Understanding the Hospitality Consumer

Alastair Williams

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136351174
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Industria dell'ospitalità e del turismo
• Index: Business

'Understanding the Hospitality Consumer' presents a unique perspective on consumer behaviour in the hospitality sector. It seeks to focus on the role of consumption in hospitality and to investigate our understanding of its place in the contemporary industry. Taking the view that successful marketing demands focusing on the customer, this text concentrates on understanding and determining customer needs, relevant factors in consumer buying behaviour and the effectiveness of today's marketing techniques. Using industry based case studies and examples 'Understanding the Hospitality Consumer': * Introduces and explores the role of consumer behaviour theory in the context of hospitality management
* Discusses the principles and research of consumer behaviour and illustrates how they are used in the hospitality industry today
* Examines the value of consumer behaviour research as applied to the contemporary hospitality industry
* Explores the challenges to traditional approaches to consumption posed by the postmodern hospitality consumer The book's targeted focus and practical application ensures that it is well suited for both students and practising managers in the hospitality field.

PART 1 Setting the Context for the Study of Hospitality Consumption

DOI: 10.4324/9780080519968-1

CHAPTER 1 An introduction to the consumption of hospitality services

DOI: 10.4324/9780080519968-2

Key themes

• The study of consumption has grown exponentially, to a point where for many commentators it now comprises the centre of the discipline of marketing, at least in an academic sense. This growth has recently coincided with a shift in our perception of how consumers act.
• This chapter introduces and explores the role of consumer behaviour theory within the discipline of hospitality management, in order to assist students in understanding and applying the concepts of consumer behaviour to hospitality contexts and markets.
• Many of the existing consumer behaviour books are written from a marketing perspective and view the consumer as the object rather than the subject of the text. This text investigates consumer behaviour by emphasizing the behaviour of real consumers and then showing how marketers seek to influence their behaviour.
• This text is an introduction to the study of consumer behaviour within a recognized social context, that is, in relation to the products, services and markets of the hospitality industry.

An introduction to a discipline of consumer behaviour research

Increasingly we are referred to as consumers, whether we are parents, train users, hospital patients or, in the context in which we are primarily interested, users of hospitality services including bars, hotels, clubs and restaurants. Understanding the Hospitality Consumer seeks to focus on the role of consumption in hospitality and to investigate our understanding of its place in the contemporary industry. The text aims to discuss aspects of consumption within a recognized social context, that is, in relation to the products, services and markets of the hospitality industry.

The study of consumption has grown exponentially, to a point where for many commentators it now comprises the centre of the discipline of marketing, at least in an academic sense. Consumption is a part and parcel of everyday life; areas that were previously free of issues in respect of the marketplace have had to adapt to cope with a world where the consumer is paramount. For many people success is measured in terms of how well we are doing as consumers; consumption pervades all aspects of our everyday life and can be argued to structure all of our experience. As Miles (1998: 1) suggests: ‘Our city centres are more remarkable as sites of consumption than they are as cultural centres, our homes might be described as temples to the religion of consumption, our lives apparently amount to little more that a constant juxtaposition of diverse consumer styles and tastes.’

This growth has coincided with a shift in our perception of how consumers act. Postmodern perspectives have challenged traditional approaches to consumption, based in a modernist perspective of rationality, objectivity and analysis, with their focus on ritual, symbolism, communication, globalization and hyperreality. How and what we consume have become increasingly significant, as ways in which we and others construct individuals. As Miles (1998: 1) argues, ‘It (consumption) is ubiquitous and ephemeral; it is arguably the religion of the late twentieth century’. The complexity of consumption has also increased, as Lash and Urry (1994: 59) suggest: ‘It (contemporary consumption) results in a French waiter serving a German business traveller in a New York restaurant advertising world cuisines. The traveller will jump into a taxi driven by a Pakistani immigrant, get her shoes repaired in a shop owned by a Russian Jewish émigré, and make her way to the latest Broadway musical direct from London.’ In contemporary society it is increasingly clear that we are no longer characterized by our relationship to work, previously modernism had seen the characteristics and experiences of work as being key to the ways we as individuals were construed, with people's relationship to work seen as being the fundamental determinant of their experiences (Miles, 1998). Within such a perspective consumption is seen largely as a result of production, not a cause for it. Increasingly, however, the consumption of goods and services, such as hospitality, are seen as playing an important role in who we are, how we construct our lives and how we relate to others.

Commercial hospitality companies make a massive contribution to our economy, however, it is argued (Teare, 1994: 1998) that understanding of the interactions between consumers and suppliers is limited. These interactions, coupled with the unpredictability of consumer behaviour as a result of individual differences and the ways in which we categorize consumption decisions, makes the study of consumer behaviour a complex undertaking. However, it is clear that if in hospitality we wish to meet the expectations of our consumers we need to understand the needs, motives and preferences that generate those expectations. To do this we need to investigate the complexity of influences that consumers experience during the decision process (Teare, 1998).

This chapter is an introduction to the study of consumer behaviour within the hospitality industry, with a particular focus on investigating what consumption is and why has it become such a central feature of contemporary society, how the phenomena has been investigated, why we need to use theory to investigate hospitality consumption and what the relationship is between marketing and consumer behaviour. The chapter will also discuss, albeit briefly given the complexities involved, the nature and scope of the hospitality industry.

Contemporary hospitality

Within this book it is not intended to consider in any detail the ongoing discussions regarding the definition of ‘hospitality’ as it relates to our industry as these arguments are better rehearsed elsewhere, notably in Lashley and Morrison (2000). However, it would be remiss not to define the industry that this text is primarily concerned with, and to consider the ways in which those definitions will be used throughout this text.

Defining the hospitality industry is not as straightforward as one would imagine, indeed, a number of approaches to defining hospitality are available, the choice depending upon your preferred perspective. Traditional definitions have tended to focus upon the economic activities previously associated with the hotel and catering industries (Lashley and Morrison, 2000).

Such definitions tend to be very semantic in nature, for example The Joint Hospitality Industry Congress (1996: 13) define hospitality as ‘The provision of food and/or drink and/or accommodation away from home’. Similarly Pfeifer (1983: 191) defines hospitality as ‘Offering food, beverage and lodging, or, in other words, of offering the basic needs for the person away from home’.

Attempts have been made to widen out these definitions to encourage consideration of the non-economic relationships that are a feature of hospitality (Brotherton and Wood, 2000). These more evidential definitions are useful in that they encourage greater depth and scope in analysing what we mean by the ‘hospitality industry’, and thus it is this wider definition that I intend to use in order to define the context of this book. Brotherton and Wood (2000: 141) define hospitality by drawing together a number of key characteristics ascribed to it, including:

• a concern with producing and supplying certain physical products; namely accommodation, food and drink
• involvement in an exchange relationship, which may be economic, social or psychological in nature
• a combination of tangible and intangible elements, the precise proportion of each varying according to the specifics of different hospitality encounters
• association with particular forms of human behaviour and interaction
• an activity entered into on a voluntary basis by the parties involved
• an exchange which takes place within an intermediate time frame, and one which reflects the close temporal connection between production and consumption.

Drawing these characteristics together Brotherton and Wood (2000: 143) define the hospitality industry as ‘Comprised of commercial organisations that specialize in providing accommodation and/or, food, and/or drink, through a voluntary human exchange, which is contemporaneous in nature, and undertaken to enhance the mutual well being of the parties involved’. While this definition is clearly more useful than the earlier semantic forms it does not readily identify the types of organizations with which this text is concerned, a point highlighted by Brotherton and Wood (2000: 143) themselves when they suggest ‘The detail of those activities and organisations that should, based, on this [the above] definition, be included in the hospitality industry requires further thought’.

It is my intention within this text to consider hospitality through its widest possible connotations. Hospitality clearly has a very close relationship with the study of tourism and leisure, and I do not wish to be constrained to the semantic notions of hospitality as being concerned with the study of food, beverages and accommodation. With the exception of travel perhaps, most other aspects of tourism, for example, can be seen to be related to hospitality. It is with this focus in mind that, within this text at least, the hospitality industry will be considered to include, but not be limited to, hotels, restaurants, bars, clubs, entertainment venues, fast-food outlets, leisure venues, cafés, events, food-services, resorts, cruise ships, indeed almost anywhere you can have a good time and there is some relationship with food, drink or facilities.

Defining consumer behaviour

It is useful to begin any analysis by defining the key terms used, which in our case means considering what we mean by the term ‘consumer behaviour’, and investigating its use in the consumption of hospitality services. The first distinction we should make is that between ‘consumers’ and ‘customers’, terms that are often used interchangeably. In general, however, ‘customer’ is used to describe someone who makes a purchase, that is, with customers there is usually an element of exchange. As Gabbott and Hogg (1998: 9) suggest ‘There is a construction on the term "customer" which implies a simple economic relationship between a business and a buyer, i.e. that the relationship is based on monetary exchange’. ‘Consumer’ is a much wider term, which recognizes that it is not necessarily based on any form of financial exchange. As we discussed at the beginning of the chapter it is common today, for example, to refer to the consumption of hospital or education services, for which no direct financial exchange takes place.

A second issue that we need to address is that using the term ‘customer’ tends to focus on the individual who undertakes the purchase decision. However, it is clear in hospitality environments this may not be the same person who consumes the service. If we look at fast-food restaurants, for example, it is clear that the consumers of children's meals are not the people who act as the customer. Similarly in bars and public houses the person who buys the drinks may not be the person who consumes them.

Gabbott and Hogg (1998: 10) suggest that consumer refers to a higher level of behaviour encompassing a wide range of relationships, defining consumer behaviour as ‘A wide range of activities and behaviours, the processes involved when individuals or groups select, purchase, use or dispose of products, services, ideas or experiences’. The difficulty with this definition is that in trying to cover all possible aspects and relationships, it tends to vagueness and is of limited practical use. It does, however, reinforce the fact that consumer behaviour is a difficult discipline to define, particularly in hospitality where purchases can tend to demonstrate significant emotional involvement. Horner and Swarbrook (1996: 4)) opt for a simple form of definition, settling for defining consumer behaviour as ‘the study of why people buy the product they do, and how they make the decision’. The problem with this definition is that again it focuses on the exchange relationship as being a feature of consumption, which increasingly is seen as too limiting. This focus on exchange is avoided to some extent by Wilkie (1994: 132) who defines consumer behaviour as ‘the mental, emotional and physical activities that people engage in when selecting, purchasing, using, and disposing of products and services so as to satisfy needs and desires’.

One of the most useful definitions of consumer behaviour is that offered by Engel, Blackwell and Miniard (1995: 121) who refer to it as ‘those activities directly involved in obtaining, consuming and disposing of products and services including the decision processes that precede and follow these actions’. The concept of consumer needs and wants has also been incorporated into definitions of consumer behaviour, for example in that of Solomon (1996: 43) who, in a definition similar to that offered by Gabbott and Hogg (1998) defines it as ‘the process involved when individuals or groups select, purchase, use, or dispose of products, services, ideas or experiences to satisfy needs and wants’.

Having provided a range of definitions, we will now move on to consider why there has been such an upsurge in interest in consumption and what the implications of this are for the hospitality industry.

Why now, and what about hospitality?

It is clear that today's society, at least western society, is characterized more by consumption than production. Most of us enthusiastically embrace the consumer society and are keen to partake of the opportunities it affords. As Ritzer (1999: 34) states: ‘There is little question that (western) society is increasingly characterized by what could now be termed hyper-consumption, and that most people are increasingly obsessed by consumption’. It is clear that consumption plays an ever-increasing role in western society; to some indeed it would appear that consumption defines western society (Ritzer, 1999). As more and more basic production is taking place in developing, and therefore cheaper, nations, consumption has taken a central position in society. So this leads to the questions why has there been a growth in interest in consumption and what are its implications for the hospitality industry?

A number of authors have produced accounts charting the rise of consumption, including Benson (1994), Miles (1998) and Ritzer (1999); Gabriel and Lang (1995) in particular have a very comprehensive description detailing the growth of consumption. It is not my intention here to go into depth regarding this matter; those interested in reading more about the historical development of consumption studies are directed to one of the books highlighted above.

If we first consider the growth of consumption, most authors argue that it can be explained by a number of key factors, including:

1. The economy. Recent movements in the economies of most developed countries, that is, movements in the 1980s and 1990s, have led to upturns in stock market prices and very low unemployment, leaving people with unprecedented levels of disposable income. In addition it has led to growth in the number of people able to take advantage of early retirement opportunities, people who have the resources to become active consumers. The result is that people want and can afford more goods and services, and for many people consumption of services such as hospitality has become a major form of recreation. From a supply perspective, companies, especially those quoted on the world's stock markets, recognize that in order to be seen to be doing well it is necessary to show substantial profit increases year on year. Economic growth has also got significant political implications which governments are ke...