Facilities, Customer Service and Leisure Guests’ Choice of Hotels: The View from Hotel Managers’ Side (Published)
A survey of 84 hotel managers in Awka metropolis, Anambra State, Nigeria was conducted in January and February, 2024 to test a model of consumer choice of hotels developed by Ogbunankwor and colleagues in 2023 in which two factors (facilities and customer service) predict consumer choice of hotels. Multiple regression analysis was employed to test the formulated hypotheses with the aid of SPSS Version 20.0 software at 5% level of significance. Findings indicate that the two factors tested, namely facilities and customer service influence leisure guests’ choice of hotels. More importantly, customer service has more influence than facilities. As a result, this finding contradicts previous research executed from a guests’ perspective by Ogbunankwor and colleagues in 2023 that found facilities to have more influence than customer service. That is to say, this study is a confirmation that hotel managers do not totally understand their guests. Although the model achieved a good fit, future research is needed to validate the model in other perspectives and future research is also needed to develop a comprehensive model of consumer choice of hotels. Implications for global and particularly Nigerian industry stakeholders are discussed.
Keywords: Choice, Customer Service, Hotel, Managers, facilities, leisure guests