INTRODUCTION
TripAdvisor.com is a travel website providing directory information and reviews of travel related content. Online reviews now shape the way travellers and international tourists choose hotel accommodation and plan for holiday destinations. Many consumers consult online trip advisor reviews before making travel and accommodation choices in hotels. However, Racherla, Cornolly & Christodoulidou, (2013: 135) argued that, existing academic understanding of these popular information sources in the tourism and hospitality domain is relatively weak. Likewise, Vermeulen & Seegers, (2009:123) acknowledged that, many consumers consult online reviews before making travel arrangements, yet, little is known about the impact of these reviews on consumer decision making. Hence, there is no contradiction that reviews are a powerful and significant part of the travel planning experience. Therefore, this research aims to explore the effects of hotel trip advisor reviews on international tourist booking intentions and perception of trust of 5 star luxurious hotels of Cape Town South Africa
The researcher will be targeting international tourist and she will be focusing on following 5 star luxurious hotels of the city of Cape Town. Namely, Table Bay, Cape Grace, One & Only and Taj hotels. Trip advisor consumer generated reviews impact both positively and negatively on global tourist booking intentions in hotels in Cape Town. Ye, Law & Gu, (2009:181) put forward that, online user reviews have an important impact on hotel bookings.
Trip Advisor has been studied from various perspectives including examining whether Trip Advisor reviews are reliable or not. Yet no research has been conducted to examine the impacts of the trip advisor revie...
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As the online travel market matures and transforms, audiences are no longer content just to shop for price or read destination information written by marketers. Now more sophisticated online users are looking to connect and share with other travelers and with the content itself.
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The Gaps Model of Service Quality was originally developed for application in the financial service sector. The model was designed to measure components of customer satisfaction by using five dimensions of real or potential gaps in service quality of a hotel (Saleh & Ryan, 1991). The model has been applied to hotels, as well as a number of service agencies, including banking, hotels, restaurants, and healthcare. Even though the services differ greatly, the model is easily adapted to any service industry (Parasuraman, Zeithaml, & Berry, 1985).
Technology has created a major impact on the way in which all organizations market their products and services. With the development of the internet, companies are now able to economically market themselves on a global level. Even smaller companies that were once not able to capture international business due to the cost factor can now do just that. The Washington Plaza Hotel is no exception. The hotel industry in DC relies heavily on tourism as a major part of its client base. Many of these tourists who visit the city are of foreign nationality. It is important that the Washington Plaza Hotel targets these people when marketing the company. Not only do they target the tourist but they also target the international business travelers that come to the city on business related trips. The hotel's website, which gives detailed information about the hotel's accommodations and services, can be accessed by potential customers all over the world. In addition, the Washington Plaza Hotel has teamed up with such web-based travel services like Orbitz, Expedia, Travelocity, Etc. in order to capture more of the global market. Before the existence of the internet, the global market was not easily reachable. Technology has the greatest affect on marketing for many organizations and certainly for the Washington Plaza Hotel as well as the hospitality industry itself.
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Because of today technology, continuous development, we are going to do all the promotions and marketing online. Nowadays everyone spends more than 3 hours on the internet, so we are going to invest money to attract guests. After we are going to create a certain clientele, we are sure that our guests are going to make good publicity for the hotel thank to the best services that we are going to provide. We are going to communicate the unique and natural concept to appeal to our future guest.
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Service quality is a necessary element to success in the service organizations (eg: hotel, airlines, and logistics) (Shanin and Dbestani 2010). Since its establishment in the late 1970s, the idea of service quality has become popular, business performance, cost saving, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and service quality are influenced. . Every organization has to be very effective in order to ensure the success (Gabbie & O’Neill. 1996). During customer’s hotel stay, perceptions on service quality will only be formed when they are experiencing it. Guest will have different perceptions based on the service they have received, eg: hotel staff attitude, food and beverage, location, security and safety and others (Abbasi et al. 2010; Shahin and Dabestani 2010). To evaluate the hotel performance and also improve the quality of their services,
Travel Today will express through brochures, pictures and promotional material through the media the quality of the vacation packages offered. The clientele being targeted are individuals looking for an exceptional and exciting one-of-a-kind vacation experience one filled with luxuries and top notch service. Travel Today listens to the traveler in order to custom tailor your travel requirements to fit your needs.
Thanks to these factors, pricing becomes one of the primary uses with which hotels attract customers. However, due to customers’ independent nature, there influence over industry players is limited. In the high-end segment of hotels, price influence becomes even less as hotels find it easier to differentiate themselves from the competition and customers become less price sensitive coming to expect higher prices as a symbolism of superior quality and services. Lastly, corporate business and tour operators can exert more influence due to their large purchases but this affect is of a limited nature and does not extend across the whole
Telephone surveys, questionnaires, surveys the customer via emails, customer service focus group, physical focus group and conduct online search are few methods that are used to measure the quality of customer services a leading indicator of consumer repurchase intentions and loyalty. It’s a point of differentiation, it increases customer lifetime value, it reduces negative word of mouth, and it’s cheaper to retain customers than acquire new ones. 2.4.1 The five dimension of service quality Extensive research over the years has resulted in a number of variable being identified that encapsulate the dimensions used by consumers to evaluate service quality. This list was originally quite extensive, but over the years it has been reduced to five main dimensions.
Moreover, the InterContinental Hotels & Resorts is considered the first international hotel brand in the world, as it began operations in the year 1946 (About InterContinental Hotels Group Brands, 2015). Over time the hotel group has evolved to encompass quality hotel rooms not only in North America, but in Central and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Australia, and Asia-Pacific (IHG – InterContinental Hotels Group, 2015). In addition, they have acquired extended stay facilities and the Hualuxe Hotels & Resorts, which specifically “celebrates the essence of Chinese hospitality” (About InterContinental Hotels Group Brands, 2015). In my opinion, this shows that their target market has changed by expanding their scope of travel, which means they are traveling to farther and farther locations and require the familiar surroundings with equivalent product quality at the final destination. The InterContinental Hotels Group is in the fourth and final stage of the product life cycle, which is the decline stage (Editorial Board, 2014, p. 212). Indeed, the brands lengthy history indicates it has loyal customers, but its addition of innovations indicates the targeting of new customers for the organization, which are clear signs of a business in the decline stage of the product life cycle (Editorial Board, 2014, p.
Tourism is affected by the stakeholders with whom the destinations are established or the areas that are attempting to attract tourists. The customer stakeholder needs to seek out destinations and packages that appeal to their desires than accepting predetermined vacation packages. The stakeholder’s in the tourism industry need to work together to avoid miscommunication and enhance packages that appeal to clients requests. All the
To promote destinations and build their unique touristic image, DMOs have started using social media as a destination marketing tool. It helps them have a better understanding of how tourists from around the world perceive this touristic destination and build marketing strategies on that basis (Neuhofer et al., 2012 as cited by Kavoura and Stavrianea, 2015) . Social media also help DMOs interact with the tourists and build and maintain online relationships with them which would attract them more to the destination and ensure their loyalty on the long term (Page, Buhalis and Hays,