Research Proposal on Hotel Cultural Management free essay sample

This paper is based on â€Å"A review of the literature on the culture in hotel management research: What is the future? † by Chen, Cheung and Law in 2012. The fundamental paper provides insights into the previous research into culture in the hotel industry, and provides directions for future research. In previous studies, there is lack of clarity among researchers on the different terms used to describe culture, and it is difficult to define the boundaries between different levels of culture. Thus, the paper has summarized and made clearer grouping of the different types of culture into six categories: Corporate Culture, Industry Culture, National Culture, Organizational Culture, Cross-culture, and Multi-culture. The paper also investigates the years that those studies were published, and the geographic area which they were focusing in. Among the six categories of culture, National Culture and Cross-culture is very important for nowadays hotel industry. Due to the trend of globalization, tourists are more eager to travel aboard. Hotel industry is an international industry, which serves guests from various countries and different cultural background. There is high chance for people from different cultural background to come together, resulting in cross-culture interaction. Culture, National Culture and Cross-culture Pettigrew, 1990 defined culture as general assumptions, values, and patterns of behavior. Cultural difference affects human behavior. Growing up in different cultural background, the values, habits, preferences hold may differ from person to person. McCleary et al. (2006) discovered that many origin related significant differences relating to satisfaction with the destination, perceived value, service quality and intent to return. The difference in origin affecting people’s behavior has developed the term â€Å"national culture†. Hofstede (1990a) defined national culture as a system of values and beliefs learned during childhood. Via national culture, one can distinguish the differences among groups. As each person grows in a different background, his own family, school, country affect the values and beliefs he learns. And hence, the behavior of people from different countries differs. Since tourists are from a wide range of country and cultural background, a hotel needs to deal with people of different behavior, and try their best to satisfy them every day. Therefore, understanding international travelers’ behavior has become a fundamental marketing strategy with the increase in importance of international travel markets. Knowing the impact of national culture on hotel operation and management can narrow the cultural gap (Holtzman et al., 1991) and increase the quality of interpersonal relationships (Sparks and Callan, 1992). Hence, learning more about the difference in the needs of different culture, it can bring better experience for tourists. Statement of Problem The aim of this study is to find out â€Å"How is Hong Kong’s hotel industry’s ability in fulfilling Eastern and Western consumer expectations? †, and to find out the result, two aspects can be focused: i) H ow does Eastern and Western tourists satisfied with the hotel services during their trip in Hong Kong? What is the difference in hotel staff’s attitude towards Eastern and Western guests? To simplify, Eastern tourists refers to the tourists from Asia and Western refers to all other tourists from out of Asia. Importance of the problem to Hong Kong According to the Hong Kong economic reports from the government, the services sector is the key driver of Hong Kong’s economic growth, contributing 93. 1% of GDP in 2011 and 88. 4% of total employment in the first three quarters of 2012 (2012 Economic Background and 2013 Prospects, 2012). Tourism industry belongs to the services sector, and is a major pillar of the economy of Hong Kong. In 2011, it contributed to 4. 5% of Hong Kong’s GDP and 6. 5% of total employment. This reveals the importance of tourism industry to the overall development of Hong Kong. Hence, it is important to have a stable development in tourism industry in order to maintain the stability of the city’s economy. Apart from this, Hong Kong has been chosen as one of the 50 greatest places in must-see destinations of a lifetime by National Geographic Traveler Magazine (Apple Daily, 1999). It shows that Hong Kong has high attractiveness to tourists. However, mentioned by Tsang, 2007, there are still weaknesses in Hong Kong’s tourism industry. The Consumer Council in Hong Kong has received 1,909 cases complaints in 2005, which has increased by nearly 140% from 810 cases in 2001. And Freemantle (2003) has also recognized that there is no one Asian country that consistently excels at service. One reason behind the inconsistency of service may because of the lacking in understanding of the needs of consumers from different background. People from different culture, they have different needs, and also different aspects of service quality. To remain Hong Kong’s competiveness and hold the place of becoming a popular tourist destination, the quality of services and products provided by Hong Kong’s tourism industry needs to achieve consumer satisfaction. Literature Review Due to the globalization of tourism industry, it brings tourists to Hong Kong from different countries. With the gathering of people from varying country of origin and cultural background, it makes national culture and cross-culture matter. In Hsieh and Tsai’s study in 2009, they mentioned when the provider and consumer of the service belong to different cultures, cross-culture service will take place (Stauss, 1999; Weiermair, 2000). Situations like these often tend to generate cultural shock (Cushner and Beislin, 1997; Weiermair, 2000). Therefore, cultural elements have great impact upon consumers’ perceptions and responses. In 2007, Tsang’s study for the service culture in Hong Kong’s tourism industry, the difference in service style of Chinese (Eastern) and Western have been pointed out. Chinese service providers adopt a â€Å"take it or leave it† attitude and fail to understand and be attentive to customers’ needs; while Western service based on creating an interaction experience for both the customer and service provider, achieving mutual satisfaction. Hong Kong is a city of China, though she has been a colonial city of Britain, the service style in Hong Kong also has a tendency towards the Eastern style. To remain the competiveness of Hong Kong, it is significant to transform the style and pay more attention to customers’ needs. The study also locates the obviousness in understanding the impact of culture on the tourism industry. Winsted (1997) investigation on the difference of how consumers in the United States and Japan evaluated service encounters has been used as an example. The Japanese and American gave different ratings on restaurant employee behaviors. Themes of friendliness, being personal, authenticity, and promptness seem prevalent in the dimensions and behaviors that emerged fromthe U. S. factor analysis. Hofstede (1990b) divided the values of national culture into five dimensions: â€Å"individualism†, â€Å"power distance†, â€Å"uncertainty avoidance†, â€Å"masculinity†, and â€Å"long-term orientation†. According to the study of Hofstede (1983) and Hosfstede and Bond (1988), comparison has been raised upon Eastern countries (Taiwan, Japan) and Western countries (America, British), to investigate the difference in their perceptions on service quality. Based on the studies, it shows that consumers from Eastern countries has higher power distance (people believe in the unequal distribution of power), so that they pay more attention upon the tangibles, reliability, reaction and empathy of service quality. Besides, Asian tourists have high uncertainty avoidance and it is because of their culture – people tend to be anxious about their career or future and they are afraid of failure. They tend to be easily worried, nervous and irritable; they are not adventurous. On the other hand, Westerns are short-term orientation; they regard time as a kind of finite resource. Therefore they are more impatient and demand for efficiency. These studies provide basic knowledge on the perceptions and behavior of the difference in Eastern and Western tourists. In the study by Ozdipciner, Li and Uysal in 2012, they suggested cultural difference affects tourists’ motivation, satisfaction, information search, vacation preferences, travel characteristics, etc. (Pizam and Sussmann, 1995; Kozak, 2002; Litvin et al. , 2004; Yuksel et al. , 2004; Reisinger and Mavondo, 2006). In previous studies, there are plenty of information to illustrate the difference in the Eastern and Western style of service and customers’ perception. However, these are only basic introduction to answer the question how is tourists’ perceptions towards Hong Kong’s hotel industry. In Chen, Cheung and Law’s review of past literature on culture in hotel management, the focusing geographic areas of previous research have been analyzed. Based on the analysis, most of the previous studies are focusing in Western countries which 28% focusing in America and 19% in Europe. Only 2% of previous studies are focusing in the hotel industry of Hong Kong. Therefore, it is proposed to conduct a survey to deeper understand how the Hong Kong hotel industry satisfies the tourists with different cultural background. In the aspect of hotel staff, Hosfstede (1980. 2004) conducted a study examining the behavior and attitudes of an international computer company in over 60 countries and fount that national culture appeared to explain more of the differences in work-related attributes and values than did position within the organization, profession, age, or gender (Tsang, 2007). From the study, the culture impacts on the staff’s working attitude can be understood – for both attitude towards their work and attitude towards customers from other nations. Thus, it is also significant to look in to the difference in attitude of hotel staff towards their guests. Research Method It is proposed to conduct the survey using both quantitative and qualitative study. There are two groups of research subject: one is inbound tourists to Hong Kong, and they would be further divided into tourists from Eastern countries (Asian, especially China) and Western countries; another one is the hotel staff in Hong Kong. After interviewing tourists and hotel staff, analysis would be done to discover their opinion, and then further look into the relationship between tourists’ satisfaction and hotel staff’s attitude towards different group of tourists. Quantitative study would be set up by using a questionnaire to interview tourists’ satisfaction with their in-house experience staying in Hong Kong’s hotel. Another set of questionnaire would be set up to ask for the difference in perception as well as the attitude towards tourist from the East and from the West. Quantitative methods offer advantages for cross-sectional organization research and large-scale studies (Cooke Rousseau, 1988). Using quantitative research methods can interview large group of inbound tourists and hotel staff. On the other hand, qualitative study would also be used to interview random tourists and hotel staff. The interview would be done in group based, and interviewees can talk about their experience in hotels (tourists) and their normal working attitude towards different groups of tourists (hotel staff). Using qualitative research can help in understanding such manifest level elements of culture as artifacts and stories. During the interview, observation is also encouraged as this can observe how respondents behave differently for different interview questions in a way they perceive to be socially desirable. Limitations There are limitations for finding the difference in customers’ satisfaction and individuals’ value. For tourists, as suggested by previous research, the difference in cultural background results in different needs of consumer. Due to the cultural difference, it was proposed that customer evaluations of the service encounter would be significantly lower for Asian leisure travelers than their Western counterparts (Tsang, 2007). Thus the needs would vary from person to person and it is hard to interpret and quantify vales (Rokeach, 1973). For hotel staff, it is also difficult to interpret and quantify their value. Apart from the national culture would affect staff perception and attitude to different guests, the corporate, organizational or occupational culture would also make each value different. Furthermore, observation suggested in the research methods may also lead to fraud in assessment. As observers have their own values, the observation may subjectively influenced by the observers’ values, resulting a misunderstanding in assessment (Rokeach, 1973). Conclusion Based on previous research on the culture of hotel management, the trend of globalization in the tourism industry has been described. With more tourists from different countries and cultural background come together, the importance in knowing the needs of guests from different culture has become an issue. As hotel industry is a multi-culture industry, hotel staff needs to satisfy guests’ needs and expectations every day. To maintain the competiveness of Hong Kong’s hotel industry, we need to know how is Hong Kong’s hotel industry’s ability in fulfilling Eastern and Western consumer expectations currently, and then develop better service quality in the industry, and to retain tourists coming back to Hong Kong.