Purpose/aim The aim is to examine the distribution of hotel ownerships and star-rated levels in different regions. This thesis depends on the analysis of the examination to find out if the change of investment behaviors can decrease or avoid the adverse effects of bureaucracy in the Chinese hotel industry. Design/methodology/approach Data has been collected through the third-party electronic distribution channel. The analysis includes a description of the samples and statistical tests. Findings The analysis showed that there is a connection between hotel ownerships, star-rated levels, and different regions. The adverse effects of bureaucracy in the second-tier cities and third-tier cities are stronger than that in the first-tier cities and tourist cities. The state-owned hotels also can do the enterprise transformation in the tourist cities to avoid or decrease the adverse effects of the bureaucracy. Originality/value The original idea is using the hotel ownerships distribution in different regions to find out the different levels of adverse effects of the bureaucracy in different regions. This thesis should be a meaningful contribution to knowledge development.

Date: May 30, 2011 Program: MIMA- International Marketing Course Name: Master Thesis (EFO705) Title: The Study of Consumer’s Post-Purchase Evaluation toward Brand Equity of Five Stars Hotels in Thailand Research Problem: What are the characteristics of brand equity of five star luxury hotels in Thailand and which components of brand equity are the majority concerns from customers’ evaluation? Purpose: The study aims to investigate and analyze the interrelationship of brand equity of five stars hotels in Bangkok, Thailand and post-purchase evaluation in order to provide valuable information on how five stars luxury hotels in Thailand can successfully and appropriately exploit the hotel brand equity so as to create the branding strategy and to create a competitive advantage in the long run. Method: Qualitative approach was used to observe the data in the form of content analysis. While, the quantitative approach is employed in order to summarize the finding result. The data collection, the secondary source is the heart of this research such as hotel reviews, brand equity books and related articles. Conclusion: The empirical findings from hotel guest’s post-purchase evaluation reveal the most significant components of brand equity for five stars Thai hotel industry which are perceived quality and brand loyalty. Whereas, brand awareness and brand association are considered the least significant of all brand equity components from customer’s perception. Keywords: Brand equity, Brand loyalty, Brand awareness, Perceived quality, Brand association, Five Stars Hotel in Thailand, Thai Hotels Industry

Organizations have to understand the customer very well if they want to exist in business. Thisunderstanding of the customer will help organizations to act accordingly. More specifically hotelservices are characterized by frequent interaction with the customers. Thus, these frequentcontacts with the customers may lead to experience dissatisfaction/ frustration when things gowrong. Accordingly, it is important to find out the reasons for such negative emotions andmeasures to be taken to mold these behaviors.For this reason, the aim of our master‟s thesis is to identify reasons for customer aggression andconsiderable mechanisms to put in place for, how customer service employees mold the behaviorof aggressive customers through emotional labor while delivering services in hotels. This impliesthat major motives are mentioned based on some of the routine interactions, from the serviceitself and others outside the service delivery process. In addition, customer service employees‟(CSEs) key mechanisms used to react positively to such emotions due to customers‟dissatisfaction/ frustrations are assessed. Moreover, to fulfill the aim of the research, the hotelindustry has been chosen from which sample customers and service employees are also selected.In this regard, survey questions from a sample of customers and interviews held with selectedcustomer service employees (CSEs) were used as data collection tools from one of the hotelslocated in Umeå. The result of the findings helps to identify the most common types of reasonsfor customer aggression during interaction; lack of assistance from CSEs, noisy customeraround, lack of punctuality and billing errors are the common reasons for customer aggressionfrom the respondents‟ point of view. While interview results revealed that customer‟s ownpersonal reasons due to the prior emotional state of the customer (Antecedent State) are causes ofaggression during service provision. On the other hand, in molding such behaviors, emotionallabor is found to be fundamental tool in services, where surface acting emotional labor is themost widely used mechanism while delivering services to mold the customer aggression, angerand dissatisfaction into happier and more satisfying situations for the customers.We believe the study complements the existing research by extending and bridging on customeraggression and in response emotions to be applied to mold such behavior in hotel services. Keywords: Hotel industry, Emotional labor, Aggression, Anger, Customer serviceEmployees (CSE)

Since the experience economy was introduced, many researchers and enterprises have been attempting to find new strategies for business development, thus adapting to this new economy. In this process, the innovative value proposition is discovered as a solution to deliver satisfactory service and experience to customers. As a result, people start to pay attention to how to create an innovative value proposition and use it to stage memorable experiences to customers, which is also the main task of conducting this paper. In this paper, the authors investigate the value propositions offered by two innovative hotels, Chiva-som and IceHotel in order to answer how to create value proposition by integrating operant and operand resources. And the study about customers’ perceptions on value propositions is used to reveal how customers perceive a good value proposition and use it create a memorable experience that they desire. At the end of this paper, the authors state a new frame of creating value propositions by presenting a model of resource integration methods (Figure 3), which includes resource-centric and co-creation centric aspects. Furthermore, the features of a good value proposition perceived by customers as well as the solutions to improve customer experiences with innovative value propositions are summarized respectively.

The aim of this report is to analyse the logistics of a medium sized restaurant and give an overall solution for improvements on the restaurant's logistics. The restaurant of interest belongs to Laponia Hotel and is located in Arvidsjaur, Sweden. Investments for over 100.000 Euros are planned for the hotel, which includes a reconstruction of the restaurant. The details on how the restaurant will be reconstructed are not yet known. I therefore chose to analyse the problemin general terms and find a solution that is focused on the logistic system itself rather than its layout. In order to find the best system I have chosen to analyse three different logistic models, each representing different levels of logistic systems. The first model, representing the logistics of a small restaurant, is named ´the simple logistic model´ and has a manual system. The second method is called ´the complex logistic model´. This model describes the hotel that is too small to afford a full-scale computer system, and too complex to operate with only a manual system. The last model is'the advanced logistic model'and it is meant to represent the full-scale logistics with all necessary computer aid. The models are analysed by the SWOT method and the materials used are found through literature research, interviews and observations. The analyse shows that the best model for Laponia Hotel's restaurant would be the advanced logistic model in combination with the simple logistic model. This would allow the restaurant to use all the benefits of computer aid and large quantities without loosing the small-scale feeling of ownership and responsibility among the employees.

Background and problem: In Croatia, the hotel industry has undergone difficult and unstable conditions since the 90s. Since 2001, however the results in the sector has improved due to increased investment in the renovation of facilities and construction of new hotels. Purpose: The study aims to examine hotel operations on the Makarska Riviera on the basis of tourist business perspective, and examine its quality, service and accessibility. Method: In this study we used a qualitative approach. The survey was conducted through structured interviews and a non-participant observation. Result and conclusions: Satisfied and fulfilled employees, in turn that the hotels will have satisfied customers and may have profitable operations. Many hotels aim at constantly working to improve profitability and customer satisfaction. When measuring customer satisfaction, many hotel owners felt that the service is good and that they have received a good response from their guests. The hotels that were observed were nice and clean inside and out. A majority of the hotels were renovated and looked fashionable in and out with fine furnishings in the lobby and restaurant. Availability was good in both the plant itself and around it. All hotels were located near the beach, town center and bus stops. The people interviewed believe that accessibility to and from the hotels, airport is good with a well developed infrastructure. In conclusion, we note that the Makarska hotel operations in general maintains its facilities and, overall, a good quality standard and service. Most hotels are well planned and are strategically located. Hotel operators in general are continually working to improve quality through training their staff and follow up of their customers' perceived expectations.

This research confers with the relationship between customer expectation, actual experience of the services and products, guest satisfaction, value acknowledgement, and loyalty, adopted using questionnaire survey and The Lees Hotel as research subject. 232 valid samples are returned, and SPSS statistics software was applied for ¡§descriptive statistical analysis¡¨, ¡§one-way ANOVA analysis¡¨, and ¡§Scheffe T-test analysis.¡¨ According to the result of this research, guest satisfaction and value acknowledgement were not effective by the pre-consumption expectation; however, guest satisfaction and value acknowledgement were influenced by post-consumption experience. Also, the quality of services had substantial effect on guest satisfaction and value acknowledgement. Population statistics partially interfere with guest satisfaction and brand value. Guest satisfaction has apparent impact on returning for another consuming experience and recommendation.

Since the tourism industry is thriving and robust recently in Taiwan, it encourages the demand of domestic tourism a lot. Moreover, the internet surfers and e-commerce is keeping increasing, so that we do the study regarding the On-Line Accommodation Reservation as our case study. In order to obtain the data and samples for this study, we choose the EasyTravel as our casey, and do the individual survey via qualitative interview. EasyTravel established in 1988 and the major business is offering the On-Line Accommodation Reservation service. They started doing the Internet Marketing planning and designing as they understand the acceptance level of Hotel industry for the Online-Promotion is the highest one. For now, owing to keep ploughing and weeding the On-Line Marketing, EasyTravel always occupies on the first page of search result when doing the searching. We hope we could obtain the influence of Internet activity and communicating for the On-Line Accommodation Reservation through understanding its history, the key factors of EasyTravel, and it will be the topic of this study. We found if we long for to build efficiency Internet Marketing activity for On-Line Accommodation Reservation and then prompt the business, we must consider four factors as below: (1).Multiple Integrated Marketing¡GTo run the On-Line Accommodation Reservation more efficiency and increasing the sales, setting the SEO (Search Engine Optimization), implement topical or diversified long term Internet promotion, Blogs Marketing, Community-based social management, and Mobile Service are five main schemes for achieving the goal. (2).Community marketing¡GAs the community-orientated network is being well developed, if we could utilize community tools and its influence effectively, it would be reached yield twice the result with half the effort. (3).To Customize and develop innovative service¡GBefore establishing the innovative service, industry characteristics, customer needs, main stream, and ICT tool should be all considered. Hence, it will not only create the uniqueness and the non-substitutable capabilities but also high up the barriers to entry level for other rivals. (4).Concentrating on core business with a continuous investment.¡GEasyTravel starts earning the profit since 2008, nevertheless they still ought to input more resource in original sales continuously. It is much more vital than step into new business at a profit.

In the global economic development, mostly, the output values of the service industries in advanced countries have accounted for more than 60% of the GDP. In recent years, owing to the prosperous development of the service industry in Taiwan, according to the statistics of Directorate General of Budget Accounting and Statistics, Executive Yuan, in 2002, the GDP of service industry has accounted for 67.0% of that of the entire industries. This speaks for the importance of service industry in national economic development. According to the analysis of the World Tourism Organization for 2000, ¡§tourism¡¨ has become the primary source of many countries in earning foreign exchange. In terms of the foreign exchange earnings of the countries over the world, tourism income has accounted for 8% of the said earnings. This indicates that the tourist hotels industry which provides the functions such as accommodation, food & beverage, recreation, and entertainment could be considered the service industry with great developmental potentiality. The guests of Guan-zi-ling Toong Mao Spa Resort were invited to participate in this research survey for investigating the customer satisfaction towards the room service quality of resort hotels. Totalizing 440 questionnaires were sent out, and 233 returned (a response rate of 52.96%), from which 222 were valid (a valid response rate of 50.46%). After analyzing the data with reliability analysis, descriptive statistics, difference analysis, and correlation analysis, the following findings were concluded: (1)Room service is taken by the guests as the major factor in choosing resort hotels, among which the cleanness of bed sheet, blanket, and pillow; the cleanness of guestrooms environment and facilities; the facilities functions of guestrooms and baths; the cleanness of bath environment and facilities; and the neatness and sufficiency of guestrooms and baths facilities are especially valued. (2)There are significant differences in the expected service valued by various guests towards different dimensions: the guests of various education levels, occupations, and family incomes towards the operator; the guests of various ages, family incomes, and places of dwelling towards room reservations; the guests of various ages, occupations, and places of dwelling towards front desk service; the guests from various places of dwelling towards service center; and the guests of various occupations, family incomes, and places of dwelling towards room service. (3)There are significant differences in the perceived satisfaction of various guests towards different service dimensions: the guests of various ages and places of dwelling towards the operator; the guests of various education levels and family incomes towards room reservations; the guests of various occupations towards front desk service; the guests of various occupations, family incomes, places of dwelling towards service center; and the guests of various ages and places of dwelling towards room service. (4) There are significant differences in the guests of various ages, occupations, and places of dwelling towards the entire satisfaction of service quality; and in the entire customer loyalty of the guests of various ages, education levels, occupations, and family incomes. (5) There are significant relations between the customer satisfaction and customer loyalty of Guan-zi-ling Toong Mao Spa Resort. Finally, concrete suggestions were proposed as the references for the business, administrative organizations of tourism, and follow-up researches.

If ¡§People¡¨ are the most important source of an enterprise, undoubtedly, the most important asset of hotel industry is its working staffs. The measurement of asset requires a perfect internal management system to operate it normally, in which an important management tool is to apply the system of performance management, which could introduce the operation of performance appraisal correctly and effectively, and to develop HR asset of hotel industry higher and have more competition value. This research starts from the discussion of literature theory and the expert interview of hotel industry, and then uses Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to design questionnaire and makes questionnaire survey. It is expected to extract the important perspectives of performance appraisal of room attendant in hotel from the investigated statistic data, and then develop standards for performance appraisal. Finally is to collect performance appraisal indicator of hotel room attendant and the weight of each indicator, and propose to hotel industry as reference. This research established the framework and weight of performance appraisal indicator of room attendant in hotel industry, and discovered that the priorities of the second hierarchy level indicator of the performance appraisal of room attendant in hotel industry in turns are work result, behavior feature and personal feature; in which the work result almost made up half of the total weight. Therefore, it could be seen that work result is the most important one in the performance appraisal of room attendant in hotel industry; in particular, for the service oriented hotel industry, the work result presented by staffs is the critical factor to evaluate whether the working staffs offer the service quality comply with the requirements of the company or not.