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Weekly UpdatesWith the wide variety of interpretations of the star rating system, a specific issue deserving examination is the following:
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Attributes of accommodations may be divided into core, additional, and ancillary services. Core services, which exist regardless of a hotel's star rating, include aspects such as a comfortable bed with clean linen, clean bathroom facilities, and attentive staff. Additional services differ from one level of hotel to another, and the hotel's star rating would influence the importance attributed to these features, including size of the bedroom, decor, ambience, furnishings, range of toiletries, and size of bathroom. A third category of services, ancillary services, might be expected of four- and five-star hotels, but not one- and two-star hotels. Ancillary features include business centers, courtesy transport to airports, gymnasiums, beauty services, large swimming pools, and shopping facilities, plus a choice of restaurants and bars (see Exhibit 1). The proposition is that guests at each star level will attribute the same level of importance to core services, but the hotel's star rating will influence the importance of additional and ancillary factors. Purpose of visit likewise should influence importance scores. Business users may select higher-rated hotels because they seek business support facilities, while holiday makers may attribute importance to swimming pools and a choice of bars and restaurants. The need for a specific service might influence selection of a hotel of a particular level. A guest might choose a high-grade hotel because it provides courtesy transport from the airport, whereas no one would expect that a budget property would provide such services.
However, if the star rating system is inconsistent, even within major Chinese cities, then the potential is great for failed performance of expected services that are considered important. Within the Fishbein importance-evaluation matrix, there exists a potential for the nonperforming five-star hotel to record items in the high importance-low evaluation cell. In the case of one- and two-star hotels, on the other hand, the potential exists for items to appear in a low importance--high evaluation cell, as guests find that services to which they have attributed low importance might in fact be provided. In short, the potential exists for wide distribution of coordinates on importance-evaluation matrices of Chinese hotels.
The Study
Data Collection
The survey was conducted by field researchers in face-to-face interviews with respondents in twenty provinces of China, including the cities of Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangdong, covering the main cities in east coast areas, central China, and far western China. The interview distribution was consistent with the main patterns of hotel use as recorded by CNTA and the China Hotel Industry Database from Beijing International Studies University. Of fifty-one hundred questionnaires distributed to field researchers in January 2006, 79.16 percent were returned and found usable for purposes of analysis.
The Questionnaire
We identified fifty-one items to describe core, additional, and ancillary services, drawn from the literature, our experience, and CNTA's basic criteria for hotel ranking, as well as through consultation with managerial staff from the China Tourist Hotel Association. Conceptually, these were divided by criteria pertaining to operational and service factors and, as we described above, core, additional, and ancillary services. Thus, for example, certain items asked about the importance and performance of the comfort of the bed and pillow, the cleanliness of the bedclothes, and the quality of the mattress. Other items asked about the size of the room and its overall decor and ambience. Still other questions tested the location of the hotel--whether it was easily accessible from an airport or motorway and whether it provided easy access to a central business district, tourist attractions, and night life. We expected that business users would respond to such issues as the ease of access to a business center and meeting and convention facilities. The questionnaire also asked for ratings of ancillary services, such as the availability of a swimming pool, beauty salon, shops, and a public bar.
The questionnaire comprised four sections. The first asked respondents to attribute levels of importance to hotel attributes using a 7-point Likert-type scale, where 7 = extremely important and 1 = no importance. The second section sought information about hotel patronage within the previous six months and the type of hotel used. The third asked respondents to report their level of satisfaction on the fifty-one items with regard to their most recent hotel stay, this time using a 7-point Likert-type scale, where 7 = extremely satisfied and 1 = extremely dissatisfied. The final section sought sociodemographic data.
The Findings
Data Reliability
Before undertaking the analysis, we examined the data for statistical reliability through the use of split-half correlations and Cronbach's alpha coefficients, which are measures of interitem correlation. For the importance scale, the split-half correlations were .87, while the alpha coefficient was .91. For the evaluation scale, the split-half correlations were .89, and the alpha coefficient was .94. Finally, the Kaiser-Myer-Olkin statistics of sampling adequacy were calculated, with an outcome of .96 for the importance scale and .92 for the evaluation scale. In total, these statistics indicate internal rigor based on an adequate sample, thereby meriting further analysis.
The Sample
As shown in Exhibit 2, the sample is oriented toward those under the age of fifty and, in particular, toward those between the ages of twenty-six and forty-five. The relatively young age skew might reflect a bias explained by the work of Hsu, Cai, and Wong (2007), which showed that older age groups are generally predisposed to an attitude that holiday taking is socially irresponsible--a view not wholly shared by younger age groups (CNTA 2006, 2003). Equally, given the recent economic development of China and the expansion of university education, it tends to be people of middle age and younger who possess the income for leisure travel that involves hotel stays, while also they are of a generation where business travel is becoming more common.
Fifty percent of those surveyed had stayed in either a three- or four-star hotel in the six months prior to the survey, about 13 percent had stayed in a five-star hotel, and the remainder stayed in hotels characterized as having fewer than three stars. With reference to their most recent hotel stay, 80 percent had stayed in a city property, while many of the remainder had stayed in hotels near or in China's many popular and beautiful holiday spots.
Respondents were also asked to assess their level of income, and it is of interest to compare the findings with the original, larger sample. It was found that of the 941 who had used a hotel in the previous six months, 5.3 percent assessed themselves as having little income (compared to 8.2 percent of the original larger sample), 32.4 percent stated they had below-average income (compared to 43.8 percent), 25.6 percent stated they had average income (compared to 21.5 percent), 21.8 percent stated they had above-average income (compared to 15.6 percent), and 14.9 percent stated they had significantly above-average income (compared to 11 percent). This mode of questioning was adopted to arrive at a measure of perceived income because China has regional differences in incomes. What might be deemed a good income in one region might be seen as only average elsewhere. By the same token, regional hotel prices vary. What emerged from this exercise is that the recent hotel users skewed slightly toward having higher income than those who had not stayed in a hotel recently (at least, by their own admission).
Overall Importance Attribution
The highest importance ratings were attributed to the cleanliness of the bedroom (5.83), having a comfortable mattress and pillow (5.79), and the cleanliness of the bathroom (5.77). The allaying of security concerns was also thought important (5.43), followed by a quiet room (5.39) and the quality of the food in restaurants (5.34). These might be said to be a hotel's core product. We found no statistically significant differences in the importance ratings for these attributes among users of hotels in any of the different star classifications. Whether it was a one-star property or a five-star deluxe hotel, guests all thought bed comfort and cleanliness were important, with scores in excess of 5.5.
Aspects relating to staff and service were also found to be important, with fast and efficient check-out services achieving an importance score of 5.29, and friendly and efficient staff achieving scores of about 5.23. Reputation (5.27) and price (5.24) also scored high.
Interestingly, although a hotel's reputation was judged important, the importance of a hotel's membership in a chain or a group was a low-scoring importance item--with a mean score 4.06--and being part of an international chain was dead last in importance, with a score of 3.99. As a consequence, we suggest that reputation is based on relatively specific site and hotel factors rather than simply membership in a chain.
The sample as a whole was indifferent to whether a hotel is near night spots and clubs or has a cabaret. Likewise, having a business center achieved an importance score barely in excess of 4.00. The business center is among a group of items that attracted a middling score (less than 4.60) all of which might gain high ratings from business travelers, including access to a central business district and ease of car parking. Even access to an airport was scored at a modest 4.66. These results implied that the overall mean score might be biased by the high number of relatively infrequent hotel users. As a consequence, we subdivided the sample by patterns of frequency of hotel patronage and found twenty-five items to have statistically significant differences. Two aspects became clear. First, the nonfrequent patrons tended to give higher scores than did the more frequent clients, including those who had used a hotel just once within the past six months. Second, the majority of questionnaire items attained mean scores below 4.5--indicating that many items were perceived as having at best middling importance. One conclusion that might be drawn is that frequent guests have become inured to what might be described as ancillary products, such as gardens, swimming pools, spa baths, a cabaret, and a public bar. At the same time, we must remind readers that certain core attributes are never ignored. Users of a hotel in the previous six months rated the importance of a comfortable bed at 5.83, whereas nonusers in the past six months rated such a bed at 5.69. (1) Even though that is a significant difference, we must observe that regardless of respondents' level of hotel use, high levels of importance are attributed to core issues of cleanliness and quality of bathrooms and facilities.
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