The Elusive Search for Talent: Skill Gaps in the Canadian Luxury Hotel Sector

The luxury segment of the hospitality sector has been growing worldwide. Luxury hospitality is about providing a unique experience for guests, and this type of experience requires having employees who understand the luxury culture and are trained at the highest level. Luxury hotels compete for the best talents, but the current pool of candidates for customer-facing and managerial positions within these establishments is limited. The purpose of this study was to identify skill gaps in Canada’s luxury hotels. Primary data were collected from in-depth semi-structured interviews with twenty luxury hotel managers and analyzed with NVivo 12. Respondents agreed about the skills required for brands to succeed in the luxury market, but they lamented the lack of qualified talents and the difficulty of training and retaining qualified collaborators. The results of the study point to the need to address the luxury skill gap in the hospitality sector, particularly in Canada. Recommendations to address this problem are proposed.

Management Response to Online Review: The Case of Hong Kong Luxury Hotels

Electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) is regarded as crucial in business development. Given the intangible nature of tourism and hospitality products, potential customers find it hard to assess them before making purchase. Accordingly, online customer reviews and management responses have influential roles in their decision-making process. While a plethora of previous research focused on customer reviews, scholarly attention on how luxury hotels respond to the reviews was scant. Using content analysis, this study examines the management response characteristics of 35 luxury hotels and response style of 7 luxury chain hotels in Hong Kong. Their response characteristics including response frequency, responder’s job position, and timeliness of response were generally similar. The response style and tone (professional and conversational tones) vary with hotels even they are in the same hotel group. Implications on practice of management responses are offered for luxury hotel operators.

DEVELOPMENT OF CONCEPTUAL PRINCIPLES OF HOTEL DESIGN ACTIVITY (ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE SOLUTION OF THE 5 STAR CAPITAL HOTEL-LUXURY)

Currently, the national sphere of services forms the economy of the state, country, regions, is becoming an important factor in the stable development of the hotel industry in the modern structure of the hospitality industry. The modern sphere of hospitality, as one of the highly profitable branches of the economy, is the leading direction of socio-economic development of Ukraine. The development of the hotel industry in Ukraine is constrained by a number of factors, such as: shortcomings in the financial and banking system, limited solvency of the population, the political situation in the country, the imperfect tax system, the COVID-19 pandemic. During the development of the concept, the decisive factors that influenced the design and development of a 5-star luxury hotel with 70 rooms in Solomyanskyi district of Kyiv were the features of the district, namely: geolocation, infrastructure, land cost, environmental comfort, etc. Thus, an important area of optimization of the technological process in the hotel business is the diversification of production, which is associated with the expansion of production capacity of the hotel business through the rational use of resources. The purpose of the study is to establish and disclose the factors of influence on the development of conceptual foundations of hotel design. The research was conducted by elaborating legislative acts of Ukraine, scientific publications on hotel design, statistical data, expert assessments. The main theoretical and practical results that determine the novelty and practical significance of the study are to determine the sequence of actions to develop conceptual principles of hotel design, which can be represented as the following chain: mission ® practical philosophy of the hotel ® type ® category ® purpose ® comfort level ® choice of accommodation and food. It is established that the importance of using in the process of conceptual design of hotels comprehensive information on the factors influencing the activities of the enterprise in the hospitality industry, coordination of this information with the values and objectives of the business, namely the mission of creating and operating a hotel business. and principles that in the future will be focused and used in the operational management of the already commissioned hotel. A comparative analysis of accommodation facilities, including the pricing policy of the number of rooms, restaurants and the type of kitchens. as well as service facilities of Solomyansky district. The analysis of potential consumers of hotel services is presented, such as: cultural and leisure, spa services, trade services and business services. Such 5 * luxury hotels meet the existing and potential demand for hotel and business services. With the provision of appropriate business services of proper quality and optimal price, you can solve the problem of finding a place to stay, relax and business. Key words: national services, conceptual framework, design, five-star hotel, hospitality, hospitality, luxury hotel.

What to Sell and How to Sell Matters: Focusing on Luxury Hotel Properties’ Business Performance and Efficiency

Due to service product characteristics and a mix of complex sales, it is crucial for hotel firms to efficiently design limited physical spaces that serve multiple purposes to optimize revenue and maximize profit. Since luxury hotel properties have different operation strategies than limited-service hotels, their operational efficiency should be a reference during strategic decision-making processes. Primary research purpose is to identify the most efficient operation model for luxury hotel properties. The study computed operation efficiency scores using the data envelopment analysis approach to rank the property efficiency of 37 fully equipped luxury hotels in the United States. Each property can utilize slack analysis to discover a strategic benchmarking company (best efficient frontier) and intuitive strategic recommendations and gain superior input and output productivity. Tobit model analysis provides supplemental understandings regarding the additional operational factors impacting luxury hotel properties’ efficiency score variations. Operating efficiency was found to be achieved by multiple operating inputs and influenced by relative price, fixed costs, and management systems. Theoretical comprehensiveness of luxury service mix has been empirically tested by highlighting efficiency as a key measure. In addition, RevPAR’s ratio on TRevPAR further highlights the importance for luxury hotels to increase non-room sales and revenues to accomplish efficiency.

Impact of personal values on customer satisfaction and word of mouth for luxury hotel service consumption in Confucian culture: evidence from Vietnam

Purpose This research aims to investigate the effect of personal values on customer satisfaction and whether positive experiences lead to positive word of mouth (WOM) about the luxury hotel service from the Confucian perspective. Design/methodology/approach This research developed a structural equation model for testing. Research data collected from Confucian participants who have used luxury hotel services in Vietnam, where Confucianism is the dominant cultural paradigm. Findings The results show that there is a positive relationship between Confucian customer personal values and satisfaction, as well as between customer satisfaction and positive WOM; personal values had no effect on positive WOM. Research limitations/implications This research implies that the personal values of Confucian consumers constitute the lens through which they view the world, thus the service personal values reflect their priorities on luxury hotel service consumption. A key to success for luxury hotel service providers lies in providing services that enhance Confucian customer personal values, which allow service providers to intercommunicate with the Confucian consumers’ core. Originality/value This research is significant because there is little research on personal values from the cultural mechanism of Confucian culture. This research also comes up with a richer understanding of the relationship between customer personal values and behaviors within the luxury hotel segment.

Looks Clear and Sounds Familiar: How Consumers Form Inferential Beliefs About Luxury Hotel Service Quality

The purpose of this study is to examine how varying levels of brand familiarity and photographic image quality of hotel pictures influence consumers’ perceptions about luxury hotel services and attitudinal responses and whether their visual aesthetic experience and inferential beliefs about service quality can mediate such effects. This is a 2 (brand familiarity: familiar vs. unfamiliar brand) × 2 (image quality: high vs. low image resolution) factorial design randomized experiment and the proposed model was tested using a structural equation model ( N = 430). The proposed model was confirmed that consumers viewed the visual appearance of a hotel suite room (varying in image quality) and brand name (varying in brand familiarity), experienced processing fluency, drew inferential beliefs (about tangible and intangible service quality), formed attitudes toward the brand, and purchase intentions. The study presents an explanatory framework that delineates how varying hotel-related cues in an online setting can shape consumers’ perceptions and judgments of a luxury hotel brand. To one’s best knowledge, no research has examined the impact of both brand familiarity and photographic image quality of a hotel room. More importantly, this study reveals to what extent consumers’ inferential beliefs about service quality can be influenced by the heuristic cues and provides direct evidence for the mediating role of processing fluency and aesthetic appreciation.