The purpose of this study is to integrate the relationships among hotel customer dissatisfaction attributes, consumer dissatisfaction responses, and national culture, to investigate the influence of national culture on response to unsatisfactory hotel service, and to compare the differences of consumer complaint intentions between American and Japanese travelers.
The study has been divided into four parts. Part I analyzes the dimensions and scope of the hospitality industry and reviews the concept and attributes of the hotel customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction from marketing theories to establish the case scenarios for survey.
Part II assesses the previous developed approaches for measuring consumer complaint intentions and employs the Singh''s three dimensions of consumer complaining behavior (CCB) to establish five dimensions, seven items of CCB alternatives for survey.
Part III, from the international marketing''s perspective, tries to find a suitable national culture to explain the consumer dissatisfaction responses. Finally, the study selects Hofstede''s four dimensions of cultural values to establish the research hypotheses: American travelers are more likely to engage in complaint intentions than Japanese travelers are when they are dissatisfied with hotel services.
Part IV collected the data from samples of American and Japanese travelers at international tourist hotels in Taipei. Significant relationships were found between national culture and the types of complaining behaviors in which guests intended to engage. American respondents were more likely to stop patronizing the hotel, complain to hotel management, and warn family or friends than Japanese respondents were. Japanese respondents were more likely to take no action in response to unsatisfactory service.