Understanding the Hospitality Consumer

Understanding the Hospitality Consumer

This book is dedicated to Margaret, and also Roz and the ‘girls’

Rhiannon, Cerys and Bechan, who between them know more

about hyperconsumption than can possibly be good for them.

Understanding the

Hospitality Consumer

Alistair Williams

OXFORD AMSTERDAM BOSTON LONDON NEW YORK PARIS

SAN DIEGO SAN FRANCISCO SINGAPORE SYDNEY TOKYO

Butterworth-Heinemann

An imprint of Elsevier Science

Linacre House, Jordan Hill, Oxford OX2 8DP

225 Wildwood Avenue, Woburn MA 01801-2041

First published 2002

Copyright © 2002, Alistair Williams. All rights reserved

The right of Alistair Williams to be identified as the author of

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

ISBN 0 7506 5249 7

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Printed and bound in Great Britain

v

Contents

Preface ix

List of figures and tables xiii

List of case studies xv

Part One

Setting the Context for the Study of Hospitality

Consumption 1

1 An introduction to the consumption of hospitality

services 3

An introduction to a discipline of consumer

behaviour research 4

Contemporary hospitality 5

Defining consumer behaviour 7

Why now, and what about hospitality? 8

The value of theory in researching consumer

behaviour in hospitality 13

Summary 19

2 Consuming hospitality services 20

Hospitality as service 21

The nature of products, goods and services 22

Consuming services 29

Summary: conceptualizing hospitality services 34

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vi

Contents

Part Two

The Key Perspectives Seen as Complementary to an

Understanding of Hospitality Consumer Behaviour 37

3 Frameworks for considering hospitality consumer

decision-making 39

An introduction to consumer decision-making 40

Modelling consumer decision-making 41

Defining consumer decision-making 44

Generalized models of consumer decision-making 46

Summary 64

4 Individual processes in consuming hospitality 66

Introduction 67

Consumer motivation 67

Learning and memory 76

Personality 78

Perception 84

Summary 90

5 Social and cultural influences on hospitality

consumer behaviour 91

Introduction to the environmental aspects of

hospitality consumption 92

The development of a sociological perspective in

consumer behaviour 94

The impact of culture on hospitality consumption 95

Characteristics of culture 98

Hospitality consumption as ritual 103

Summarizing the role of culture in hospitality

consumer behaviour 110

The influence of social class and status on

hospitality consumption 112

6 The influence of reference groups on hospitality

consumers 119

An introduction to the influence of groups on

hospitality consumption 120

The family as reference group 126

Summarizing the role of reference groups within

hospitality consumption 140

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vii

Contents

Part Three

Understanding the Hospitality Consumer in

Contemporary Society and Beyond 143

7 The end of the marketing concept 145

Introduction 146

The evolution of the marketing concept 146

Market segmentation 149

Segmenting hospitality markets 160

The pervasive nature of the marketing concept 161

The collapse of the marketing concept 163

The conclusion for hospitality consumption 169

8 Postmodern consumers of hospitality services 173

Postmodern marketing 174

Consuming hospitality: learning lessons from

postmodernism 181

Applying postmodernism to the consumption of

hospitality products 186

Postmodern hospitality: some examples 193

Criticism of the postmodern perspective 200

Summarizing postmodernism as it relates to

hospitality 201

9 Hospitality implications of the revolution

in consumption: marketing simulacrity

and hyperreality 203

The transformation to a postmodern hospitality

industry 204

The simulated reality of postmodern hospitality 205

Simulation: the new means of consuming hospitality 210

Transforming relationships between buyers and

sellers: some conclusions 224

10 Researching contemporary hospitality behaviour 226

Interpreting hospitality consumer behaviour 227

Options available to hospitality consumer behaviour

researchers 230

Methodological approaches and issues in

contemporary (postmodern) consumer research 233

Summarizing the role of research in aiding our

comprehension of hospitality consumption 238

Bibliography 243

Index 259

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This Page Intentionally Left Blank

ix

Preface

Consumption is part of our everyday lives. In contemporary

society it encompasses aspects of our lives that were previously

thought to be beyond the demands of the marketplace including

health, education, religion, culture and politics. All aspects of

contemporary society have had to adapt to take account of the

wants and needs of ever more ‘discerning’ consumers. In western

society our relationships, standing, self-belief and everyday

experiences are seen to be underpinned by what, how and why

we consume the goods and services that we do. 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 aims of the text are to:

1 Introduce and explore 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.

2 Discuss the principles and research of consumer behaviour and

demonstrate how hospitality companies can and do use them

in everyday operations.

3 Demonstrate that effective marketing involves focusing organ￾izational activity on the consumer, through identifying factors

that are relevant in consumer buying behaviour.

4 Discuss the challenges to traditional approaches to consump￾tion posed by the postmodern hospitality consumer.

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Preface

The text is interdisciplinary in nature and provides critical analysis

of consumer behaviour from a sociological, psychological, eco￾nomic, historical and media background, while always grounding

such analysis within the contemporary 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. This

growth has coincided with a shift in our perception of how

consumers act. Traditional approaches to consumption, based in

a modernist perspective of rationality, objectivity and analysis,

have been challenged by postmodern perspectives, with their

focus on ritual, symbolism, communication, globalization and

hyperreality.

The text takes as its focus the perspective that effective

marketing involves focusing organizational activity on the

consumer. Thus the book concentrates on an understanding of

determining customer needs, the factors that are relevant in

consumer buying behaviour and the effectiveness of many

contemporary marketing techniques.

The main feature of existing service marketing literature is its

implicit management orientation; little attention has been paid to

the consumers of services, particularly with regard to the

hospitality industry. 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. In addition, the text maintains a particular focus, the

factors that influence why people buy particular products or

services. Within the text we will consider such aspects as social

and cultural influences, psychological influences and marketing

influences that can have an impact on purchase behaviour.

The approach taken is to section the book into three parts. Part

One introduces the subject area through placing the consumer in

a general context, before continuing by considering the specific

social context relating to the consumption of products and

services of the hospitality industry.

In Part Two we investigate the key perspectives that are seen as

being complementary to an understanding of consumer behav￾iour. First, the core feature of consumer behaviour, consumer

decision-making. This is undertaken through a consideration of

generalized models of decision-making, including an investiga￾Hospitality, Leisure & Tourism Series

tion of many of the seminal models which have been developed

xi

Preface

in consumer decision-making, such as those provided by Engel,

Blackwell and Miniard (1995) and Foxall and Goldsmith (1994),

along with models specifically developed for investigating the

consumption of hospitality goods and services, such as those by

Teare (1998). We then consider the characteristics that impact

upon consumer decision-making, first by considering the core

literature on individual psychological variables to consumption,

such as perception, personality, learning, memory and motiva￾tion, and second considering the range of cultural and social

influences on consumer behaviour. Here we consider the influ￾ences on the individual of the family, small and large groups and

society in general. We also consider the role played by culture

and other forms of social influence.

Part Three concludes the book by considering the value of

consumer behaviour research as applied to the contemporary

hospitality industry. Within this section we seek to address three

key issues within contemporary hospitality consumer behaviour.

First, we investigate the relationship between marketing, with its

perceived management orientation, and consumer behaviour,

which should be concerned primarily with emphasizing the

behaviour of real consumers. Few authors would argue that

marketing occupies a central position in the hospitality business

environment and within hospitality education the proliferation of

publications and the centrality of marketing on all undergraduate

and postgraduate degree programmes clearly demonstrates that

marketing is in the ascendancy. The question that has to be

addressed is ‘why have companies so readily adopted the

discipline of marketing, and what are the repercussions of this for

the study of consumption within the hospitality industry?’

Second, we consider the argument that we are witnessing

significant social and cultural shift in terms of consumption, and

in particular the consumption of hospitality goods and services,

this shift being epitomized by postmodernism. In essence, if

postmodernists are correct, people raised in a postmodern society

are different from those raised in an earlier modernist era. As a

result today’s consumers are radically different from yesterday’s

in terms of taste, sensibilities, values and attitudes, as they have

been raised in different eras, that is, the latter at the tail end of

modernism and the former at the beginning stages of post￾modernism. We will seek to argue that, given some of the issues

raised by postmodernism, what is needed for the contemporary

hospitality industry is an alternative way of looking at consumers

and markets, one that is truly consumer led.

Third, we consider some of the issues raised by using

postmodernism as an alternative paradigm for researching

customer behaviour in the contemporary hospitality industry.

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Preface

The difficulty of determining research agenda for investigating

postmodern consumer behaviour, given the three key themes

traditionally associated with postmodernism – the disintegration

of universal forms of knowledge, the rise of simulacrity and

hyperreality, and the move to an era of conspicuous consumption

– are assessed. The argument that at present no paradigm for

consumer behaviour that allows hospitality organizations to

investigate postmodern consumption, and that consumer

research, particularly in the hospitality field, lacks a systematic

framework of conceptualization and analysis for the explanation

of situational influences on consumer choice is evaluated. This

part closes by identifying a range of potentially appropriate

research agendas.

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xiii

Figures and tables

Figures

2.1 Bipolar representation of the service/goods

marketing debate 24

2.2 The servuction system 30

3.1 Hospitality decision types 40

3.2 Why build models? 42

3.3 Stages in the decision process 46

3.4 A normative model of consumer decision-making 47

3.5 Basic Engel, Kollat and Blackwell (EKB) model of

consumer decision-making 48

3.6 Social, cultural and individual factors which impact

on consumer decision-making 49

3.7 Foxall’s model of purchase behaviour 50

3.8 The consumer decision process for hospitality

services 52

3.9 A continuum of hospitality consumer purchase

processes 53

3.10 Key stimulators of problem recognition 55

5.1 Environmental influences on consumer behaviour 93

6.1 Functions of household decision-making 130

7.1 The evolution of the marketing concept 147

7.2 General approaches to market segmentation 152

7.3 A typical public house segmentation model 154

7.4 UK modernized family life cycle 156

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List of figures and tables

8.1 Brief description of postmodern conditions 187

8.2 Postmodern marketing 188

10.1 Options available to hospitality consumer researchers 230

Tables

4.1 A typology of motivation 72

5.1 Variables of social class 114

6.1 Types of influence exerted by reference groups 124

Hospitality, Leisure & Tourism Series