The process of emergence of experience in the hotel businesses:Examining customer awareness

Being a phenomenon of the modern life, the hospitality experience in five-star hotel businesses, basic component of the tourism experience, serves as a fruitful research field in order to understand the experience concept as an emerging case in recent years. In this regard, this study aims to examine the awareness of the individuals about the hospitality experience in hotel businesses and to comprehend the causal relationships and sense-making of these experiences by revealing their content, attributes and dimensions expressed by these individuals. In accordance with this aim, the study was designed as an embedded multiple case study including two units of analysis (hotel businesses and customers) and various sample groups (city and resort hotels – domestic and foreign customers). Data was collected through an online interview form in the period of September – November 2016 with the participation of individuals (107 participants) who had the hospitality experience in any five star hotel located in Antalya and İstanbul. Data analysis was completed by using structural, thematic and critical narrative analysis methods respectively. The additional data includes 24 narratives about the hotels in other locations, 74 reviews on Facebook about the hotel businesses and 78 reviews from six blogs concerning the various hotels in the world. The study findings include a comprehensive content and dimensions of the service or experience based offerings in the subject hotel businesses. During the study, a logic for analysis was developed according to the idiosyncratic nature of the hospitality experience narratives. In this context, the study reveals two-sided evaluations of the participants as cognitive/utilitarian and experiential/ hedonic. The basic finding of the study is that the hospitality experience is perceived mostly in cognitive/utilitarian experience context although both types of evaluations are available. This situation was interpreted as these businesses function in accordance with the logos system of the modern life. Individuals who stay in these hotel businesses have mainly standardized experiences including cognitive and ordinary ones with a passive role in the effect of deficiency motives based on ontic needs.