This study investigates whether hotel choice attributes decompose into comparable configurations for two important guest groups served by hotels: business and leisure travelers. Each group's responses were factor analyzed and the factor congruency technique was then employed to ascertain the extent of similarity between them. Results indicate that the congruence between the business and leisure travelers is weak in terms of the importance of the factors and their correspondence. Implications of the results are discussed.

This study assesses the relative strengths and weaknesses of a hotel, Holiday Inn, as viewed by two customer segments: business travelers and vacationers. The evaluation is based on the analytical framework of importance-performance analysis using 28 hotel attributes. Despite some differences, there are a number of similarities between the two segments in terms of the attributes they rely on when choosing a hotel and how they evaluate Holiday Inn on these attributes. These insights are important to the management in designing pointed strategies to better serve the needs of their guests.

The study proposes and tests a model of hotel choice behavior based on the economics of information theory which incorporates relational and core service experiences as well as search attributes. The model expands the domain of inquiry beyond the initial level attributes to the higher order latent construct and composite levels. Results suggest that hotel choice behavior of male and female guests can be represented as a global construct with three viable components. Implications of the results are discussed.