Abstract
The primary elements of the travel experience are transportation and accommodation. Travellers choose between various suppliers with the final choice being determined by an evaluation of a number of criteria. In the case of hotel accommodation, the choice is based on a multi-criteria assessment of a hotel’s perceived attributes.The aim of the thesis is to determine and analyse the weighting and ranking attributed by potential customers to a number of criteria used in selecting a 5-star hotel framed in the four perspectives of the balanced scorecard and confront with those made by hotel managers. The customer decision criteria identified in this study mirror key result areas used in hospitality management performance measurement tools such as the balanced scorecard.
The 5-star hotel industry in Malta has performed exceptionally well in recent years, in a dramatically changed scenario in which the source of bookings for Malta visits changed from 70% package tours in 2006 to 45% in 2014, with 55% individual bookings. This was driven by the introduction of low cost carriers. Disintermediation necessitated a customer-centric approach by hotel managers entailing their full awareness of what the customer expects from a 5-Star hotel. This research study set out to confirm or otherwise reject this hypothesis by a survey of potential 5-star hotel customers complemented by a survey targeting managers in 5-star hotels in Malta. Strong correlation between survey results is noted and both sets of findings are subjected to sensitivity analysis, and practical implications are drawn.
| Date of Award | Sept 2015 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Supervisor | Ashraf Labib (Supervisor), Alexandros Apostolakis (Supervisor) & Alessio Ishizaka (Supervisor) |