IMPACT OF EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE AND COMMITMENT TOWARD SATISFACTION OF GUESTS WITH PHYSICAL DISABILITIES (A CASE STUDY OF LIYAFA PALACE HOTEL)
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- 1-5 Chapters
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- Reference Style: APA
- Recommended for : Student Researchers
- NGN 3000
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Quality customer service means different things to different people. We can not assume everyone of employee understands how to provide “quality” customer service the way trainer or executives or human resource intend it to be. It is their responsibility to teach front-line staffs and all customer service providers your company’s quality customer service’s standards. (Haneborg, 1998).
It is important to invest in continuous quality customer service training for everyone. Organization should provide all employees with continuous education on customer service. Don’t stop with one session. If customer service is important to company in the market, company has to be sure staff members attend annual refresher or advance courses, whatever it takes to ensure consistency and quality.
In hospitality industry, achieving outstanding customer service requires much time, energy and money in the customer service training and call center performance and service enhancement areas. (Kelley, 1999) Professional and courteous customer service does not just happen. It requires a company commitment with training extended to all departments and all levels of the company. Training must be an ongoing commitment. Regular and comprehensive measurement of performance and customer attitudes is central to maintaining the commitment.
According to the 2000 United States Census, 49.7 million people are living with disabilities. At the time, this represented 19.3% of the American population. Within this demographic, 21.2 million persons had mobility disabilities, while 9.3 million had visual and/or auditory disabilities. Men with disabilities numbered 24.4 million, while women numbered 25.3 million (Stern and Waldrop, 2003). This demographic has a discretionary income of over $200 billion (Burnett and Baker, 2001), with $13.6 billion being spent annually on over 31 million annual trips (Grady & Ohlin, 2009). It can be assumed that the 2010 United States Census, currently in progress, will report an even higher number of persons with disabil- ities, due primarily to the aging baby-boomers and their increasing life expectancy. By 2030, the number of persons with disabilities in the United States is expected to double from the Census 2000 report (Lach, 1999 in Burnett & Baker, 2001), which means nearly 100 million people in the US will have some sort of disability.
The rising number of persons with disabilities has a great implication on the hospitality industry. As this demographic increases, more hotel accommodations for the traveling disabled will be required in order for hotels to be in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The Act, passed two decades ago in 1990, aims to provide persons with disabilities, equality opportunity or the most part, the implications of the Act on the lodging industry have been in compliance with the Act’s Standards for Accessible Design (Grady and Ohlin, 2009).
In the 21st century the accessible tourism market still remains a challenge for companies. That means that disabled people cannot enjoy tourism experiences, as they would like to.
The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (United Nations, 2008) has the objective to promote, protect and guarantee the rights of people with disabilities.
Despite these regulations, there are still barriers to this among this field. Literature shows that the barriers that people with disabilities face when traveling and staying in a hotel are related with the physical environment and the social interactions that this segment experience thus affecting employee experience and commitment.
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
According to Fletcher (2011), in many parts of the world, the tourism industry is an important factor of capitalist production. As mentioned before, nowadays tourism is an activity much more popular in comparison to some years ago, due to the fact that society is more interested in discovering new places and different cultures. Such information is reinforced by De Lorenzo García (2003) who established that the free time and the desire to travel is the main factors of the increasing the tourism activities.
Unfortunately, not all the population can afford enjoying these experiences, because during a large period of time, disabled people has been excluded from the society and their needs have not been taking into account in the hospitality industry. However, nowadays there is more awareness that this segment of the market also has the right to enjoy tourism. Unluckily, there are still many barriers for this sector.
Until recently the disability concept has been treated only as a medical matter, but currently thanks to the awareness of the society and also to the studies about disability, the society has gradually been transforming it towards a social concept. Hughes (2007), Oliver (1990) & Zola (1989) differentiate between two different models for the concept of disability, the medical and the social. These authors said that the first model, the medical one, defines disability as a deficiency and establish that is an issue of the individual because of the abnormality that it suffers. However, the social model settles that disability is a part of the society and it takes into account the exclusion, discrimination and oppression.
Research interest in people with disabilities is also evident in tourism and hospitality related studies (Gro¨schl, 2007; Lane, 2007; McKercher et al., 2003). Surprisingly, only few empirical studies have focused exclusively on the actual hotel experience of people with disabilities. Moreover, Grady and Ohlin (2009) highlighted the importance of speaking directly with people with disabilities in order to understand their needs in the context of tourism and hospitality (Chen, 2004; Ozturk et al., 2008). Such studies providing people with disabilities with an opportunity to express their needs in relation to hotel employees are rare. This exploratory research aims to enrich the hospitality literature by identifying the difficulties that employees have with experience and commitment when dealing with guests with disabilities.
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The primary aim of this study is to examine the impact of employee experience and commitment toward satisfaction of guests with physical disabilities using liyafa palace hotel as a case study. Specific objectives of this study are:
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To find out the extent guests with physical disabilities use liyafa palace hotel.
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To determine whether guests with physical disabilities experience satisfaction when using liyafa palace hotel.
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To determine whether employee experience and commitment has an impact on guests with physical disabilities use liyafa palace hotel.
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To find out the challenges employees face when dealing with guests with physical disabilities in liyafa palace hotel.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The following research questions will validate this study:
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To what extent do guests with physical disabilities use liyafa palace hotel?
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Do guests with physical disabilities experience satisfaction when using liyafa palace hotel?
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Does employee experience and commitment have an impact on guests with physical disabilities use liyafa palace hotel?
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What are the challenges employees face when dealing with guests with physical disabilities in liyafa palace hotel?
RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS
The following null hypotheses will validate this study:
H01: Guests with physical disabilities do not experience satisfaction when using liyafa palace hotel.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
This research will have different contributions. On the one hand, the study will help hoteliers to understand which are the main common barriers that people with disability face when staying in hotels, being environmental, intrinsic or attitudinal barriers.
On the other hand, this research paper will contribute to better understand the experience of people with disabilities, not forgetting that the families have an essential role in the experience of these people, due to some of them cannot travel alone. Therefore, this paper also beneficiates and helps the companions as well as increases the quality of their experiences in hotels.
SCOPE OF THE STUDY
Broadly, this study focuses on the impact of employee experience and commitment toward satisfaction of guests with physical disabilities ( Case study liyafa palace hotel). This study also focuses on finding out the extent guests with physical disabilities use liyafa palace hotel, determining whether guests with physical disabilities experience satisfaction when using liyafa palace hotel, determining whether employee experience and commitment has an impact on guests with physical disabilities use liyafa palace hotel and finding out the challenges employees face when dealing with guests with physical disabilities in liyafa palace hotel.
Staff of liyafa palace hotel will serve as the respondents for this study.
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
In the course of carrying out this study, the researcher experienced some constraints, which included time constraints, financial constraints, language barriers, and the attitude of the respondents. However, the researcher were able to manage these just to ensure the success of this study.
Moreover, the case study method utilized in the study posed some challenges to the investigator including the possibility of biases and poor judgment of issues. However, the investigator relied on respect for the general principles of procedures, justice, fairness, objectivity in observation and recording, and weighing of evidence to overcome the challenges.
DEFINITION OF TERMS
Guest: a person staying at a guest house or hotel.
Impact: a marked effect or influence
Hotel: an establishment providing accommodation, meals, and other services for travellers and tourists.
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