The impact of technology attributes of hotel establishments on customer satisfaction, loyalty, word of mouth and revisit intention: Model proposal

In the extant literature, there are a number of studies investigating the impact of hospitality establishments' attributes on customer satisfaction and loyalty, as it is considered that satisfaction and loyalty are the key issues in the success of hotel establishments (Matzler ve Pechlaner, 2001; Qu, Ryan ve Chu, 2001; O'Neill, Mattila ve Xiao, 2006; Shanka ve Taylor, 2004; Sim, Mak ve Jones, 2006). However, the research on the impact of technology, which have led to the development of new and emerging service attributes in hospitality establishments, on customer satisfaction, loyalty and revisit intention is scarce. Fornell (1992) argues that the level of customer satisfaction is an important indicator of word of mouth and revisit intention. Kotler (1991:17), meantime, states that high level of customer satisfaction is an important prerequisite of long-term profitability of organisations. Therefore, there is a consensus in the literature that customer satisfaction is the most important factor influencing service performance of organisations (Buzzell ve Gale, 1987). The dynamic nature of service provision, customer needs and wants and technological developments force hotel establishments to adapt their services and related attributes accordingly. In addition to the core attributes of hotel establishments meeting the accommodation needs of customers, technology-based new product and service developments have gained importance especially with regard to strenghtening competitive advantages of such establishments. This, as a result, requires new research to investigate the impact of technology-based attributes on customer satisfaction at hotel establishments. The main aim of this research, therefore, is to investigate the impact of the core and secondary attributes of hotel establishments on customer satisfaction, loyalty, word of mouth and revisit intention. To this aim, following the literature review on the research topics, primary data is collected in the United States of America. The research population is identified as the people who stayed overnight at accommodation establishments in the past 12 months at the time of primary data collection. The survey, which was structured in light of the extant literature and composed of questions on customer satisfaction, loyalty, word of mouth and revisit intention, was developed as an online survey. The survey was sent to 20,000 e-mail addresses, which were reached through the Rent-A-List company offering such services. The findings gathered from 635 surveys returned and valid for analysis were analysed using the SPSS 22.0 and AMOS 18.0 statistical analysis programs. According to the findings on the impact of hotel establishments' attributes on customer satisfaction, the concept of "satisfaction" was assessed first. This research proposes a new concept titled "satisfiction" embracing satisfaction, and concludes with the "Satisfiction Radar" model developed to measure customer satisfaction. Keywords: Satisfaction, Loyalty, Word of Mouth, Revisit Intention, Satisfiction, Satisfiction Radar