EFFECT OF EXTERNAL HOTEL DESIGN FEATURES ON CUSTOMER ATTRACTION AND RETENTION
Rachel Kirito Kirima - Hospitality Management, Kenya Utalii College, Kenya
Prof. Richard Makopondo - Hospitality and Tourism Management, Technical University of Kenya, Kenya
Dr. Mary Mutungi - Hospitality and Tourism Management, Kenyatta University, Kenya
ABSTRACT
Hotel design brings competitiveness, reviewing literature according to objectives focus on factors as well as processes through which design influence customer taste and choice of a hotel. The focus is on design features from a diverse category of hotels in the world, mainly the town hotel designs. This diversity assisted in defining the role the hotel design plays in customer attraction and retention. The purpose of this study is to explore how hotel design features may influence customer attraction and retention. A cross- sectional, descriptive survey design, utilizing both quantitative and qualitative research method was chosen. Stratified sample procedure was used for preliminary sampling of hotels in 3-5 star rating. Purposive sampling was used for the hotel managers and marketing managers and convenience sampling for the guests. This study was confined to hotels located within Nairobi County. The main instruments that were used in the collection of data for the study were questionnaires and interview guides. Data analysis involved the use of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) in the analysis of quantitative data. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) which generated results of correlation and the magnitude of each individual independent variable and determines if one variance was larger than the other. Multiple regressions were conducted both for individual independent variables versus dependent variables and an overall involvement of all the independent variables versus the dependent variables. The three independent variables that were studied explain 74.2% of the factors affecting customer attraction and retention as represented by R Squared (Coefficient of determinant). This therefore means that other factors not studied in this research contribute 25.8% of the factors affecting facility competitiveness. It is recommended that the hotel operators should have a say in the development of their property designs, to date, contemporary research has dealt very little with the design dimension and its importance among small-size hospitality and tourism operations, including knowledge.
