Consumer Behaviour and Decision-Making in Hospitality Sector

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of consumer behavior within the hospitality sector, specifically focusing on Travelodge. It delves into the various factors influencing consumer decisions, including cultural, social, personal, and psychological aspects. The report examines the impact of digital technology on consumer trends, such as mobile technology, social media, and generational needs, highlighting their influence on consumer loyalty and data security concerns. The consumer decision-making process is dissected, along with the importance of understanding consumer behavior and the differences between B2B and B2C decision-making in hospitality. Furthermore, the report explores different market research approaches and how marketers can influence consumer choices. The study emphasizes the significance of these insights for optimizing strategies within the hospitality industry.

Consumer Behaviour and Insight

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
LO1..................................................................................................................................................3
P1 Influence of Different Factor on Consumer Behaviour..........................................................3
Factors Related to Digital Technology........................................................................................7
P2 Change in the Consumer Trends Due to Digital Technology.................................................8
LO2..................................................................................................................................................9
P3 Consumer Decision Making Process......................................................................................9
P4 Importance of Knowing Consumer Behaviour.....................................................................14
LO 3...............................................................................................................................................15
P5 Difference and similarities between hospitality decision-making process in B2B and B2C
....................................................................................................................................................15
P6 Different approaches of market research..............................................................................16
LO4................................................................................................................................................17
P7 Marketers influencing decision-making process..................................................................17
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................19
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................21

INTRODUCTION
Consumer behaviour is considered as the study of individual or group of people’s activity
that is related to the purchasing, using, and disposal of goods or services which includes the
emotional, mental and behaviour of consumer (Schütte and Ciarlante, 2016). This study is most
important for organization to know their behaviour and interest. This thing help them to design
product and services of organization by knowing the behaviour of consumer they can effectively
provide them product and services which can satisfy their need because consumer satisfaction
leads to customer loyalty. Travelodge is a private limited company that is working in the
hospitality sector. It was founded in year 1985 and it’s headquarter is in Thames, England,
United Kingdom. It is mainly operating in UK, Ireland and Spain. The impact of different factor
will be evaluated for the behaviour of consumer. The path of purchase will be analysed in the
report. The report is examining different type of researches that can be used by the organization
to evaluate the influences on the hospitality sector customer decision-making process. The
process of the influencing the consumer decision-making will be evaluated, which is used by the
marketers. The importance of the consumer behaviour will be analysed through the whole study.
LO1
P1 Influence of Different Factor on Consumer Behaviour
Cultural factors
According to Biswas and Roy, (2015) Cultural factors are classified in the three different
categories that can influence the consumer behaviour. These classified stages are consumer
culture, subculture and social class. These factors can be further explained as-
Consumer’s Culture
Consumer culture is one of the most important factor for the buying process of consumer.
Impact of culture is too high on the interests and daily life style. The culture which is followed
by individual person change their needs accordingly (Horner and Swarbrooke, 2016). For
example the consumers who visit Travelodge have different demands which basically reflect
their culture and tradition they follow (Trail, 2015). This how culture influences behaviour of
consumer.

Subculture
There are different sub groups in the main culture who are differentiated by their
individual views. The views of individual person in sub culture make their mind set accordingly.
They follow some beliefs. These beliefs influence them in the different manner. Their beliefs
force them to use a particular view to make purchases or buy services in Travelodge.
Social Class
This category is sub divided on the basis of the economic status. The people who are
from the different economic status have different demands and choices. In Travelodge they ask
for different services. Selection of the services is based on the charges of the each service.
Consumer likes to by the product that are affordable for them (Shaukat, Qiu and Trojanowski,,
2016)
Advantages of Cultural factors
Advantage- It can help the organization to learn new things about the Cultures and communities.
Disadvantage- It can affect the consumer base of company. This is also difficult to lean new
things about a new or strange culture.
Social Factor
Social Factors are classified in three categories which are reference group, family and social role
& status.
Reference Group
This groups some standards that can influence the behaviour of consumer and force them
to use the services of Travelodge that comes under their standards.
Family
in opinion of Parsons, Maclaran and Chatzidakis, (2017) This is the most important factor
that can affect the buying behaviour of individual person. Family background influence the
thinking of the individual person. The family members can affect the buying decision of

consumer. This how in Travelodge the consumer can ask for services that suggested by the
family members (Wickert, Scherer and Spence, 2016).
Social Role and Status
The social role encourage to set an example for others. This tendency can influence them
to buy services in the Travelodge. Social role is all about being a role model for others.
Advantages and Disadvantage
Advantage- social factor can help the organization to serve mere people in community gatherings
and they also will be able to generate more revenue from the high class consumers.
Disadvantage- It is not possible for organization to meet all the requirement of customer of all
class.
Personal Factors
These personal factor are associated with the personality and personal factors of the
individual person. This is are further divided in different categories which are-
Age and Life Cycle
On the different stages of life needs and demands of individual person are different on the
basis of their requirement they look for relevant services. This is how age and lifecycle of
individual person can change their buying process in the Travelodge.
Occupation
As per the occupation define the professional status of person. Their demands and needs
are different. They are more specific about their demand (Floren, Rasul and Gani, 2019). These
people look for services that are important for them and avoid the irrelevant services in the
Travelodge hotel.
Lifestyle
Lifestyle of the person the way to live the life. People chose particular lifestyle as per
their interest. This lifestyle force them to look for the services which are associated with their
regular life. They look for same comfort level in the Travelodge.

Advantages and Dis Advantages
Advantages
1. If the person has became loyal to organization them it can help organization to keep them
for long term relation.
2. This is easy for organization to plan their activities to influence individual.
Disadvantage
1. Personal factors are difficult to understand.
2. Organization can not target individual to prepare their products and services.
Psychological Factors
Psychological factors are related to the mental condition of the consumers. This factors
are related to the satisfaction level of consumers.
Motivation
Motivation level is depended on the satisfaction of the consumers if they are satisfied
with the services then their motivation will be high(Szmigin and Piacentini, 2018). This
motivation can help them to revisit the Travelodge.
Perception
Perception is main thing in the consumer organization relation, The perception of
consumer make them to select organization to purchase product and services of Travelodge. By
influencing their perception organization can encourage to buy their product.
Experience
The post buying experience is most important for their satisfaction. Better and
satisfactory experience can encourage them to reuse the services are products of same
organization.
Attitude
Attitude is all about the behaviour intention and belief and feelings towards the business.
Their positive and energetic attitude towards Travelodge shows their interest towards purchasing
service and product again.

Advantages and disadvantages of Psychological Factors
Advantage-By influencing thinking of people organization can make them loyal. This good for
long term goal of Travelogue.
Disadvantage-It is really difficult for organization to handle extreme personalities and
consumers. Conflicts can harm the reputation of hotels.
Factors Related to Digital Technology
There are different technologies can be used in the hospitality sector. These factors can
help the organization to get better result with client services. These factor are important to
consider by the Travelogue.
There is huge impact of digital technology on the consumer trends. Consumer trends are all
about the customer behaviour and spending habits. The digital technology can change the trends
in the national and international market (Biswas and Roy, 2015). Digital technology can force
and encourage the consumer to change their decision related to buying specific product and
services.
Factors of Digital Technology
Smart Guest Experience- Digital technology can be used to provide better experience to the
clients. This technology van help the Travelogue to understand the needs of consumer.
Mobile Room Keys- This technology allows the consumers to enter room without making extra
efforts. It can reduce the load from the consumer and improve their experience in hotel.
Smart Room Service- Digital technology improve the quality of room services of hotel. This can
improve the comfort level of people in organization. It has huge impacton behaviour of
consumer.
Advantages-
1. Provide high control over organizational function.
2. Reduce the work load on employees.
3. Improve the functionality of Hotel.

Disadvantages-
1. Hard to understand.
2. High cost for installation in hotel.
P2 Change in the Consumer Trends Due to Digital Technology
Use of Mobile Technology
The digital technology is about use of technology in the business operations. There are many
people are connected to the mobiles and they are using internet to buying products and services
that are provide by different organizations (Schütte and Ciarlante, 2016. The organizations like
Travelodge are using the digital technology to provide facility to the consumer to book the rooms
and other services online. The booking process through id faster, efficient and cost effective for
consumer and this also allow hotel to make relevant changes in services before arrival of
consumer (Javornik, 2016). People are aware of these services.
Influence of Social Media
Social media is a part of the digital technology and both organization and consumer are
using the digital technology. Organizations are using it to perform marketing and promotion
activities to attract more consumer towards their organization. Their purpose to influence
customer to use the services of Travelodge (Trail, 2015). There are millions of people are using
the social media application like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn. The hospitality
sector organization use their pages on these social media platform to get more consumer views
and clicks on company website. Their purpose to increase the number of clients of hotel. Use of
social media has huge impact on the consumer behaviour.
Generational Needs
The old generation were using the traditional methods to buying product and services but
new generation is aware of the digital technology. They use the digital technology to get faster
and effective services. This fast services are more satisfying and error free. This is how digital
technology force the consumer to change their traditional method of purchasing product and
services (Kaur and Singh, 2017). The faster and efficient service change their mind set to leave
the conventional methods of purchasing and use the advance and new digital technology.

Improve the Consumer Loyalty
All the organization wants to increase their revenue for immediate basis but the long term
relations are more important for them. This more important for organization like Travelodge to
make loyal to full fill the long term goals (Horner and Swarbrooke, 2016). This is only possible
by providing better services to the consumers. By using technology it is easy for Travelodge to
provide better satisfaction to the consumers by tracking their needs and demands.
Data Security
Data security is one of the most important in the digital technology. There both type of
effect on the consumer trends (Caruana, Carrington and Chatzidakis, 2016). There are some
advantages and disadvantages of digital technology. Advantages of digital technology drives the
consumer to use the digital technology to get services of the services of Travelodge. The data
security is main concern of the consumers, if organizations are providing better services then
customer will buy their product and services through digital technology. In the opposite
condition for security concerns people wants to avoid the online and digital technology for fund
transfer and sharing personal details.
There are Different ways to improve and influence the decision of the consumer to make
them buying services of the Travelodge. Some of the methods are-Providing better services
which can help them to achieve the consumer loyalty, increase the revenue generating from each
consumer, provide better satisfaction to the clients and identify their need to provide more
convenient services to them.
LO2
P3 Consumer Decision Making Process
The consumer decision making process is most important for organization. This is the
process which is followed by the consumer to buy a product or a services. The consumer buying
process can be classified in different steps which are used by the consumer to make final
decision to buy a particular product (Trail, 2015). These steps of consumer decision making
process are- Recognition or Problem, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase
decision and post purchase decision.

Recognition and Problem
This is the first step of the consumer purchase decision. Without need no one would
purchase anything. The purchasing process or consumer decision making starts with a need or a
problem. In the initial stage consumer find a need or face a problem which can not be solved
with the currently available resources. In this case they need help to solve the particular problem
which can be achieved by making available relative resources, product and services (Floren,
Rasul and Gani, 2019). In this step want of consumer make them feel that they need something
to solve a particular problem. For example consumer are planning a tour and need to arrange an
accommodation at a particular location. This is a need a problem which can be solved by
purchasing services of a hotel like Travelodge. This is how a problem leads to recognition of a
need. In this step consumer feel lack of resources which they need to buy.
Information
There are different ways are used by the consumer to collect the information about the
resources that can help the individual to full feel needs of solution for their problem (Lim, Soutar
and Lee, 2016). The information searching process can be divided in two types which are-
internal and external. The internal information is based on the personal thinking and experience.
On the basis of this personal experience and thinking individual person search for product or
service that can help the person to find the solution for particular problem. The other type of
information search is external search. Which is based on the information searching from the
external sources like people around, media, internet and suggestion form other specialist people.
This is how person can gather information from different solution to find solution for their
problem or product that full fill their demand. In this process consumer looks for different
alternatives for their problems. There are various organizations which are providing services that
are similar to the Travelodge. Customer have various options among which they have to select
one of the best effective.
Evaluation of Alternatives
As per the information collected by the consumer they have multiple options to meet their
demands, there are different brands are their which used to provide same kind of products and
services (Shiel, do Paço and Alves, 2019). This set of multiple brands is also known as the

evoked set. Evoked set is the list or group of product that comes first in the mind when thinking
about the product. This could be result of internal or external research. These some final options
that are considered by the consumer for buying. As the consumer have multiple choices which all
are similar, at this moment prospect theory help to find the last solution that can help the
customer to select one final product. In this theory, the similar product are compared on the basis
of profit and loss. In this process all the options are compared on this basis evaluation. On the
base of this profit loss evaluation process last product or services is shortlisted by the person. For
example there are different which are providing same product but on the basis of profit loss
evaluation the Hotel Travelodge is one of the best in its category.
Decision Making
As final product or services is sort listed in the step the shortlisted products are analysed
on the basis of different features which comes along with the product or services. On this
analysis the many products are eliminated in the process and the last remaining product is
selected by the person for purchasing. In this process compare the product on scale of
convenience. For example the accessibility of the Travelodge is better than other organizations
(Christou, 2016). This is how in this step final selected product is purchased by the consumer.
This is the stage where actual decision made by the consumer.
Post Purchase Evaluation
This is the step where the consumer use the product and gain experience with it. This is
one of the most important step for the organization that is providing service to the consumer. On
the quality and performance of the service or product customer feel satisfactory or unsatisfactory.
The product is evaluated on the basis on their expectations. There are different cases are possible
which drives the loyalty of consumer (Trail, 2015). If the product or service is highly satisfactory
then it can help the organization to get loyal customer, if product or service is optimum
performing then it is also good for company and if the post purchase experience is not good as it
was expected to be then it can cause value loss to the brand and company can lose kits customers
in future. The positive and negative experience drives the loyalty of consumer in positive and
negative way (Narula and Desore, 2016). For the example if the services provided by the
Travelodge are not good than customer will shift to other hospitality sector organization.

This is how all the consumer decision making process works for the organization like
Travelodge.
Factors that can Influence the Consumer Behaviour
There are different factors which can influence the decision of consumer are-Heuristic,
marketing mix and technology.
Heuristic-This practice is not applicable for all the condition. In case of the hotel selection is not
possible to try all the hotels at same time and it can take long time. This approach is good for the
cheap products which can be used multiple at a time.
Marketing Mix- The 4P’s of marketing have huge impact on the consumer purchase behaviour.
These P’s are- Product, Promotion, Place and Price.
Product- For product factors like quality and service are considered by the customer (Rajavi,
Kushwaha and Steenkamp, 2019). If the quality and performance of the product are good then it
is a positive sign for the customer and organization. This can force the consumer to buy the
product.
Price- This is one of the most common factor for the consumer. They are mostly influenced by
this decision (Shaukat, Qiu and Trojanowski,, 2016). If the services and product provided at
Travelodge are good at pricing than consumer will be attracted by the services of hotel and they
will make their mind set to revisit the hotel in next visit. This is how price influences the
decision of the consumer.
Promotion- There are different promotion methods are used by the Travelodge. If the promotion
use by hotel are effective than it will positively affect the mind set of customers. This will help
the organization to get more visits of consumers.
Place- In the case of hotel industry the location of hotel is one of the most important thing. The
view of hotel, accessibility of hotel make it more attractive (Massingham and Pomering, 2017).
For example if hotel is easy to access than clients will select Travelodge as their final and
retained choice.
Technological Factors