Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty

Abstract

In this globalised and intensely competitive world, it is very necessary to retain existing customers. Thus customer loyalty has become need of the hotel organisations. But to gain customer loyalty, it is necessary for the organisations to know about the factors which are influencing customer loyalty. So, the aim of this research is to explore the factors which influence customer loyalty and to analyse the performance of the budget and luxury U.K. hotels in those factors. To achieve the aim of the research, first those factors were being explored by using existing literature. The factors which are influencing customer loyalty are customer service, hotel cleanliness, room quality, value for money, food quality and family friendliness. To analyse the performance of the hotels in terms of these factors quantitative method was being used. Data for primary research was collected from laterooms.com. Ramanathan and Ramanathan, (2011) is being used as framework for the research. Results are being presented by using graphs. After carefully analysing data, customer service, hotel cleanliness and room quality are found the major influencing factors.

Full text

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 1

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 2
Customer Satisfaction and
Customer Loyalty
A study of budget and luxury hotels of U.K.
by
Rakesh Ahlawat
Uttkarsh Prakashan

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 3
ISBN: 978-93-91765-68-2
PUBLISHER: Uttkarsh Publication
142, Shakya Puri, Kanker-khera, Meerut U.P.
Website: utkarshprakashan.in
Mob. 8791681996, 8218114205
Email: uttkarshprakashan@gmail.com
Edition: 1st Edition 2021
Price: 300.00

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 4
Dedication
This book is an adaptation of the dissertation submitted by the
author for the award of Master of Science in International
Hospitality Management at Leeds Beckett University (Erstwhile
Leeds Metropolitan University) in June, 2012. My father,
Chaudhary Jai Singh Ahlawat, had left us in 2011 for his
heavenly journey. He wasn't there to see me graduating, I dedicate
this work to him and his Grand daughter; a piece of my heart my
daughter, Nainika. I want to make a special mention of my late
brothers, Manjeet Ahlawat and Lalit Hooda, who would have
more happy than me seeing this work coming out. We miss you!!

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 5
Acknowledgement
I thank Dr. Stella Walsh for her guidance in completion of this
study. Though thanking would not be enough but I still would
thank my mother Smt. Murti Devi for always standing by me, my
brother Sanjeet Ahlawat and my sisterly sister-in-law
Navmeet for their unconditional support. My special thanks to the
better part of me, my wife Banti for the companionship which
made everything possible and easy for me. I also want to thank my
family (We have a large and joint family) and friends for the
support. I want to do a special mention for the support by my
uncles Sh. Dalbir Singh and Sh. Ranbir Singh; and my aunts
Smt. Sarita Devi and Smt. Parmila Devi.

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 6
Preface
In this globalised and intensely competitive world, it is very
necessary to retain existing customers. Thus customer loyalty has
become need of the hotel organisations. But to gain customer
loyalty, it is necessary for the organisations to know about the
factors which are influencing customer loyalty. So, the aim of this
research is to explore the factors which influence customer loyalty
and to analyse the performance of the budget and luxury U.K.
hotels in those factors. To achieve the aim of the research, first
those factors were being explored by using existing literature. The
factors which are influencing customer loyalty are customer
service, hotel cleanliness, room quality, value for money, food
quality and family friendliness. To analyse the performance of the
hotels in terms of these factors quantitative method was being
used. Data for primary research was collected from laterooms.com.
Ramanathan and Ramanathan, (2011) is being used as framework
for the research. Results are being presented by using graphs. After
carefully analysing data, customer service, hotel cleanliness and
room quality are found the major influencing factors.

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 7
Contents
Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………..9
1a.) Background……………………………………………………………………………….9
1b.)
Aim:……………………………………………………………………………………..…..10
1c.)
Objectives:………………………………………………………………………………..10
1d.) Significance of research:………………………………………………………….11
1e.) Organisation of study: …………………………………………………………….11
Literature review……………………………………………………………………………….12
2a.) Customer loyalty…………………………………………………………….………13
2b.) Factors influencing customer loyalty………………………………………17
2c.) Customer satisfaction……………………………………….…………………18
Table 1. Illustration of the attributes from various studies: ………30
2d.) Service quality…………………………………………………………………………33
Research methodology………………………………………………………………………38
3a.) Background to research methods……………………………………………38
Table 2. Comparison of qualitative and quantitative research…….…41
3b.) Research approach: …………………………………………………………….…43
3c.) Research sample: ……………………………………………………………………43
Primary data collection: ……………………………………………….……………44
About laterooms.com…………………………………………………………..……45
Secondary data: ……………………………………………………………………..…47
3d.) Data analysis: …………………………………………………………………………47
3e.) Reliability and validity: ……………………………………………………………48
3f.) Ethical considerations: …………………………………………………….………49
Research data analysis……………………………………………………………..…………51
4a.) Results: ………………………………………………………………………….………..51
Table 3. Sample data distribution………………………………………..………52
Figure 1. General ratings for Hilton Hotel…………………………….………54
Figure 2. General ratings for Holiday Inn Express…………………………55
Figure 3. Business guest’s ratings for Hilton hotels………………………56

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 8
Figure 4. Business guest’s ratings for Holiday Inn Express Hotels…57
Figure 5. Leisure guest’s ratings for Hilton hotels………………………..58
Figure 6. Leisure guest’s rating for Holiday Inn Express Hotels….…59
Figure 7. Ratings for recommended and would stay again for Hilton
Hotels…………………………………………………………………………………….……60
Figure 8. Ratings for recommended and would stay again for
Holiday Inn Express Hotels………………..…………………………………………61
4b.) Findings: …………………………………………………………………………….……62
Graph 1. General overall ratings (Hilton hotels v/s Holiday Inn
Express) ………………………………………………………………………..……………64
Graph 2. Business ratings (Holiday Inn Express Hotels v/s Hilton
Hotels) ………………………………………………………………………………….……69
Graph 3. Leisure guests ratings (Hilton hotels v/s Holiday Inn
Express) ……………………………………………………………………………..………71
Table 4. Hotel wise ranking list for Hilton hotels and Holiday Inn
Express hotels……………………………………………………………..………………74
4c.) Discussion: ………………………………………………………………….……………76
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………..…82
5a.) Recommendations………………………………………..…….………………..…83
5b.) Limitations: ……………………………………………………….…….………………83
Bibliography……………………………………………………………………..…………………84

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 9
Introduction
1a.) Background
Hotel organisations around the world face a high level of
competition satisfying their customers in order to retain
them(Briggs et al., 2007). With increasing demands of the services,
hotel organisations are striving hard in identifying and meeting
those customer demands. Though the challenge for the hotel
organisation is that the services offered by them are very different
from a traditional service provider and the customers approaches
them in a completely different way in which they evaluate a pure
intangible product (Chen and Hu, 2010) and the way of evaluation
also varies from one person to another which makes it
complicated. So once a customer has been attracted towards a
particular hotel operator, their long term relationship becomes of
greater importance (Clemes et al., 2011). Protecting the existing
customer pool and maintaining a customer loyalty level appears to
be a very vital competitive advantage and a major component for a
brand long term survival in the market (Burnham et al., 2003).
Retaining the existing customer pool presents a great challenge
because it not only fosters organisations customer loyalty but also
protects organisation from getting influenced by the fluctuation in
customer demands (Jung and Yoon, 2012). Customer loyalty is a
key outcome of the relationship marketing which is associated with
the factors such as customer expectations, service quality
perceptions, and customer satisfaction (Ryan and Ployhart, 2003)
Hotel industry in U.K. has presence of all major brands such as
Hilton, Carlson group, Ritz hotels, Starwood hotels etc. and with
the upcoming London Olympic games 2012 and Commonwealth

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 10
games, (2014), these groups are going to introduce more hotel
rooms within U.K. It will make the market hugely competitive. So
hotel organisations need to focus on retaining their existing
customer pool. But Burnham et al., (2003) states that the major
challenge for the hotel organisations is to protect their existing
customers to make sure that they stay loyal to those organisations.
Ryan and Ployhart (2003) further advocates their point by stating
that key factors for enhancing customer loyalty are linked with
customer satisfaction and service quality perception of customers.
So, hotel organisation need explore all the factors which influence
customer satisfaction, service quality and ultimately the customer
loyalty.
1b.) Aim:
The aim of this research is to explore the factors which influence
customer loyalty and the performance of U.K. budget and luxury
hotels on those factors which influences guests to stay again.
1c.) Objectives:
To achieve the above stated aim, following are the objectives:
a.) To examine and explore the factors which influence
customer loyalty.
b.) To explore performance of the budget and luxury hotels of
U.K. in terms of those factors which make guests to stay
again.
c.) To examine the extent to which those factors affect
customer loyalty.

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 11
1d.) Significance of research:
In this intense competitive world customer loyalty is very critical
to gain competitive advantage. The findings of this research will
explore the factors which influence the customer loyalty in budget
and luxury hotels of U.K. which will help hotel managers to
perform better. This research also seeks to add to the existing
literature regarding customer loyalty in hotel industry.
1e.) Organisation of study:
Section 1 of this research provides a brief introduction to the
context of the study. It also discusses aim and objectives,
significance and organisation of the research. Section 2 discusses
the existing literature within the context of the study and tries to
explore the factors which influence customer loyalty.
Section 3 provides description about the methodological concepts,
theories, and methods to collect the data for primary research. This
section also discusses different methods for data analysis.
Section 4 provides the result and the data analysis. This also
provides data comparison for generalising the results to achieve the
aim of the study and discuss the results in respect of the literature.
Section 5 provides the conclusion of the research, followed up by
recommendations and limitations.

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 12
Literature review
Hotel industry has evolved into one of the truly global industries in
which both customers and the service providers are spread all
around the world (Kandampully and Suhartanto, 2003, Kralj and
Solnet, 2010). Due to the change in the lifestyle, work pattern,
travel, eating habits and bye the development of a global
community, the services offered by the hotel organisations are now
considered as the necessities rather than the luxuries (Kandampully
and Suhartanto, 2003, Namkung and Jang, 2007). During the past
decade this industry has expanded very fast to meet the demands of
the growing market. This growth provided customers with a great
variety of choices while generating the competition in the market
(Noyan and Simsek, 2011). Because of this hotel organisations
now a day are facing intense competition and the challenge to
grow steadily in this competitive environment (Kandampully and
Suhartanto, 2003). So in this highly competitive environment, the
ultimate goal for hotel organisations has become to maintain a
loyal customer base. To achieve that it is important for the hotel
organisations to make use of the opportunities to gain competitive
advantage by adopting different strategies. Researchers have
proved that developing customer loyalty is the most favoured
strategy to gain competitive advantage and has a very positive

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 13
impact on the organisations medium and long term profitability
(Earnst and young, 1996) cited in (Kandampully and Suhartanto,
2003). Holmund and Kock, (1996) cited in (Kandampully and
Suhartanto, 2003) argues that for organisation to attract new
customers 5 times more than to retain an existing customer.
The discussion above illustrates the importance of customer loyalty
for an organisation. Customer loyalty can be a necessary attribute
for an organisation to grow in the competitive market. It a common
belief as well that organisation can improve its profits by retaining
the existing customers and developing customer loyalty.
2a.) Customer loyalty
Defining customer loyalty has been problematic for the researchers
mainly because of the varying concepts of the loyalty (Martin et al,
2009). And in terms of hotel organisations it becomes more
difficult because of three defining characteristics of the products
(services) offered : intangibility, heterogeneity and inseparability
(Zeithhaml et al., 2002). Customer loyalty is often defined as the
repeat purchase or the intention for repeat purchasing a certain
product or services (Hawkins et al., 1995 cited in Tsuar et al.,
2002). (Kotler and Armstrong, 2008) argues customer loyalty is a
commitment towards the customers for providing a service which
is above and beyond that of the customers in the marketplace in

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 14
order to gain repetitive service experience. This is the behavioural
aspect of the customer loyalty. Defining customer loyalty on the
basis of the behavioural activity does not take into account that
customer may engage into repurchasing activity because of the
unavailability of the reasonable alternatives or merely out of
convenience (Jones et al., 2012). For example a customer may visit
a particular hotel in a city because that is the only hotel available
which suits his or her budget.
Some researchers view loyalty from the attitudinal aspect with the
argument made that loyalty is intention or desire to repurchase
services or products (Czepiel and Gilmore, 1987 cited in Martin et
al, 2009). Customers may have high relative attitude towards a
brand that they do not have any intention of purchasing. For
example, a student may believe that Hilton hotels are the best
service providers but he or she may not have finances to afford a
stay at Hilton hotels. Thus a relative attitude may suggest that only
‘latent loyalty’ is present among the customers (Dick and Basu,
1994).
Kumar and Shah (2004) define customer loyalty as two
dimensional aspects which involve both attitudinal and behavioural
concepts. In this two dimensional aspect, customer loyalty can be
defined as an attitudinal preference for the retailer along with a
strong repeat purchase behaviour (Kumar and Shah, 2004; Oliver,
1999 cited in Martin et al, 2009). (Skogland and Siguaw, 2004)

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 15
also supports this by defining customer loyalty as a deeply held
commitment to re-buy or repatronize a preferred product or service
consistently in future, thus it creates repetitive same brand set
purchasing, despite of situational influences and marketing efforts’
having the potential to cause switching behaviour.” They further
extend their discussion about customer loyalty by stating that it
consists of both an attitudinal and behavioural commitment;
attitudinal commitment to the relationship with a certain hotel or a
hotel group, such as price in-sensitivity for example guests loyal to
one hotel, certainly do not opt to choose a different even in a case
when the other hotel is offering them cheaper price for same
services whereas behavioural commitment generates stronger
loyalty behaviour such as positive word of mouth for service
provider (hotel/hotel group) and repeat purchasing from the same
hotel or hotel group (Skogland and Siguaw, 2004).
According to Bloemer et al., (2002) customer loyalty is either the
commitment towards the brand or is just an inertia of repeating the
purchase of services Study by (John and Shiang-Lih, 2001)
revealed that loyal customers provide more repeat business and are
less likely to choose another hotel in order to get best deals in
comparison to non loyal customers of the hotels. They also found
guests who said they will definitely return to the same hotel, 88.52
percent of those guests returned and stayed at the same hotel on

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 16
their return visit. 96.9 percent of those customers spread a positive
word of mouth about the hotel.
A loyal customer in most cases produces the positive word of
mouth for the services or the products and recommends the
experiences for other perspective customers (Fisher, 2001; Salver,
2005). Loyal customers usually have high tolerance power to the
mistakes made by the organisations, and they are more willing to
offer the suggestions for the improvement of the services. By
acting on these suggestions hotel can improve the services and
increase the customer satisfaction level which affects the
organisations’ profitability (Salver, 2005). Loyal customers are
willing to maintain the relationships even if they have to bear some
cost in doing so. For example in case a customer is loyal to the
Hilton group of hotels and getting a room in some other hotel at a
bit cheaper price tends to choose the hotel from Hilton group, even
though needs to pay more for that. Thus customer loyalty involves
a willingness among the customers to maintain a relationship with
service provider even beyond their own interests to a certain extent
(Crosby and Tailor, 1983 cited in Martin et al, 2009; Gilliland and
Bello, 2002).
Organisations use customer loyalty as a competitive advantage
tool. There is positive relation between customer loyalty and
profitability of an organisation(John and Shiang-Lih, 2001).

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 17
Reichheld and Sasser (1990) cited in (John and Shiang-Lih, 2001)
found in their study that when one organisation retains just 5%
more of its customers, the profit level of the organisation increases
by 25% to 125%. Bridgewater (2001) suggests that business
organisations can build customer loyalty by cultivating a customer-
oriented environment which should be able to identify customer’s
needs and to meet them by developing the services and products to
enhance the customer satisfaction. The customers rarely inform the
organisations when they are thinking of switching to the
competitor service provider and decide to leave the existing service
provider (Kish, 2000). In order to overcome this problem, Fisher
(2001) suggests organisations to develop a mechanism which can
identify the customer perceptions, preferences, and expectations in
terms of the service provided. This will create an atmosphere
which will suggest the customers that the organisation value
customers and understand their needs and ultimately will influence
them for repeat purchasing.
2b.) Factors influencing customer loyalty
Though there are many factors which influence customer loyalty,
Kotler et al., (2005) points customer satisfaction as one of the most

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 18
important factor for gaining customer loyalty. Satisfied customers
are most likely to return back to the hotel to use its services.
Bloemer et al., (2002) argues that the relation between customer
satisfaction and customer loyalty is not very clear. As in some
cases customers do not compare their expectations and the
satisfaction about the services they received which may be because
of the lack of motivational force behind that. (McKercher et al.,
2011) further extended this argument and said that hospitality and
tourism customers are often satisfied with their original service
provider but they still change to another. (Davis-Sramek et al.,
2008) contrast this argument by saying that it not only good
enough for the hotel managers to know that, they have extremely
satisfied customers. They extended it by saying that a slight
increase in customer satisfaction boosted up customer loyalty
dramatically.
2c.) Customer satisfaction
Customer satisfaction is a central issue in hospitality industry
because of its important role in organisations performance. It plays
vital role in the survival of the organisations (Slevitch and Oh,
2010). Customer satisfaction is one of the most important
marketing concept in which satisfying the customers’ needs and
desires are critical to the success of an organisation (Han and Ryu,
2006, Han et al, 2009, Lee et al, 2009). The studies of Zeithaml et

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 19
al., (2002) clearly states that customer satisfaction consist of an
overall customer attitude towards a service provider or an
emotional reaction to the difference between what customers
expect and what they experience and the effect it has on the
anticipated fulfilment of their need. The satisfaction level affects
the intention of using the brand or services again (Kim et al.,
2009). Customer satisfaction is also one of the objectives of the
marketing strategies by relating the processes of purchasing the
services and their consumption with the post purchase
phenomenon (Kandampully and Suhartanto, 2003).
Gerpott et al., (2001) suggest that customer satisfaction is mainly
based on the overall customer expected experience level and to
which the service has been able to fulfil. Kotler and Armstrong
(2008) goes ahead to state that customer satisfaction remains one
of the most essential elements that help to propel customers to
make repeated purchases from a specific service provider. It is a
very common assumption that the customers who have
experienced repetitive satisfaction from a particular supplier are
encouraged to continue their relationship with that supplier and are
very less likely to go beyond that supplier somewhere (Flint et al.,
2011). Customer satisfaction is based on a number of attributes
and in case of hotel industry these attributes are both tangible and
intangible in nature. Customers are attracted by both the services
provide and physical presence of the service objects which are

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 20
being placed in such a way that they transmits satisfaction when
are actually experienced (Flint et al., 2011, Han et al., 2011) for
example clearly posted sign for self check in check out machine in
hotels, when customers use them they transmits a sense of
satisfaction that the process has become faster and he/she hasn’t
had to wait in the queue for check in or check out.
(Wilkins et al., 2007) illustrates that during their stay in the hotels,
customers use a number of factors to judge the quality of the
service that they receive during their stay. Both physical evidence
and the service qualities of a hotel have a positive impact on the
customer satisfaction (Ekinci et al., 2008). Some of these factors
are intangible in nature while some are tangible and physical
elements, while some are very difficult to define such as ‘value for
money’ (Mohsin and Lockyer, 2010). The intangible factors are
related to the service elements such as customer service,
courtliness and the care which hotel management provides its
customers, assurance and the ease of dealing with the requirements
during the stay in the hotel. On the other hand, tangible elements
are related to the physical facilities available at the hotel such as
the availability and quality of the different facilities available in the
hotel room for example mini bar or tea/ coffee facility in room and
the facilities which the entire hotel provides such as swimming
pool, gym or spa etc. It also includes the physical appearance of
the hotel staff i.e. uniform of the staff, grooming standards etc, the

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 21
cleanliness of the guest room as well as of the entire hotel. Mohsin
and Lockyer, (2010) studied the perception of the service quality in
luxury hotels in Delhi. In their study, they listed
1. Cleanliness of the hotel: accounts for the room cleanliness
and the entire hotel cleanliness
2. Value for money: accounts for overall value impression of
the hotel facility
3. Location of the hotel
4. Friendliness of the staff
5. Outside appearance of the hotel
Hence their study ranked cleanliness of the hotel as the most
important factor regarding the customer satisfaction and perceived
quality of the services.
In case of the hotels having their own restaurant for guest use, then
the cleanliness of the restaurant and food quality are also tangible
elements for the guests to evaluate the quality of the hotel (Han et
al., 2009; Wu and Liang, 2009). Yavas and Babakus, (2005) and
Clow et al., (1994 cited in Ramanathan and Ramanathan, 2011)
also identifies that the factors which contributes towards the
customer experience and the satisfaction during their stay at hotel
are customer service, cleanliness of the hotel, hotel facilities, price,
food quality and the location of the hotel. Tsuar et al., (2002) in
their study found responsiveness of the hotel staff towards

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 22
customer requirements and the tangible factors to be the crucial
and significant aspects towards customer satisfaction and while
found food service to be the least significant. They also found that
staff services and the amenities provided by the hotel staff are most
vital factors for differentiating one hotel from others and
contributes towards customer satisfaction. According to them
exceptional services from guestroom amenities to the staff
interactions are essential to create a strong bond and maintain hotel
loyalty from the travellers who usually travels at companies
expenses and on a fast paced itinerary. Nam et al, (2011)
developed a model to show a link between customer satisfaction
and customer loyalty.
Adopted from Nam et al., 2011
According to their model physical quality and the behaviour of the
staff are the drivers of customer satisfaction which directly implies
to the customer loyalty. They also included self congruence, brand,
and the lifestyle as key drivers towards customer satisfaction. This
model clearly indicates a mediating relationship between customer

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 23
satisfaction and the loyalty. The path to loyalty goes through
customer satisfaction.
Dolnicar and Otter (2003) reviewed 21 studies published between
1984 and 2000 in hospitality, tourism research and business
journals to find out which of the hotel attribute matters most for
repeat purchase or for making a selection decision. They extracted
a total of 173 attributes. They categorised hotel attributes and when
they broke down particular hotel items and ranked them up, top 5
rankings from their study are as below:
1. Friendliness of staff
2. Price of accommodation
3. Service quality
4. Cleanliness of room
5. Location
These are the most talked about items related to a hotel in the study
of published material. Therefore it illustrates the importance of the
staff in customer satisfaction.
(Chu and Choi, 2000) also studied attributes which contributes
towards the selection process of a hotel. In their study they ranked
these attributes based on 3 criteria i.e. perceived by travellers,
perceived by business travellers, and perceived by leisure
travellers. Perceived attributes by travellers are ranked by (Choi
and Chu, 2001) is as follows:

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 24
1. Service quality
2. Business facility
3. Value
4. Room and front desk
5. Food and recreation
6. Security
Similarly the perceived attributes by business travellers are also
ranked as:
1. Room and front desk
2. Service quality
3. Security
4. Value
5. Business facilities
6. Food and recreation
For leisure travellers rankings given by (Choi and Chu, 2001) are:
1. Security
2. Service quality
3. Room and front desk
4. Value
5. Food and recreation
6. Business facility

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 25
In this study by (Choi and Chu, 2001), business facility included,
business related meeting rooms, and business related facilities,
secretarial service, and international direct dial service. Service
quality includes multi lingual skills of the staff, staff appearance,
service efficiency, request handling, politeness, and friendliness of
the staff. Value includes value for money for hotel room, and for
food and beverage. Value also includes location of the hotel,
ambience of the hotel and whether the hotel is a part of a reputed
chain. Room and front desk account for bed quality (beds,
mattress, and pillows), cleanliness of the room, check –in/ check-
out services, and the reliability of hotel reservation system.
Security accounts for reliability of fire alarms and for the
responsibility by security personnel (Choi and Chu, 2001).
To summarize, service quality, room and front desk, and value
seems to be vital attributes in making a selection decision for a
hotel.
(Sohrabi et al., 2012) also did a similar kind of study in Tehran
hotel industry. They collected 308 responses from travellers in
Tehran answering for the attributes which they look up before
making a hotel selection decision. They analysed all those factors,
categorised them and then ranked those factors as below:
1) Promenade and comfort (accounts whether hotel is near
recreational places or city centre. In room telephone,

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 26
airlines ticket reservation for guests, taxi-agency and
full time room service)
2) Cleanliness and room comfort (includes room
cleanliness, bed, mattress, pillow and laundry facility)
3) Security and protection (accounts for fire escape, fire
extinguish system, safe deposit box and emergency
services)
4) Network services(includes wire-less internet
connection, e-banking facility)
5) Pleasure (includes clean climate, view from hotel room,
food quality and green space)
6) Hotel staff and their services (accounts for staff
appearance, politeness and friendliness, and service
efficiency)
7) Expenditure (room rent, food price, accommodation
cost)
8) Car parking
9) Room facility (color tv or in room temperature control
system)
A diagram made by (Sohrabi et al., 2012) to illustrate essential
hotel attributes is as below:

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 27
Adapted from (Sohrabi et al., 2012)
This study by (Sohrabi et al., 2012) seems to be contrary one as the
previous studies discussed above in this section includes value for
money or expenditure at a higher ranking but in this study it is
ranked at 7th place. And similarly for hotel staff and services, all
other studies discussed above found it as a very vital attribute but
this study ranked it at 6th place.
Though both of the studies by (Sohrabi et al., 2012, Chu and Choi,
2000) are about the attributes which help customers in making
decision about selecting a hotel. But these can also be used as
secondary data source for this research also because this is also
about the perceptions of customer loyalty about the factors which
influence the customers to come back to same hotel or in other

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 28
words it can be said as the factors which influences the decision
making about selection of the hotel for coming back. Hence these
studies provide a secondary data for this research.
(Mattila, 2001) did a research to find out the attributes which foster
the intention of the customers to return to a restaurant. The
research found out that food quality, service and the ambience of
the place are major influential factors. These factors need to be
taken care for and fulfilled regardless of the level of the
commitment of the customers towards that restaurant. Value for
money and convenient location are also important motivational
factors for making customers to visit again in case of the low
commitment of the customers towards the restaurant (Mattila,
2001). (Liu and Jang, 2009) also conducted same research for the
Chinese restaurants in U.S. in which they listed the important
attributes by their rankings:
1.) Service related attributes (friendly, helpful, attentive, and
knowledgeable staff, consistent and dependable service)
2.) Atmosphere related attributes (ambience, decor, lighting,
music, cleanliness, staff appearance and room temperature)
3.) Other attributes (fair price, food authenticity, and
environmental aspects)
4.) Food related attributes (taste, food preparation, menu
variety, freshness, appropriate food temperature, food
safety and healthy food option)

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 29
Though the studies done by (Mattila, 2001, Liu and Jang, 2009) are
related to the restaurants but can be transferred to the hotels as
well. Hotels and restaurants provide identical services and are
intangible, heterogeneous, and inseparable in nature and it makes
the attributes for both hotels and restaurants transferable to each
other.
To conclude the above discussion, customer service, cleanliness of
the hotel, and room quality evolved as major influential attributes
of customer satisfaction. Value for money, convenient location,
safety, and security related are also found having a significant
importance. Though the studies such as by Dolnicar and Otter
(2003), (“Sunny” Hu et al., 2010, Han and Ryu, 2009), Mohsin and
Lockyer, (2010) etc. found value for money as an important
attribute as much as giving value for money 2nd ranking among all
attributes.
Ramanathan and Ramanathan (2011)’s work is being used a
framework for this study. They studied the online ratings available
from laterooms.com. To gather the primary data, they studied the
reviews written by customers for 664 UK hotels. They did not only
considered hotels but other properties also such as guesthouses
with minimum 30 ratings. They used a total of 664 hotels and
studied total of 24,544 customer ratings. On laterooms.com
customers can rate hotel on its attributes on the scale from 1 to 6.

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 30
On the basis of basis of ratings they ranked these hotel attributes
as:
1. Customer service
2. Cleanliness
3. Room quality
4. Value for money
5. Food quality
6. Family friendliness
The discussion above can be summarised and illustrated in the
table below:
Table 1. Illustration of the attributes from various
studies:
Author Context of
study
Attributes
Choi and Chu,
(2001)
Attributes for
hotel selection
Service quality
Business facility
Value
Room and front desk
Food and accommodation
security
Choi and Chu,
(2001)
Attributes for
business
travellers for
hotel selection
Room and front desk
Service quality
Security
Value

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 31
Business facility
Food and accommodation
Choi and Chu,
(2001)
Attributes for
leisure
travellers for
hotel selection
Security
Service quality
Room and front desk
Value
Food and accommodation
Business facility
Matilla, (2001)
Restaurants
Food quality
Service quality
Ambience
Value for money
Convenient location
Tsuar et al., (2002)
Relationship
between
customer
satisfaction and
customer
loyalty
Physical quality
Staff behaviour
Ideal self congruence
Brand identification
Lifestyle congruence
Dolnicar and Otter,
(2003)
Study of
published work
to find out the
important
attribuites
Friendliness of staff
Price of accommodation
Service quality
Cleanliness of room
Location
Yavas and
Babakus, (2005)
Hotels
Customer service
Cleanliness of hotel
Facilities at hotel

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 32
Price
Food quality
Location
Liu and Jang,
(2009)
Restaurant
Service related attributes
Atmosphere related attributes
Other attributes (value etc.)
Food related attributes
Mohsin and
Lockyr, (2010)
Factors
influential on
service quality
in luxury hotels
Cleanliness of the hotel
Value for money
Location
Friendliness
Outside appearance of hotel
Ramanathan and
Ramanathan,
(2011)
Factor
influencing
customer
loyalty
Customer service
Cleanliness
Room quality
Value for money
Food quality
Family friendliness
Sohrabi et al.,
(2012)
Hotel selection
attributes
Promenade and comfort
Cleanliness and room comfort
Security and protection
Network services
Pleasure
Hotel staff and their service
Expenditure
Car parking
Room facility

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 33
Table 1 discusses and illustrates various attributes related to
hotels for influencing customer loyalty. After summarise the
important attributes from the table 1, important attributes can be
listed as below:
So the important attributes can be generalised and listed as below:
a.) Customer service/ service quality
b.) Hotel cleanliness/ ambience
c.) Room quality
d.) Value for money
e.) Food quality
f.) Friendliness of the staff
These attributes have been discussed in all studies which are being
mentioned in table 1 above. Service quality from the discussion
has been found as a factor which vitally effects customer
satisfaction. Table 1 also shows customer service among top
ranked attributes and mostly ranked 1 attribute for enhancing
service quality and customer satisfaction.
2d.) Service quality
In era of globalisation and intense competition among the market,
the hotel organisations are being forced to focus on service quality
and the excellence in the strategies in order to retain loyal and the
most profitable pool of its customers (Karatepe, 2006). Studies

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 34
carried out to find out the effects of service quality on consumer
purchasing intentions by Wolfinbarger and Gilly (2001) says that
service quality and customer satisfaction are one of the most
important element within the service marketing context. Also Yang
and Fang (2004) argues that service improvement may contribute
to increased perceived quality which could in turn increase
consumer satisfaction. Furthermore, Urban et al., (2000) states that
being able to provide satisfaction to customers help in increasing
market share which may also lead to profitability. Wingfield and
Rose (2001) indicate that service quality and customer satisfaction
have a link with customer purchasing intentions, with service
quality having less effect on consumer purchasing decisions. This
seems to indicate that there is relationship between consumer
satisfaction and consumer purchasing decisions.
According to Yang and Fang, (2004), the ability to maintain
service quality within the hospitality industry is one of the essential
criteria to retain customers .Kotler et al., (2005) also make mention
that service quality serves a major determinant of differentiating
the service delivery to their customers. Cox and Dale (2001)
suggest that the consumers’ service quality determines the extent
to which the service experience is being delivered. Zeithaml et al.,
(2002) explain that one of the ways to improve on the service
quality offerings is to adopt technology to enhance the service
system enablement.

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 35
Kotler et al., (2005) recognise the role of service value chain and
its contribution to the delivery of good quality service to the
customer. Namkung and SooCheong, (2007) suggest that that
service quality systems should be based on the service experience
of the customer. For example, service quality within the restaurant
sector includes serving food in good condition, smart and neatly
dressed waiters who are able to take orders promptly and interact
positively with customers. This should extend onto getting
feedback from the customer and following it up.
Seth et al., (2005) indicate that the prevailing competitive
environment may be able to influence customers’ perceived quality
and the actual service encounter. Bitner et al., (2002) state that
customers should be able to understand their service perception in
order for them to benefit from the change in attitude which is
associated with service quality adoption. Therefore hotels need to
ensure that service perceptions are clearly explained. Yen (2005)
suggests that organisational image and reputation also contributes
to the customers’ perceived service quality. For example customer
walking into Hilton hotel will be with a perception of highly
standardised service, even if has never been to the hotel. Hilton
hotels reputation and image in the market makes guests to make
such perception. Kotler et al., (2005) explain that being able to
deliver on time service lifts up the actual service encounter which
in turn helps to influence customers to appreciate the service they

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 36
are being offered. Kotler et al., (2005) also suggested that going
beyond the perceived service quality makes customer delighted
and extremely satisfied. To achieve a better service quality
perception and better guest satisfaction, designing the service
delivery in such a way which incorporates customer participation
can play a significant role to influence customer service quality
perception (Yang and Fang, 2004). For example self service check-
in and check-out systems at Hilton hotels may influence customer
to perceive a fast and automated service delivery. This seems to
indicate that allowing customers to participate in the delivering of
the service may be able to enhance the service quality perception.
Watcher (2002) argues that the failure of service delivery systems
could result into reduced service quality perception since
customers may be disappointed which could also contribute to the
loss of opportunity to improve on customer loyalty and can also
affect the profitability of the organisation. Kotler and Armstrong
(2008) states that lack of quality service may result in the loss of
even committed customers if not improved quickly. Vargo and
Lusch (2004) advocate that one of the major advantages of service
quality is that it enhances organisations’ competitive advantages
and provides a fruitful effect within the marketplace. Cox and Dale
(2001) emphasise that service organisations should be able to link
all the core service delivery systems to their core service values in
order to be successful. This seems to indicate that organisations are

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 37
able to provide quality services by aligning their service operations
to their core values.
So, various tangible and the intangible factors collectively
contribute towards achieving customer satisfaction which
ultimately results in enhancing customer loyalty. Various methods
have been used from focus group to the questionnaire to online
ratings and comments. Still all researches discussed above
produced identical results. Ramanathan and Ramanathan, (2011)
used online ratings from www.laterooms.com. This study is also
following their work as a framework for the research.

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 38
Research methodology
Research methodology helps in structuring the process by which
the aims and the objectives of the research are achieved. This part
of research will discuss about the different types of research
methods and their suitability to this research.
3a.) Background to research methods
Saunders et al. (2009), suggests that there are basically two kinds
of research theories:
i.) Deduction
ii.) Induction
Deduction theory is also known as testing theory. This theory is
mainly used when the researcher have developed a hypothesis or
theory and designs a research strategy to test this thesis or theory in
which he/ she collects data, analyses the result and test the
hypothesis against it (Saunders et al., 2009). This theory is based
on the scientific principles and moves from theory to the data. This
type of research only explains a casual relationship between the
different variables involved. The data collected is mainly
quantitative and needs an application of control mechanism over it
to ensure the validity of the data (Saunders et al., 2009). It is a

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 39
highly structured approach and operationalizes the concepts to
ensure the clarity in the definition. It emphasises on the necessity
of the selection of the sample in sufficient size in order to draw the
generalised conclusions (Saunders et al., 2009). For example if one
wants to find out why people visit a specific restaurant again and
again, then have to look for the literature to find out what are the
factors which make people to come back. It may be food quality,
service quality or staff behaviour; and from literature we found that
its food quality, then we will test it based on the questions on the
possible factors derived from literature. the numerical data will be
collected and will be assessed arithmetically. The result may prove
the earlier developed theory right or we may find that it’s being
changed now and it is staff behaviour which makes people to go
back to the same restaurant (Liu and Jang, 2009).
According to Saunders et al., (2009), induction theory is more
likely to be concerned with the context in which the events are
taking place. This theory deals with the understanding of the
participants in the research and main aim of this theory is to make
visible the subjective and the inter-subjective actions (Saunders et
al., 2009). For this research theory the collection of the data is
qualitative in nature and the researcher feels to be a part of the
research process. This approach is more flexible and allows the
changes in the research emphasis as the research progresses
(Saunders et al., 2009). This process is less concerned with the

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 40
need of generalisation to draw the conclusion. Induction can work
out with a small sample size irrespective of the deduction in which
a large sample is needed to carry out the results (Saunders et al.,
2009). For example we want to know about the experience of staff
working in a hotel; then we have to interview the staff. These
interviews will provide a data and their analysis will be the
formulation of theory. In this participants can answer anything
whatever they want to. These answer then need to be labialised
into similar categories. This approach towards research will be
called quantitative which will be discussed later in this research
(Saunders et al.,2009).
The followers of the induction theory criticises the deduction
because of the rigidity of its methodology which does not permit
an alternative explanation of what is happening. Though
alternative explanations can be derived from deduction as well but
it is supposed to be within the limits designed by the highly
structured research design (Saunders et al., 2009).
Apart from these two research theories, according to Bryman,
(2001) there are two groups of research approaches:
i.) Quantitative
ii.) Qualitative
Quantitative approach: Quantitative research engages with the
numerical and quantity measurements which includes gathering

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 41
mathematical or numerical data and examining it arithmetically.
This approach has been proved very useful for the business
organisations as it has helped management in advancing their
decision making process (Easterby-Smith et al., 2002)
Qualitative approach: Hussey and Hussey, (1997) put forward that
qualitative research deal with how people recognize their
knowledge or perception. This approach is more subjective and
very suitable for the inductive researches.
A comparison of both these approaches is being expressed below
in the table.
Table 2. Comparison of qualitative and
quantitative research
Quantitative approach Qualitative approach
Based on the on the
meaning derived from the
numbers
Based on the meaning derived
from the words
Gathering results in
numerical and standardised
form of data
Gathering non-standardised data
and labelling it into various
categories
Use of diagrams, charts and
graphs to show the analysis
of the results
Use of the conceptualisation
maps to show the analysis
Methods use to collect the
data are mainly
Questionnaires.
Methods used are focus groups,
interviews etc.
It is less time consuming. It is time consuming process.

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 42
Source: adapted from Healy and Rawlinson, 1994 cited in
Saunders et al., 2009
Table 2, summarises and compares the quantitative and qualitative
approach. And from this discussion we found that quantitative
approach works well with the deduction theory while qualitative
approach does with the induction theory. Discussing about the
research approaches Easterby- Smith et al., (2002), elaborates that
the research approaches are some of the methodologies which are
specifically designed to help position the thoughts of the research.
The success of the research depends on the correctness of the data
and its interpretation.
Data: (Saunders et al., 2009) suggests data is mainly of two types:
primary data and secondary data. Primary data is the data which a
researcher collects himself or herself either by using methods of
qualitative or quantitative approaches. On the other hand
secondary data is the published or raw material of somebody other
than the researcher himself/ herself (Saunders et al., 2009). For
example, the data collected by getting the questionnaires filled or
by interviews conducted by the researcher itself, will be primary
data. While the surveys conducted by someone else or any of the
published literature are secondary data.

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 43
3b.) Research approach:
The aim of the research in this dissertation is exploring the factors
which influences customer loyalty whether the performance of
hotels in budget and luxury hotels of UK on those factors influence
guests to stay again.
Saunders et al., (2009), suggests that adopting a suitable research
approach helps in making the underlying theory of the research
clear. That is why different researches require different research
approaches in order to achieve their set aim and objectives (Yin,
2003). This means the application of suitable research method is
the key in the success of the research. So in order to achieve the set
aim for this research, it will be carried out on deduction theory and
hence a quantitative approach will be used. This will make the
processes of the research feasible, because numerical data is
collected in quantitative research. Given the timeframe available
and inexperience of the researcher for this research this is the most
suitable approach. Quantitative approach will also be helpful in
deducing the meaning from the research questionnaire.
3c.) Research sample:
Since it is not possible to collect responses from all the research
population; a smaller group of the respondents will be formed with
same characteristics and the attributes. The research sample will be
targeted at two hotel groups; Hilton and Holiday Inn Express

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 44
situated in the city of London, Edinburg, Belfast and Cardiff. It is
because both of these hotel groups are well known and reputed in
their category i.e. luxury hotels and the budget hotels and are
situated in all these cities from which the sample is be collected.
All these four cities are the capital cities in United Kingdom and
will provide the data with the same characteristics and which will
be rich in meaning.
Primary data collection:
Since the aim of this research is to examine and explore the factors
which influence customer loyalty in hotels in UK, so the data
needs to be collected from the responses of the customers who
have stayed at these hotels and in these specified cities. Because of
the time constraints it is not possible to study all the hotels in
United Kingdom in this research. For this research, it is not
possible to interview those guests or to ask them to respond to the
questionnaires, so online rating will be used from laterooms.com.
The idea of using the online ratings has been developed from
Ramanathan and Ramanathan, (2011). Use of online ratings now
has been proved to be a significant method for data collection by
researchers. (Briggs et al., 2007) have also used rating from
tripadvisor to collect the primary data for their research.
Hilton hotels in London have their 20 properties listed on
laterooms.com as 4 star hotels. Holiday Inn Express has its 16

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 45
hotels registered on laterooms.com. Similarly, Hilton in Edinburgh
has 2 hotels and Holiday Inn Express has 6, in Cardiff both Hilton
and Holiday Inn Express has one hotel registered while in Belfast
both group has 2 and 1 hotels each respectively. So this provides a
total number of 41 hotels to be studied. Ratings given from April,
2011 till April, 2012 will be studied for a maximum of top 10
ratings from each hotel. Time frame of one year has been used
because of the low volume of the ratings provided. But because
only one who has booked a room through lateroom.com can rate a
hotel makes the available data genuine. This provides us with a
possibility of getting upto 490 ratings, which is a makes a good
sample for the research. Saunders et al., (2009) suggests that a
minimum of 30 responses proves to be the thumb rule for the
research.
About laterooms.com
Laterooms.com is one of the UK’s leading online accommodation
specialists. They have over 50000 properties in the UK, Europe
and worldwide in their database. Out of which 10,800 are in UK
and Ireland. Their database comprises of properties ranging from
hotels to self catering apartments; from 5 star luxury hotels to
budget hotels. They are providing extra services such as theatre
bookings, restaurant bookings. They have partnership with travel
agents such as www.thetrainline.com to offer a wider range of

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 46
services. They also provide city guide in order to providing extra
information to their customers. The star classification on the
website is either by the self classification of the hotels or is by
Automobile Association of the UK, VisitBritain, VisitWales or
VisitScotland. 4 star hotels of Leeds listed on this website are 15
in total. 231758 people visit their website daily. 38% of the total
bookings made with are by business guests and 62% are by leisure
guests.
They have a strong database of more than 1 million reviews from
the users who have actually stayed in the hotel. Guests who book
rooms through laterooms.com are asked to rate their experience of
the stay at hotel. This rating is done in six different factors which
directly or indirectly affects customer loyalty as are mentioned
above in literature review as important factors for customer
satisfaction; customer service, cleanliness of hotel, quality of
room, value for money, quality of food and family friendliness of
the hotel. Likert scale is being used to measure from low to high;
low 1 and high 6 with the option of non- availability. The guests
are also asked if they will refer the hotel to their friends in yes/no
and whether would stay in the hotel again yes/no. The information
with yes and no is then being measured in percentage and
summarized as who say they would stay again and would refer to
their friends (Laterooms, 2012). For the purpose of the analysis of

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 47
the data from these ratings will be used. This will help in gathering
data from sub categories with people from same characteristics.
Secondary data:
Secondary data was collected from different sources such as
academic journals, books and other available sources of
information by using university library, academic journals, google
scholar, scinecedirect.com, and other trusted internet sources,
regarding the factors which influence customer loyalty in
hospitality industry. This data helped to frame the research aims
and the objectives of the research. According to Saunders et al.,
(2009), secondary data collection plays a vital role in exploration
and defining the research aims and objectives. Secondary sources
of data can also be used to validate the research findings by
comparing the responses to the ones available in literature
(Easterby-Smith et al., 2002). In this way, secondary data has been
an immense help in putting the research question into a defined
perspective.
3d.) Data analysis:
As ratings are available on likert scale from 1 to 6; where 1 is the
lowest and 6 is the highest similarly data will be assigned a
numerical value. Each factor will get points upto a maximum of 6.
For the factors which are not being rated it will be considered zero

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 48
and then the percentage value will be carried out from rest 9
ratings, instead of 10, as is seen below in the example below.
Points earned by one factor will then be compared to the other in
order to generalise the result. Then the points collected for one city
and one hotel group will be compared to the other group hotel of
the same city. Result of this will help in concluding the answer for
the research question. It is also supported by Saunders et al.,
(2009) as it suggests quantitative data involves questions which are
in ranked order and also which are in category order. A
comparison between the leisure and the business guests will also
be done to see if there is any difference of these two segments of
different category hotels. So for example hotel X has scored
4,5,6,5,4,2,0,6,3,5 in its 10 latest reviews, to analyse it the rating
score will be added up which makes a total of 40 out of a
maximum of 54. So the score for service quality of hotel X is
74.07%. Each factor will be assessed in the similar way. Graphs
will be used to represent the analysis.
3e.) Reliability and validity:
Saunders et al., (2009) suggest that the validity and the reliability
of secondary data become easier to assess where a clear
explanation of the methodology used to collect the data is being
provided. The reliability and validity of secondary data may vary
over time as well as by the functions of the methods by which data

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 49
were being collected and the source from which collected. The
research work demands a careful and attentive approach towards
the source of the information to ensure the reliability and the
validity of the work.So, a careful selection of secondary data was
being carried out. All sources used in this research are post year
2000. It allows to collect the latest updated and the relevant data.
To increase the reliability of the primary data ratings from
laterooms.com were being used which deems to be done by the
genuine guests who have booked through laterooms.com.
3f.) Ethical considerations:
There are certain ethical codes of conduct which governs and
regulates the academic research and also checks for the acceptable
behaviours (Saunders et al., 2009). Easterby-Smith et al.,
(2002)suggest that it is very important to consider the ethical issues
when conducting the research as the issue of the consent must be
sought if the opinions and views are being collected to use for the
research purpose. It is also important for the participants to know
the purpose of the research. But as online ratings are being used for
the purpose of this research, so these issues do not comply with it.
The data used is already available in domain which can be
accessed by anyone. In this way it also exempts the point made by
Saunders et al., (2009) that it is of the equal importance to protect
the identity of the respondents.

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 50
To conclude, the research methodology adopted for the purpose of
this research provides a suitable framework to explore the factors
which influences customer loyalty and the performance of the
hotels in those factors within UK. Deduction theory is being
adopted which is well suited with the quantitative research
approaches. Use of the quantitative research approach will help in
deducing the result from the research questions. A sample size of
490 probable provides a healthy data sample for this research.

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 51
Research data analysis
This section of the dissertation displays the data collected during
primary research and provides an analysis of the same.
4a.) Results:
As discussed in previous section of dissertation (methodology),
primary research data is being collected from the online ratings
available on www.laterooms.com. A total of 41 hotels belonging to
the Hilton group and the Holiday Inn group located in Belfast,
Edinburgh, Cardiff, and London were studied for this research.
Top 10 ratings between April, 2011 to April, 2012 , given by
guests who had actually stayed in these hotels were to be studied.
This should make a sample size of 410 ratings similarly for the
business guest’s reviews and the leisure guest’s reviews, top 10 for
each hotel making a sum of 410 ratings each. But out of 41 hotels
5 hotels could not qualify for research either the ratings for those
hotels were not within the time frame given or did not have been
rated yet by the guests. The ratings which were within the set time
frame and were being used in this research which constitutes a
total of 254 general overall ratings, 95 business guest’s ratings and
222 leisure guest’s ratings. Distribution of the data according to the
hotel groups and different criteria are provided in table 3 below.

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 52
Table 3. Sample data distribution
Hotel name General
overall
ratings
Business
guest’s
ratings
Leisure guest’s
ratings
Hilton 113 29 103
Holiday Inn
Express
141 66 119
Total 254 95 222
As shown in the table 3. Business guest ratings are very limited in
the number as compared to the general overall ratings and leisure
guest ratings. It made result comparison and analysis problematic
and inconsistent.
The ratings are being given over six different criteria for each hotel
on the likert scale from 1 to 6. Where 1 is the minimum and 6 is
the maximum. These criteria are:
a.) Customer service
b.) Hotel cleanliness
c.) Room quality
d.) Value for money
e.) Quality of food
f.) Family friendliness

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 53
Rating for each of these criteria has been given a numerical value
based on its ratings. For example customer service got 4, 5, 3, 5
ratings. Then it is being calculated as 4+5+3+5+3 out of 30 i.e.
20/30; so the value will be 0.66. Similarly the same method of
calculation has been used for all criteria’s and the ratings.
Percentage value for mean of these ratings was then calculated and
was being used for the comparison of results. So the actual value
used for comparison for the above stated example will be 66%. A
limitation in the scoring used is that only a few ratings were
recorded for the criteria i.e. family friendliness. Along with these
criteria’s, 2 other criteria’s are also being studied which are
recommended the hotel to others and would stay again. The rating
for both of these criteria is available in percentage for each hotel.
Mean of that percentage value is being used for comparison.
The result will be presented in 8 graphs as below with a description
followed by comparative analysis in next section, i.e. findings:
1.) Figure 1. General ratings for Hilton hotel
2.) Figure 2. General ratings for Holiday Inn Express
3.) Figure 3. Business guest’s ratings for Hilton hotel
4.) Figure 4. Business guest’s ratings for Holiday Inn Express
5.) Figure 5. Leisure guest’s ratings for Hilton hotel
6.) Figure 6. Leisure guest’s ratings for Holiday Inn Express
7.) Figure 7. Ratings for recommended and would stay again
for Hilton Hotels

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 54
8.) Figure 8. Ratings for recommended and would stay again
for Holiday Inn Express
In all the graphs discussed below, all the values used are in
percentage and the vertical axis of all graphs represents the
rating scores while as horizontal axis represents the factors.
Figure 1. General ratings for Hilton Hotel
Figure 1 represents the general overall rating scores for the Hilton
hotels. It shows the Hilton hotels have scored highest ratings in
customer service i.e. 89%. Hotel cleanliness scored 85%, which is
the second best after customer service. Food quality and family
friendliness both factors have scored ratings of 82% & 83%
respectively. Value for money scored least (77%). Room quality
for Hilton hotel scored 80% just better than value for money.

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 55
Figure 2. General ratings for Holiday Inn Express
Figure 2 represents overall general ratings for Holiday Inn Express
hotels. This figure shows hotel cleanliness as the highest scoring
factor (86%), followed up by food quality with a rating score of
84%. Guests at Holiday Inn Express rated the customer service 3rd
with a score of 83%. Room quality and value for money both
factors were being rated at 80%. Family friendliness at Holiday Inn
Express hotels scored the least i.e. 79%.

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 56
Figure 3. Business guest’s ratings for Hilton hotels
Figure 3 presents business guest’s ratings for Hilton hotels for 6
factors. Hotels cleanliness top scored with score of %79, followed
up by customer service on 2nd spot with a score of 0.78. Value for
money scored 71% ratings score. Room quality scored 70%
followed up by food quality 69% as the least rating score among 5
factors which were being rated by business guests. Family
friendliness was not being rated by business guests.

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 57
Figure 4. Business guest’s ratings for Holiday Inn
Express Hotels
Figure 4 presents the results for Holiday Inn Express hotels based
on their ratings by business guests. Hotel cleanliness top scored for
Holiday Inn Express as well with 81% rating scores. Room quality
scored rating score of 78% followed by customer service 76%.
Value for money was given a rating score of 71% by business
guests. Food quality scored 66%. Family friendliness of the hotels
scored 58% but this factor was being rated by only 2 guests.

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 58
Figure 5. Leisure guest’s ratings for Hilton hotels
88 86 82 79 78 94
0
20
40
60
80
100
Figure 5 provides the result for the analysis of the ratings given by
leisure guests for Hilton hotels. Family friendliness scored the best
ratings i.e. 94% but this factor was being rated only by 10 guests
which is very limited as compared to remaining 5 factors which
were being rated by 103 guests. Customer service scored 88%
followed up by hotel cleanliness with the score of 86%. Room
quality and value for money scored 82% and 79% respectively.
Rating score for food quality is 78% by leisure guests.

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 59
Figure 6. Leisure guest’s rating for Holiday Inn
Express Hotels
83 88 82 79 79 60
0
20
40
60
80
100
Figure 6 represents the result of the analysis of the ratings by
leisure guests for Holiday Inn Express hotels. Holiday Inn Express
hotels scored most in terms of hotel cleanliness with a rating score
of 88%. Customer service scored 83% followed by room quality
with the score of 82%. Value for money and food quality scored
equal ratings i.e. 79%. Family friendliness scored 60%. Family
friendliness for Holiday Inn Express was rated by 22 leisure
guests.

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 60
Figure 7. Ratings for recommended and would stay
again for Hilton Hotels
82.02
81
81.61
82.88
84.05
81.7
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
general
overall
ratings
business
guests
leisure
guests
recomended
would stay again
Figure 7 represents the results for the average percentage of the
guests recommending the hotel to their friends and an average of
the guests who said they would stay again at the same hotel.
www.laterooms.com provides these figures for each hotel. The
values used in this graph are mean value for all Hilton hotels
analysed in this study based on 3 different rating criteria i.e.
general overall ratings, business guest’s ratings and leisure guest’s
ratings. For Hilton hotels 82.02% guests recommended the hotel to
their friends and 82.88% said they would stay again at the same
hotel. 81% business guests recommended the hotels to their friends
and 84.05 said they would stay again at the same hotel. 81.61%
leisure guests recommended the hotel and 81.7% said they would
stay again at the same hotel.

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 61
Figure 8. Ratings for recommended and would stay
again for Holiday Inn Express Hotels
Figure 8 represents the percentage of the guests who have
recommended Holiday Inn Express hotels and those who said
would stay again at the same hotel. From general overall ratings
81.4% guests recommended Holiday Inn Express Hotels and
82.14% said would stay again. 75.95% business guests
recommended and 81.75% said would stay again. 85.7% leisure
guests of Holiday Inn Express hotels said they would stay again at
the same hotel while 83.98% recommended hotels to their friends.

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 62
4b.) Findings:
This section presents a comparative analysis of the results and
enlists the findings from it. For the comparison of the results,
ratings for 8 different criteria are analysed to develop conclusion of
the result and to enlist the key findings, both for Hilton hotels and
Holiday Inn Express hotels. The criteria, used for comparison are:
 Customer service
 Hotel cleanliness
 Room quality
 Value for money
 Food quality
 Family friendliness
 Recommended hotel to friends
 Would stay again
Among these criteria customer service, hotel cleanliness, room
quality, value for money, food quality and family friendliness
represent the attributes which make guests to choose the same
hotel again (customer loyalty).
All the rating values used are in percentage. A uniform method of
calculation is being used to ensure constant reliability upon the
results.

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 63
The comparison is being presented in 3 graphs:
i.) Graph 1 - General overall ratings for Hilton hotels v/s
general overall ratings for Holiday Inn Express hotels
along with general overall ratings for guests
recommended hotel to their friends and said would stay
again for both hotel groups.
ii.) Graph 2 - Business guest ratings for Hilton hotels v/s
business guest ratings for Holiday Inn Express hotels
along with ratings of business guests who
recommended hotel to their friends and said would stay
again at same hotel.
iii.) Graph 3 - Leisure guest ratings for Hilton hotels v/s leisure
guest ratings for Holiday Inn Express hotels along with
ratings for leisure guest who recommended hotel to
their friends and said would stay again at the same
hotel.
The graphs are followed by a comparative discussion and then key
findings are listed followed by the discussion.
All graphs are presented in ratings v/s attributes (criteria)
fashion, where horizontal axis represents the attributes
(criteria) and vertical axis represents the ratings scored in
attributes. All the values used in the graphs are in percents.

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 64
Graph 1. General overall ratings (Hilton hotels v/s
Holiday Inn Express)
89 86
80 77
82 83 82.02
82.88
83 86
80 80
84
79 81.4
82.14
70
75
80
85
90
Hilton hotels
Holiday Inn Express
Graph 1 represents comparison of the rating scores of Hilton hotels
and Holiday Inn Express hotels against total of 8 criteria studied.
The graph indicates that 82.02% guests have recommended Hilton
hotels to their friends and 82.88% guests have said they would stay
again at the same hotel. For Holiday Inn Express this rating value
is 81.4% and 82.14% respectively for the guests who have
recommended the hotel to their friends and who said they would
stay again at the same hotel. There is a difference of 0.74% and
0.86% in the rating scores for these hotels in both these attributes
(recommended to friends and would stay again). This indicates that

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 65
both hotel groups retain almost same number of guests and are
successful in getting almost equal recommendations from guests.
The graph also shows Hilton hotels have scored the most rating
percentage for customer service i.e. 89% while the best for Holiday
Inn Express is for hotel cleanliness which is 86%. Hilton hotels as
well has scores exactly same ratings for hotel cleanliness as
Holiday Inn Express has (86%), this the second best rating score
among the six attributes. Second best score for Holiday Inn
Express is 83% for customer service. Besides these two attributes
both hotels have scored equal rating scores for room quality with
80% rating score. Though both groups have more rating scores for
food quality and family friendliness (Hilton hotels 82% and 83%
respectively; Holiday inn Express 84% and 94% respectively) than
the above discussed three attributes i.e. customer service, hotel
cleanliness and room quality. But when the comments posted along
with the ratings were being studied, it was found that the most
comments positive or negative were about these three attributes.
For customer service, there were comments for example one guest
of Hilton hotel, Cardiff city centre mentioned “very helpful staff. A
special thanks to Ruth and Joy were fantastic. They packed our
food before we left hotel to join the marathon. Definitely will come
back here again and will recommend to our friends as well.” There
was a comment about the Holiday Inn Express hotel, London
“staffs were busy in talking to each other rather than handling our

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 66
check in, rest everything was but still very disappointed for
customer service.” Whereas for Holiday Inn Express hotel,
Greenwich, London, comment was “ staff gave us a stareny stare
when we asked for iron in the room and said sorry we don’t do
room service.....would never come again here.” Regarding hotel
cleanliness guests commented “floor was not clean.” Room quality
was another attribute which was talked about in the comments
there were comments such as “room was tidy and clean......stay
was pleasant”, “...were spots on the bed sheet, didn’t look a fresh
one.” Another than these three attributes, value for money in case
of Holiday Inn Express was much talked about in the comments.
Guests commented “it was expensive compared to the services
hotel gives, was not really a value for money, would not come
back again if had to pay this much of amount again.” Though
Hilton hotel have scored 77% for value for money but this attribute
was not mentioned in the comments by the guests. Most of the
comments for Hilton hotels were focussed on customer service,
hotel cleanliness, and room quality. These comments reflected that
value for money is also a very critical attribute for Holiday Inn
Express hotels to make the guests come back again at the same
hotel. In case of food quality Hilton hotels scored 82% and
Holiday Inn Express scored 84%. Guests commented about food
quality as “breakfast could have been better, but overall satisfied
with the hotel”, another guest commented “food was not up to the

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 67
standards, but in the second attempt it was better, overall happy.”
There were a very limited number of ratings for family friendliness
for both hotel groups; Hilton hotels and Holiday Inn Express as
discussed above in the results section. So that makes comparison
with other attributes problematic and difficult. There were very
limited number of comments for food quality but these comments
reflected that food quality is not as much critical as the other three
attributes discussed above; customer service, hotel cleanliness and
room quality or even as the value for money for Holiday Inn
Express hotels. To conclude, customer service, hotel cleanliness,
and room quality are very critical in making the guests to come
back again at the same hotel and also in getting recommendations
from guests. Value for money is also very important for Holiday
Inn Express hotels.
As Hilton hotels represent luxury hotels and Holiday Inn Express
hotels represent budget hotel category, so we may conclude from
above comparison that for :
Luxury hotels customer service, hotel cleanliness, and room
quality are the most important attributes for making guests to come
back again at the same hotel. Value for money is important for
guest satisfaction, but it doesn’t really make guests to come back
but can disappoint guests. Food quality and family friendliness
stays neutral attributes in case of making guests coming back to the
same hotel, which means these attributes neither make guests to

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 68
come back or not to make them come back again at the same hotel.
These attributes can be ranked according to their importance in
making guests come back again at the same hotel as:
1.) Customer service
2.) Hotel cleanliness
3.) Room quality
4.) Value for money
5.) Food quality
6.) Family friendliness
Whereas for budget hotels, hotel cleanliness, customer service,
room quality and value for money are the critical factors for
making guests to come back again at the same hotel. Family food
quality and family friendliness prove to be the neutral for making
guests to come back again at the hotel. Attributes for budget hotels
can be ranked as:
1.) Hotel cleanliness
2.) Customer service
3.) Room quality and value for money
4.) Family friendliness
5.) Food quality.

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 69
Graph 2. Business ratings (Holiday Inn Express Hotels
v/s Hilton Hotels)
78 79 70 71 69
0
81 84.5
76 81 78 71 66 58
75.95
81.75
0
20
40
60
80
100
hilton hotels
holiday inn express
Graph 2 represents comparison between Holiday Inn Express
hotels and Hilton hotels based on the ratings from business guests
for both hotel groups. Graph shows 81% of the customers have
recommended Hilton hotels to their friends while 84.5% guests
said they would stay again at same hotel. For Holiday Inn Express
hotels 75.95% guests recommended the hotels to their friends
while 81.75% said they would stay again at the same hotel. While
among attributes for Hilton hotels hotel cleanliness scored highest
with78%. Hotel cleanliness also top scored for Holiday Inn
Express with 81% rating score. For Hilton hotels second best score
is for customer service (78%), while for Holiday Inn Express is
room quality with score of 78%. Customer service for Holiday Inn
Express stands at 3rd spot with rating score of 76% and for Hilton
hotels on 3rd spot is value for money (71%). Value for money in

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 70
terms of business guest for Holiday Inn Express scored 71%. For
food quality Hilton hotels scored 69% ratings score and Holiday
Inn Express scored 66%. Hilton hotels did not get any rating score
from business guests for family friendliness but the score for the
same attribute is 58% for Holiday Inn Express.
So these attributes can be ranked as follows for both hotel groups:
For Hilton hotels:
1.) Hotel cleanliness
2.) Customer service
3.) Value for money
4.) Room quality
5.) Food quality
For Holiday Inn Express:
1.) Hotel cleanliness
2.) Room quality
3.) Customer service
4.) Value for money
5.) Food quality
6.) Family friendliness
To conclude hotel cleanliness is the most important and
influencing factor for business guests irrespective of the hotel
brand. Customer service and room quality are two other major
influencing factors for business guests. Value for money is not so

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 71
critical factor for influencing business guests. For Holiday Inn
Express hotel value for money stood 4th in rank list while for
Hilton hotels it was at 3rd in list and scored just 1% higher rating
score than room quality. Hilton hotel London and Edinburgh
received negative comments from business guests. These
comments were related to internet usage. One guest commented “I
think net speed does not worth the amount I paid for
this.......internet should be provided free atleast in public areas.”
Food quality and family friendliness attributes do not really
influence repurchasing decision for both hotel groups.
Graph 3. Leisure guests ratings (Hilton hotels v/s
Holiday Inn Express)
88 86 82 79 78 94 81.61
81.7
83 88 81 79 79
60
83.98
85.7
0
20
40
60
80
100
hilton hotels
holiday inn express
Graph 3 illustrates the comparison of guest ratings by leisure
guests for both hotel groups i.e. Hilton hotels and Holiday Inn
Express hotels. This graph shows that Hilton hotels have been
recommended 81.61% of its leisure guests while 83.98% leisure

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 72
guests have recommended Holiday Inn Express to their friends.
81.7% guests have said that they would stay again with Holiday
inn Express hotels while for Hilton hotels this number is 85.7%.
Among the main attributes, highest rating score is for family
friendliness for Hilton hotels (94%). But this attribute was rated
only 10 guests, while average rating for other attributes are 103.
So, this makes the analysis process problematic and unfair for
comparison with other attributes. Apart from this, customer service
has scored highest rating points with a score of 88% and for
Holiday Inn Express hotels highest rating score is of 88% for hotel
cleanliness. For Hilton hotels, London guest commented “it was
our anniversary, and the staff made this day super special for us.
Were upgraded the room.......thank you Hilton staff, definitely will
be back again.” Hotel cleanliness on other hand scored 2nd best
rating scores for Hilton hotel with score of 86% and for Holiday
inn Express hotels 2nd best rating scores have been for customer
service by a rating score of 83%. Room quality grabbed 3rd best
rating for both hotels with the scores of 82% and 81% respectively
for Hilton hotels and Holiday Inn Express hotels. For Holiday Inn
Express, Cardiff, guests commented “sofa cum bed was too
small.........” “hotel was at a convenient distance from O2 concert”.
It was being further followed up by value for money with an equal
score of 79% each. For Hilton hotels London guests commented
about the car park for they which they had to pay. On the other

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 73
hand guest felt delighted for getting free car parking on the
premises for Hilton hotels. Then, comes food quality with score of
78% and 79% respectively for Hilton hotels and Holiday Inn
Express hotel. Family friendliness scores a rating point of 60% for
Holiday Inn Express hotels.
The attributes can be ranked below as :
For Hilton hotels
1.) Customer service
2.) Hotel cleanliness
3.) Room quality
4.) Value for money
5.) Food quality
6.) Family friendliness
For Holiday Inn Express hotels
1.) Hotel cleanliness
2.) Customer service
3.) Room quality
4.) Value for money
5.) Food quality
6.) Family friendliness
To conclude, for leisure guests of luxury hotels customer service,
hotel cleanliness and room quality are the most influential
attributes towards making the guests to come back and stay again

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 74
at the same hotel. Though, value for money also plays an important
role in making hotel selection decision. For leisure guests of
budget hotels, hotel cleanliness, customer service, and room
quality are highly influential attributes for retaining customers and
getting further recommendations from guests. Value for money
and food quality is the motivators behind making the decision
about hotel selection and the perception.
Whole analysis of results is being concluded in table below as:
Table 4. Hotel wise ranking list for Hilton hotels and
Holiday Inn Express hotels
Criteria Hilton hotels Holiday Inn
Express hotels
General ratings Customer service
Hotel cleanliness
Room quality
Value for money
Food quality
Family friendliness
Hotel cleanliness
Customer service
Room quality and
value for money
Family friendliness
Food quality.
Business guests
ratings
Hotel cleanliness
Customer service
Value for money
Room quality
Food quality
Hotel cleanliness
Room quality
Customer service
Value for money
Food quality
Family friendliness

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 75
leisure guests
ratings
Customer service
Hotel cleanliness
Room quality
Value for money
Food quality
Family friendliness
Hotel cleanliness
Customer service
Room quality
Value for money
Food quality
Family friendliness
Table 4 summarises the result analysis. Irrespective of the hotel
segments and the brands, it is evident from the table above, that
customer service; hotel cleanliness and room service are highly
influential factors. Better performance of the hotels in these factors
may lead to improved customer loyalty and can help in getting
recommendations from the guests. Value for money is another
factor which influences customers in making their perception about
repurchasing intention for a particular hotel. Food quality and
family friendliness are neutral attributes. Better performance in
these attributes help guests in making their perception about the
hotel. But even if hotel does not perform well in these factors still,
it does not really dissatisfy the guests.

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 76
4c.) Discussion:
Strong customer base is very essential for the survival of an
organisation is this highly competitive market and maintaining
greater customer loyalty is the best strategy to prosper (Earnst and
young, 1996) cited in (Kandampully and Suhartanto, 2003).
Holmund and Kock, (1996) cited in (Kandampully and Suhartanto,
2003). Customer loyalty leads an organisation to improved
profitability (John and Shiang-Lih, 2001). When one organisation
manages to retain only 5% more of its customers, the profit level
of the organisation increases by 25% to 125% (Reichheld and
Sasser, (1990) cited in John and Shiang-Lih, 2001). John and
Shiang-Lih, (2001) also revealed that the customers who said will
definitely return to the same hotel, 88.52 % of them returned and
96.9% of those customers spread a positive word of mouth about
the hotel. In this research, both of the hotel groups i.e. Hilton
hotels and Holiday Inn Express hotels in all categories in which
ratings were being recorded (general ratings, business guest ratings
and leisure guest ratings) scored on an average above 80% in terms
of the guests who said would stay again at the same hotel and got
recommended by an average of 80% of the guests. So, if these
results are being applied to this theory of profitability by retaining
customer, then atleast 64% guests would come back to the same
hotels and are more likely to spread a positive word of mouth.
Hence both hotel group are doing quiet well in terms of the
retention of existing customer and generating higher profitability,
because retention of only 5% more customers lead to 25% to 125%
profit, so atleast 64% of customers coming back to the same hotel
indicates that the hotels hold a strong loyal customer’s pool. This
equation verifies the statement made by Kotler et al., (2005) that
loyal customers are less likely to complain and get unsatisfied than
non –loyal guests. If the graphs are to be examined the rating
scores for all attributes are very good at average score of 76%.

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 77
Apart from analysing the ratings for guests who recommended the
hotel to their friends and said would stay again, 6 more attributes
were being studied which accounts for the customer satisfaction.
These attributes are: customer service, room quality, hotel
cleanliness, value for money, food quality, and family friendliness.
These attributes evolved through the discussion over the existing
literature. Online ratings from laterooms.com were being used to
examine the extent to which these attributes influence customer
loyalty. For the comparative analysis these attributes were studied
in three different categories for two hotel groups i.e. Hilton hotels
and Holiday Inn Express hotels. Three different categories for
analysis are: a.) based on general overall ratings b.) business guest
ratings c.) leisure guest ratings. Now all these three categories will
be discussed separately.
General overall ratings:
As it is evident from the table 4 that customer service, hotel
cleanliness, room quality and value for money are important
factors which influence customer satisfaction and hence customer
loyalty. Food quality and family friendliness does not seem to have
influence over overall customer satisfaction as it is evident from
the comments discussed in the previous sub section “Findings.”
Even when guests did not like food but still they were not unhappy
and commented that they would come back again. By observing
the comments posted by guests over laterooms.com, it is clear that
guests are hugely influenced by service quality, hotel cleanliness,
and room quality. Guests commented “mattress was hard.......room
was too small.. will not stay here again”, “bed was not freshly
done, i even found a dirty plate in room.....dirt was visible in room,
not happy.” Customer service is found to be the factor which vastly
influences customer’s perceptions. Comments about customer
service are being discussed in previous sub section. Though for
guests of Holiday Inn Express, value for money is also an
important factor but this factor does not have much of influence
over customer perception and their intentions to stay again at the
same hotel. Though, these findings do not really comply with the
literature available. Choi and Chu (2001) had the same attributes

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 78
on the listing except for the business facility. Otherwise they have
on list service quality, value, room and front desk, food and
accommodation and security. Matilla, (2001), also had the same
attributes as food quality, service quality, ambience, value for
money and convenient location. It was a research done on
restaurants, so food quality can be taken rid of from this list, rest 4
attributes are same which are summarised in Table 1. Tsuar et al.,
(2002), stated physical quality and staff behaviour as the attributes
towards the achievement of customer satisfaction which will lead
to customer loyalty. The attributes studied in this research have
hotel cleanliness and room quality as physical qualities, and staff
behaviour fall under customer service. The general overall ratings
based analysis for Hilton hotel, replicates itself with the study done
by Ramanathan and Ramanathan, (2011). They also listed these
attributes as:
Customer service
Hotel cleanliness
Room quality
Value for money
Food quality and
Family friendliness
For Holiday Inn Express also it is just one change in the listing of
attributes as in table 4, hotel cleanliness goes in place of customer
service and vice versa. The rating listing for Hilton hotels vary
from the study of luxury hotels of Delhi done by Mohsin and
Lockyr, (2010). That study by them lists as:
Cleanliness of the hotel
Value for money
Location/
Friendliness
Outside appearance of hotel
In study by Mohsin and Lockyr, (2010) found staff related factor at
4th place, which is a contrast to the results of this dissertation.
Because, this research found customer service as the most
significant factor. The comment about making anniversary day
special of a guest empowers the statement made by Kotler et al.,(

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 79
2005) that when the service above perceived quality is delivered
customers feel delighted and delighted guests have more tendency
of visiting the same hotel again. So it is not only about delivering
the good service but it asks for extended service
Business guest ratings:
For business guests as well is a critical attributes for gaining
customer loyalty or customer satisfaction. But for Hilton hotel’s
value for money makes a surprising entry into the rating list at 3rd
spot leaving behind the room quality. Rest every attribute is at
same position. In business rating both hotel groups opens with
hotel cleanliness followed by customer service or room quality.
Choi and Chu, (2001) studied attributes for business travellers to
make a decision to choose a particular hotel. In their research they
put room and front desk at top followed by service quality,
security, value, business facility, and food and accommodation. In
contrast to their study, the results discussed in previous sub section
and also summarised in table 4 shows room quality to be at 4th
place for Hilton hotels and 3rd place for Holiday Inn Express.
Though, the outcome of the result analysis somehow matches to
the results of study done by Matilla, (2001) for restaurants. Except
for the food quality it also displays all the identical attributes such
as service quality, ambience, value for money and convenient
location. Sohrabi et al., (2012), did not rank the attributes which
they explored in their study but the attributes which they suggested
are important for making decision in hotel selection, covered a
relatively larger area than the attributes developed from any other
study covered in this research.
Leisure guest ratings:
An examination and analysis of the leisure guest ratings for both
Hilton hotels and Holiday Inn Express again found customer
service and hotel cleanliness being among top two factors based on
ratings. Collectively it can be ranked as below:
Customer service/ hotel cleanliness
Hotel cleanliness/ customer service
Room quality
Value for money

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 80
Food quality
Family friendliness
This ranking list is the same for Hilton hotel as was being found in
the study by Ramanathan and Ramanathan, (2011) (see table 4 for
ranking summary). Though it varies for Holiday Inn Express
instead of being customer service on top, hotel cleanliness is top
ranked for Holiday Inn Express. Ranking gained for these attribute
also matches with the rankings found by Yavas and Babakus,
(2005) in their study. They listed it as:
Customer service
Cleanliness of the hotel
Facilities at the hotel (can be interpreted as room quality because
room also is a facility provided by the hotels.)
Price (value for money can be covered under it)
Food quality
Location
Comments were being posted by guests about the location of the
hotels which were both positive and negative. For example positive
comments were “brilliant....just ten minutes walk upto concert
from hotel, loved it. Next time also will stay here” and the negative
comments were “hotel is very close to tube station had to get up
early because of tubes noise” or my room was facing the
road...could not sleep whole night because of the noise.” Attributes
developed by Liu and Jang, (2009) also covers all these rankings
for Hilton and Holiday Inn Express hotels. Attributes discussed by
them are as under:
Service related attributes (customer service, staff behaviour etc)
Atmosphere related attributes may include hotel cleanliness part
Other attributes (may include room quality, value for money)
Food related attributes (food quality)
The attributes suggested by Dolnicar and Otter, (2003) do not
really represent any of the above discussed attributes comparison.
In their research they have indicated friendliness of staff and price
of accommodation as more critical than service quality.
So from the discussion above we may conclude that service
quality is a factor with huge effectiveness in influencing

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 81
customers’ decision making and helps in changing the perception
of the guest about a particular hotel. Room quality and hotel
cleanliness are also two significant attributes along with value for
money in term of leisure guests. This research is being designed on
the framework of Ramanathan and Ramanatan (2011). Their
findings for the work in 2011 are similar to the findings of this
research for Hilton hotels in terms of general rating and leisure
guest ratings. Business guests ratings are different from the rating
assessed by Ramanathan and Ramanathan, (2011). For Holiday Inn
Express the ratings are very different from Ramanathan and
Ramanathan, (2011). Key points from this analysis can be
highlighted as below:
 Customer service, hotel cleanliness, and room quality are
the most critical factor for influencing not only evolved by
this research but by the whole literature discussed above in
section 2 as literature review.
 For luxury hotel guests service quality is the most
perceived factor, while for budget hotels hotel cleanliness
is the most critical.
 Value for money is a motivator to make purchasing
decision both for luxury and the budget hotels. It does not
itself influences the decision making process.

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 82
Conclusion
While drawing conclusion from the literature review, it seems that
the customer loyalty is something which is quite essential for
organisations to attain but it’s quite difficult to attain. The reason
behind that is growth of the market and competition. Customers
more options to choose from. If customers find their needs are not
been fulfilled at this hotel then they tend to shift to another. So, it
is very important for the hotel organisations to keep track of guest
needs to retain them. Retaining the existing customers is cheaper
than attracting the new ones. Such customers are not only
profitable but are also easily satisfying and less complainants also
(Kotler et al., 2005).
Customer satisfaction acts as mediator between various services
provided to the guests and the customer loyalty. A satisfied
customer can only become loyal to an organisation. So it is very
important to focus on the factors which effects customer
satisfaction. From literature review a list of tangible and intangible
factors is being derived which effects customer satisfaction and
hence influence customer loyalty. Customer service, room quality,
hotel cleanliness, value for money, food quality, and family
friendliness are the factors which influences customer loyalty in
hotel industry (Ramanathan and Ramanathan, 2011).
By studying the online ratings, it is being concluded that, both
budget and luxury hotels are performing well in terms of these
factors and are able to get positive recommendations from the
guests. Hotels have been able to make the guest come back again
at an average of 80% and according to John and Shiang-Lih,
(2001) will succeed in retaining atleast 60% of them.
Out of these factors, customer service has vital influence on
customer loyalty. Room quality and hotel cleanliness are also very
important factor for maintaining customer loyalty. Value for
money does not directly influences the customer loyalty but is a
motivational force behind changing the guests perception and

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 83
making them to stay again at same hotel. But a poor performance
in any of the 3 factors customer service, room quality and hotel
cleanliness may result in lowered value for money. Food quality
and family friendliness are neutral, they neither encourage nor
discourage from staying at same hotel again. These factors have
same effect in case of both luxury hotels and budget hotels.
However it was quite surprising finding that value of money have
similar influence on both budget and luxury hotel customers.
5a.) Recommendations
For further research: For any further research in this subject, it is
recommended to use a larger sample size than this one.
It is also recommended to use extended sources for data collection
such as tripadvisor, laterooms.com as in this research only
laterooms.com is being used to gather data.
Use of both qualitative and quantitative methods is recommended.
For industry:
Hotel managers are needed to focus on service quality. So,
managers are recommended to develop frequent and updated
training programs for their employee.
Hotel organisations are recommended to focus on customer
retention by developing certain mechanisms to track the
performance of the hotel in fulfilling guest’s requirements.
5b.) Limitations:
Time available (3 months) for the completion of the research was a
constraint in carrying out this research.
Because of limited time this research is limited to just 41 hotels.
Inexperience of the researcher: it was first experience of the
researcher to carry out such research based work.
Data interpretation and result analysis was limited to graphs only.
Primary data used for this research is not very recent.
Only one website was consulted for data collection.

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty 84
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