An Importance-Performance Analysis of influencing factors of guestroom comfort in high star-rated hotels

Guestroom comfort plays an important part in customer service experience in hotels but extant research on this field is quite sparse. Using an Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA), this paper conducted an empirical research on discrepancies in the importance and performance of factors of customer perceived guestroom comfort in high star-rated hotels. The result shows that customers believe that the top ten most important influencers of guestroom comfort are sound proofing effect, service attitude, indoor air quality, bed linen softness, respect for customer privacy, adjustable temperature & flow of water, appropriate hot water temperature, mattress hardness, indoor equipment noise, and towel softness; while the factors needed to be improved most are sound proofing effect, bed linen softness, towel softness, timely response, attentive listen to customer's complaint, and network speed. In general, there is a big gap between guestroom comfort that customers value and the current situation in high star-rated hotels. It follows that managers in high star-rated hotels fail to fully understand customer demands and thus the effectiveness of hotel service needs to be further promoted.