and found that a clean and comfortable room was the determining factor. Even though their research considered the impact of return visitation, Knutson (1988) failed to explore other loyalty related behaviors such as impact  of  word of mouth etc (Tideswell & Fredline, 2004).

 In terms of service quality in hotels  and its effect  Dube and Renaghan (1999) found out that  quality  of the service and the quality of the employees get the customer loyalty and these factors lead to repurchase and recommend. In 1999, Shoemaker and Lewis focus on strategies to gain customer loyalty in hotels.

This research revealed that organizations must  give attention on customer recognition,  quality of service, personalized service, rewards and offers to get their loyalty. Once again, Shoemaker and Lewis (1999) recognized that reward programs are better way of getting loyalty . They point out six recovery strategies to use in hotels

Ø      Social: frequent contacts.

Ø      Emotional: call by guests’ names for sense if recognition.

Ø      Experiential: Offer extra services such as turndown services.  

Ø      Functional: Offer extra facilities such as WIFI ,Breakfast .

Ø      Temporal:  quick services for time saving.

Ø      Financial:  offer discounts on services.

Although their research does not reveal how each type of strategy important to loyalty  we can assume that top listed strategies like Social, Emotional and Experiential strategies are very effective and the Functional, Temporal and Financial strategies come afterwards. (Tideswell & Fredline, 2004).