Question

There are some people who say that hotels guests focus more on the intangible aspects of hotels than on tangible ones. Discuss this statement while referring to the tangible aspect as being the building and products versus the intangible side which is the quality of the service of the hospitality industry. Would your answer above differ foe an aged care facility and a prison? Explain why.

Answer 1

The statement is correct. For the hospitality industry, intangible aspects are considered more important than tangible aspects. Example: In case of 5 star category, most of the hotels have wonderful buildings and offer similar products like Gym facilities, Pool, Game zone, multi cuisine restaurants etc. But, what makes the difference is the quality of the service, how the staff behaves with the customers, how long customer had to wait for order in the restaurant etc. These things become much important as customers pay for the experience they receive from the services being offered. It makes huge impact on the mind of the people as they come with some expectation level. So, the differentiation factor for hotels is the quality of service being offered and gets rated by customers accordingly.

However, for an aged care facility and a prison, tangible things are more important than intangible things. People visiting these facilities don’t have high level of expectation and are happy with the minimum service possible. They don’t expect service provider to greet and behave properly. Hence, it depends on the expectation level before visiting any facility and that determines the level of satisfaction.