Exploring the Nature and Role of the Servicescape in the Hotel Industry Context.

Following Bitner’s well-known “servicescape” model, many studies have shown that physical environments affect customers’ perceptions of the service experience, although mainly focused upon service encounters of relatively short duration. In the case of hotels, where customers stay in the facility for an extended period of time, the issues may well be different. However, few studies exist that examine the effect of the servicescape in hotels. In such situation, the main purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of the hotel servicescape on customers’ emotional responses and behavioural response. In order to achieve this goal, valid and specific measures of the hotel servicescape were needed to develop. First, based on a review of previous research, items that could reflect the characteristics of the hotel servicescape, emotional responses items, behavioural intention items and four preliminary hotel servicescape dimensions were emerged. Second, hotel servicescape items were classified into one of four dimensions using the Q-sort technique. This method applied in this stage in order to test the content adequacy before moving to the further analysis. Third, to examine the underlying structure of data and to reduce the attributes into a smaller number of factors, factor analyses were conducted. Although the results of servicescape literature review and the Q sort suggested the four hotel servicescape dimensions, the outcome of the factor analysis revealed the five dimensions. Results showed a satisfactory level of reliability coefficients for the five hotel servicescape dimensions. In addition, two dimensions of emotional responses and two dimensions of behavioural response were found to be valid and reliable. This study also attempted to determine which hotel servicescape variables have more impact on customers’ satisfaction and experience. It was achieved through the application of Importance-Performance Analysis. The results of Importance Performance Analysis revealed differences in the strengths and weaknesses of the hotels’ servicescape. Moreover, the present study successfully determined the relationship among the five hotel servicescape dimensions, customers’ emotional states and behavioural response. The findings showed that hotel servicescape significantly affects both emotional responses and behavioural response. Finally, the mediating role of emotions between the hotel servicescape and behavioural response was examined. The result of this study confirmed that the hotel servicescape influenced on behavioural response both directly and through emotional responses and emotional responses play an important role between the hotel servicescape and behavioural response