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1. Introduction
This study aims to provide a snapshot of both leisure and business travelers’ perceived importance and satisfaction levels of hotel amenities, with primary emphasis on in-room technologies. The availability of in-room technology amenities is on the rise and evolving at a rapid pace (Bilgihan et al., 2010). Hotels are offering improved technology amenities in guestrooms in an effort to differentiate themselves in the competitive marketplace (Beldona and Cobanoglu, 2007). Cutting-edge in-room technologies help hotels to improve the tangible guest experience; for example, with technology, guests can change the room’s physical attributions like color, sound and smell (Melián-González and Bulchand-Gidumal, 2016). Such technology attributes could significantly influence a hotel guest’s overall satisfaction and are direct determinants of future behaviors, such as revisit intention (Cobanoglu et al., 2011). Hotels also rely on in-room technologies to provide high-quality personalized services (Van Hoof et al., 1995). A recent study shows that in-room technologies are the third most useful amenities when guests evaluate a hotel, just behind the bathroom facilities and bedding (Heo and Hyun, 2015). In the same study, Wi-Fi was regarded as the most useful hotel amenity by the respondents. Many hotel guests value hotels that offer up-to-date technology amenities and such technology has direct influences on hotel guests’ overall satisfaction, purchase behavior and intentions to repurchase (Chen, 2015). Furthermore, such technology amenities present an opportunity for hoteliers as additional revenue sources. Hotels may use technology amenities as a revenue management strategy by either charging higher rates for their accommodations (typically the number one source of income for hotels) and/or charging additional amounts for technology amenities that guests may wish to use during their stay (ancillary revenues) (Kimes and Anderson, 2009). Moreover, updating in-room technologies and keeping pace with the latest trend technologies is essential for shaping and improving hotel image and perceived quality (Šeric et al., 2016). Innovative in-room technologies are now the biggest contributor to enhancing the guest experience (Jayawardena et al., 2013). However, in-room technologies are usually expensive investments (Zhu and Morosan, 2014); hence, hoteliers should be careful when deciding which in-room technologies to invest in.
This presents a challenge for hotel owners and operators to identify the proper in-room technology amenities their guests’ desire, as not all...