Title: The drivers of customer satisfaction in the hospitality industry: applying the Kano model to Sicilian hotels

Authors: Gandolfo Dominici; Federica Palumbo

Addresses: Department S.E.A.S., University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy ' Department of Management, "Sapienza" University of Rome, Rome, Italy

Abstract: Starting from the assessment that hotels need to embrace a managerial approach oriented towards customer satisfaction, we adopt the Kano model to identify the relevant drivers of satisfaction of hotel guests in the main cities of Sicily, Italy. This study analyses the customer satisfaction requirements for Sicilian hotels in order to suggest and weigh a set of key attributes that hotel managers need to consider in order to create an attractive offer. We base our analysis on the qualitative data collected through 600 questionnaires submitted to hotel guests of 20 Sicilian three-star hotels located in city downtowns, in different provinces and locations.

Keywords: customer satisfaction; hotel management; hospitality industry; Sicily; Italy; Kano model; Noriaki Kano; product development; managerial approaches; hotel guests; key attributes; hotel managers; attractive offers; qualitative data; three-star hotels; city downtowns; Palermo; Catania; Syracuse; Messina; Trapani; leisure marketing; tourism marketing.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLTM.2013.052623

International Journal of Leisure and Tourism Marketing, 2013 Vol.3 No.3, pp.215 - 236

Received: 06 Nov 2012
Accepted: 23 Nov 2012
Published online: 14 Mar 2013 *

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