Managing the intercultural differences in guest relations management

Abstract

Today, customer relations has become a field of great interest since hotels aim to attain customer satisfaction. One of the greatest challenges facing hotel organizations today is the ever growing volume and pace of competition (Kandampully and Suhartanto, 2000). This fact urges hotel management to give higher priority for guest relations management. Highly satisfied customers are much more loyal than satisfied customers (Tepeci, 1999) Guest relations managers try to achieve highly satisfied customers. Customer loyalty is a concept that is in relation with mainly hotel image, brand loyalty and customer satisfaction. Loyal customers will also help promote the hotel by providing strong word-of –mouth, create business referals, provide references and serve on advisory boards (Bowen and Chien, 2008). A satisfied tourist not only comes again, but also “spreads the word” (Pizam and Mansfeld, 1999, p.212). The satisfied guests may lead to “loyal customers”. Within the hospitality context, there is intense interest in identifying the factors that determine guest loyalty to hotels because it is generally believed that loyal customers lead to greater profitability. (Martinez and Bosque, 2013). The purpose of this study is to search how the guest relations managers manage the intercultural differences. For this purpose, a qualitative survey is done with guest relations managers from 5 star hotels in Antalya. The findings and results are not listed as the study has been going on and will be finalized in two weeks’ time.