Impact of COVID-19 on Customer Behavior in Hospitality Industry

Impact of COVID-19
over the customer’s
behaviour towards the
hospitality industry

ABSTRACT
The main cause for doing this research is to know the impact of COVID-19 over the
customer’s behavior towards hospitality industry because it has global pandemic has created high
chaos and confusion among guests, organization and government. Everyone is trying to cope up
with the situation and the highly affected industry is hospitality industry because it has stopped the
travelling of people from one place to another which led to suffering of hotels because they are not
getting enough demand for their accommodation services. To attain all the objectives successfully,
researcher selects secondary sources like scholars, articles, books and journals for conducting
literature review and primary source like questionnaire is used to for getting fresh and raw
information significant for completing the research.

SUMMARY
From this research it is being summarized that COVID-19 has created changes in the
behaviours of customers related to hospitality sector because of certain restriction being imposed in
whole world. People are less interested to move out from their homes and stay at hotels because it is
not safe because pandemic is spreading with high rate. There are various challenges that are faced
by hotels because of global pandemic like low revenue, less number of customers, employee lay off
and many more. For conducting this research, researcher has taken various methods like research
approach, research philosophy, data collection and so on because they assist in successful gathering
and analysis of information. so that their opinions can be determined to achieve the objectives.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am glad I got an opportunity to work on this challenging research project because it has
increased my knowledge related to the global pandemic. I would like to thank my professors who
have given their time to help me in my research.
Also I am grateful to my relatives and friends who have helped me in getting different
sources to collect information related to my project and necessary for completing research on time.

ABSTRACT.....................................................................................................................................................2
SUMMARY.....................................................................................................................................................3
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.............................................................................................................................4
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................6
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW..........................................................................................................8
Influence of COVID-19 on hospitality sector...............................................................................................8
The major challenges faced by Marriott hotel in providing services to its customers in COVID-19
pandemic situation........................................................................................................................................8
The effective initiative taken by Marriott hotel to improve customers experience towards its services.......8
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY............................................................................................10
CHAPTER 4: ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS................................................................................................12
CHAPTER 5: A CRITICAL APPRAISAL, RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR WORK
....................................................................................................................................................................... 20
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................................21
REFERENCES...............................................................................................................................................22
APPENDICES................................................................................................................................................24

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
Hospitality industry refers to the industry which is concerned with hotels, eco lodges,
beverage and food and many more. They all provide their services to customers who want to enjoy
their vacations or want invest their time in business meetings. In these hotels are made so that
customers can relax from their hectic or busy life (Walker, 2017). The motive of hospitality
industry is to increase the experience of customers by giving services in accordance with their needs
by high quality service.
COVID-19 is a global pandemic which has affected many organizations but it has high
impact on hospitality industry because people are unable to travel from one city to another as rule
and regulations do not allow moving of people (Cerchione and Bansal, 2020). Behavior of
customers have changed as global pandemic has started spreading, earlier people used to like
moving from one location to another but this pandemic has changed their liking as now people like
to stay home without going anywhere. For the current research the chosen organization Marriott
hotel which come under hospitality industry of United Kingdom.
Research Aim and objectives
Research Aim
“To investigate the impact of COVID-19 pandemic situation over the customer’s
behaviour towards the hospitality industry.” A study on Marriott hotel.
Research Objectives
 To explore the influence of COVID-19 on hospitality sector.
 To determine the challenges faced by Marriott hotel in providing services to its customers
in COVID-19 pandemic situation.
 To explore the effective initiative taken by Marriott hotel to improve customers
experience towards its services.
Research Questions
 What is the influence of COVID-19 on hospitality sector?
 What are the major challenges faced by Marriott hotel in providing services to its
customers in COVID-19 pandemic situation?
 What are the effective initiative taken by Marriott hotel to improve customers experience
towards its services?
Methodology and approach
In order to attain the aim and objectives of current research, researcher has selected various
types of research methodologies like research approach, philosophy, strategy, data collection,
research instruments, sampling and many more as they assist in analyzing information in a very