Consumer Behaviour and Insights in Hospitality: Four Seasons Hotel

This report provides an analysis of consumer behavior and insights within the hospitality industry, using the Four Seasons Hotel as a case study. It explores various factors that influence consumer behavior, including cultural, social, personal, and psychological factors. The report also examines the impact of digital technology on changing consumer trends and the stages of the consumer decision-making journey. Furthermore, it highlights the importance of understanding the consumer path in the hospitality sector, discussing key differences between B2C and B2B decision-making processes and the role of marketers in influencing these processes. The report concludes by summarizing key findings and emphasizing the importance of adapting to evolving consumer behaviors to maintain a competitive edge in the hospitality industry. Desklib provides access to similar reports and study tools for students.

HOSPITALITY
CONSUMER
BEHAVIOUR AND
INSIGHT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
1. Explanation of different factors that influence consumer behaviour and attitudes in context
of Four Seasons Hotel..................................................................................................................3
2. The ways consumers trends are changing due to the impact of digital technology................5
3. Stages of consumer decision-making journey.........................................................................5
4. Importance of path journey to understand consumer decision-making in hospitality sector
with application of relevant examples.........................................................................................6
THE HOSPITALITY CONSUMER DECISION-MAKING PROCESS........................................7
Key differences of the hospitality decision- making process in the context of B2C and B2B....7
Factors influence hospitality decision-making and buying behaviour........................................8
MARKETERS INFLUENCE ON DIFFERENT STAGES OF THE HOSPITALITY DECISION-
MAKING PROCESS.......................................................................................................................9
Marketers can influence the different stages of the hospitality decision- making process..........9
Marketers response to decision making criteria........................................................................10
Theories of decision making......................................................................................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Consumer behaviour in hospitality and tourism is considered as the actions and decision-
making processes of varied people who leverage products and services for personal
consumption. It has been influenced by different factors such as cultural, social as well as
personal (Ladsawut and Nunkoo, 2018). The study about the consumer behaviour is extremely
important as it helps to understand what makes a customer to purchase the company offered
product. In order to describe the concept, Four Seasons Hotel which is an international luxury
hotel serving services in various countries and having more than 100 hotels all across the world
has been taken through which the consumer behaviour will be illustrated.
This report will describe the concept of factors that influence hospitality consumer
behaviour and attitudes along with ability to create a path in decision-making process. Apart
from this, the study will also highlight the conception of appropriate forms of research to
understand influences on the hospitality consumer along with the ways in which the marketer
influences different stages of the hospitality consumer decision-making process.
MAIN BODY
1. Explanation of different factors that influence consumer behaviour and attitudes in context of
Four Seasons Hotel
In context of overall hospitality industry and thus for the Four Seasons Hotel as well, it
has been identified that consumer behaviour affects the ways in which the guests and tourists
chooses the hotel and restaurants for the purpose of entertainment (Varkaris and Neuhofer,
2017). The managers of the Four Seasons have to study their guests behaviour in appropriate
manner to know exactly the factors that led them to choose their hotel for stay. This information
enables them to attract more potential consumers in similar ways. Consumers are relied on
various basic factors which are known as psychological factors that highly affects guests
behaviour:
 Cultural Factor: It strongly influences the consumer buying behaviour as it involves the
roles that has been played by the people living in society, values, customs, behaviour of
the society and their traditions (Dixit, Lee and Loo, 2019). In context of Four Seasons, it
is highly important to fulfil cultural diversities as the business includes globalized
customers. Therefore, it is significant to describe a kind of culture which consists of

beliefs, values and attitudes that effective enough to attract more and more customers
towards the business.
 Social Factors: Human beings are social creature, and they live around various people
who determine the buying behaviour in most fruitful manner. It is the basic tendency of
humans that they try to imitate each and other and also wish to be socially accepted.
Hence, their buying behaviour also affect other people as well. Thus, Four Seasons have
to adopt certain actions which helps them to attract more of family members and
reference group of their existing customers in order to attract more potential consumers.
It has been identified that families and reference groups plays a vital role in shaping the
buying behaviour of a person because these are the people with whom the candidate
associate themselves the most.
 Personal Factor: These are the factors that are extremely personal to the consumers such
as their age, income, lifestyle and their occupation. These highly influences their buying
behaviour. For instance, the Four Seasons directly adopts the actions to attract consumers
who are between the age of 20 to 50 years as they are the ones who are interested in
roaming around different places than anybody else (Alves and Marques, 2019). Income
also signifies the appropriateness of the overall concept as this has the ability which
influences the buying behaviour of consumers. Lifestyle also defines the attitude of
individuals as well as their interests about the ways in which they want to live within the
society.
 Psychological factors: Human psychology also greatly affects the buying behaviour
although it is difficult to measure but compelling enough to influence the buying
behaviour. The motivation level, their perception, learning, attitude and their belief
system highly encourages the buying behaviour of consumers. Consumer pays attention
where they receive more value and thus the loyalty is a very big factor of repurchasing.
To encourage loyal customers, giving something extra is the basic strategy that has been
adopts by the Four Seasons. Company beliefs and attitude also influences the buying
behaviour of customers and helps to create certain image of their offered goods and
services in the available market space.

2. The ways consumers trends are changing due to the impact of digital technology
It has been identified that digital technology is a part of the modern day life without
which the life has been considered as unimaginable to everybody. People are utilizing
technologies and changes in far rapid manner which attracts the consumer behaviour in overall
context. Digital technology impacts the consumer behaviour in varied ways such as more
adoption of technology helps the consumers to do bookings of hotel rooms just by using the
mobile apps or websites (Ozturk, 2017). Initially the traditional trend of consumers consists of
booking the hotels in manual manner or by going at the premises itself but nowadays they want it
with just few clicks. In context of Four Seasons, it has ben identified that company provides
various facilities such as Wi-Fi infrastructure, digital conference facilities, mobile
communication, infrared sensors, keyless doors, cloud services, etc. which provides great
potentiality to their consumers so that they provide positive feedbacks for the hotel on various
digital platforms. The technology changes the complete way as it enables the hospitality sector to
streamline their processes in effective manner, reduce costs, lower down the staff member's
workload, enhances revenue generation and also improves the level of consumers experiences
which has been delivered to them.
Thus, it has been identified that different factors that influences the consumer behaviour
and changing trends affects the hospitality industry as with changing trends the desires of
consumers also changed and now feel more connected with the firm. They can easily able to
access the informations at varied locations. After the introduction of technology the hotels are
now becoming smart hotels and more personalized according to the demand of consumers.
3. Stages of consumer decision-making journey
Consumer decision-making is a process that identifies the consumers needs, collects
information, analyse from various alternatives and finally make final decisions. These actions
were determined by psychological factors that influenced by culture, social, personal and
phycological values.
At the primary stage, it has been identified that consumers determine the requirements of
getting services from the hospitality industry after facing exhaustion in their day to day life.
After the recognition of need, the information about the hotels have been searched by the
customers over the websites or apps through internet facility. After searching, evaluation of

various hotels have been identified where various hotels have been provided which offers similar
kind of services to their guests (Gallarza, Arteaga and Gil-Saura, 2019). Over there the
consumers will choose the Four Seasons Hotel as they are efficient enough to provide valuable
services to their customers. During this stage, customers analyse the goods and services on scale
of brand attributes which are able to deliver the benefit they are seeking. After complete analysis,
purchase decision occurs under which the customer decides to purchase or adopt services from
Four Seasons after evaluating their unique services. Here, the customer from an intention to
purchase services from Four Seasons after evaluating all the alternative solutions and after
identifying the values (Modica and et.al., 2020). And finally the post purchase behaviour occurs
under which the description of consumers which illustrates their feelings, what they think, and
act occurs. At this stage the assessment happens whether they are happy or not and will come
again to adopt this services or not.
4. Importance of path to understand consumer decision-making in hospitality sector with
application of relevant examples
The most important and significant goal of hospitality marketing is to reach consumers at
the moment that highly influences the decisions of consumers. Customers follow the complete
path or process to move through each subsequent step of buyer’s journeys until they reach the
end of the process. This path helps the Four Seasons to analyse whether customers interact with
their business, enables them to focus on particular desires, identifies their journey in logical
manner, identify gaps and highlight development priorities. The four Seasons have to respond by
capturing the attention of their target audience by getting their content in place and after
identification of their target audience (de Korte, Bosman and Blomme, 2019). With the
involvement of path journey the firm is able to establish the brand as an industry leader by
attracting attention and making their brand visible. With the involvement of path, Four Seasons
will encourage their customers to see the differences such as by creating TV commercials that
promote the hotel services, provide them appropriate information by target advertising on TV
programs and provide sales training that ensures knowledgable salesperson, make the consumers
understand their brand value by conducting research to identify most significant evaluating
criteria, provide them appropriate communication through which they encourage the decisions of

choosing that brand and with the help of providing honest advertising and sales presentation, the
hotel encourages customers accurate expectations.
THE HOSPITALITY CONSUMER DECISION-MAKING PROCESS
Key differences of the hospitality decision- making process in the context of B2C and B2B
Decision making process in regard to the finest entity of any organisation which will be
reflecting upon the business objectives as well as the models. The businesses are said to be
evolving at a rapid pace with half hour all the ideologies as well as the kind of activities are
defined in order to reach the goal (Stankevich, 2017).
The B2B and B2C business are the good orientations in this regard and both are differing with
each other in terms of their decision making criteria. The decision making process in the
hospitality industry with respect to B2C will revolve around how far the target audience are
being maintained. They usually prioritise the decisions in imbibing the standard such that the
target audience can be maintained and also given an account of all the defining goals. For this
particular decision-making they will differ in the process of evaluating the consumers as well as
a marketing approaches that are necessary for people to incorporate. The hospitality industry will
choose various kinds of promotional aspects such that the target audience can be met within no
time.
The B2B hospitality industries decision making policies will revolve around to uplift the
standards of an organisation to such an extent that the organisation stands as a unique entity.
There are certain emotions as well as the decisions that will be used to target revenue as well as
the financial status of the organisation. Based on the resources as well as the allocation of
resources as the organisation will move ahead in terms of rising it profit and the decision-making
will entirely based on the macro environmental factors that are determining the business (Gupta,
2019). This macro environmental factors will help the business to get an idea and to account for
strategies as well as the customer types that are to be designed for.
Approaches to market research and methods of research
Research methods play a major role in order to determine the standards of to which the
organisation will have to move ahead in terms of development. Research is necessary in order to
incorporate certain policies as well as the factors of uplifting the organisation to such an extent

that people can get to identify the organisation. The two types of research methods that are used
include qualitative research method and quantitative research method.
B2B: this particular method will gain information from the observation as well as the businesses
that will bring about the onset of criteria that will have to be dealt by an organisation. This will
also include business feedback in the market on a qualitative basis can be ensured by the
hospitality industry to move ahead with the kind of implementations that it will have to make in
order to satisfy customers. This will also bring about the kind of experiences that are being
associated with customers of hospitality industry (Abdel‐Basset and et.al, 2019).
B2C: the B2C market include quantitative market research method that will bring about the
collection as well as the analysis that is oriented with the theoretical prospect of data. This is a
descriptive method and it also relates certain factors in the process of collecting data. The
quantitative research methods will bring about the processes that inculcated in the organisation
can get to identify the standards of implementations.
Factors influence hospitality decision-making and buying behaviour
There are certain factors that will fall in regard to identifying the standards of a hospitality
industry. Some of the important factors are as follows:
Past experiences: the hospitality industry is being ruled by the past experiences of its consumers
stop there are certain good and bad experiences that will speak a lot about how far the service is
being carry forwarded. By taking example from the past services the organisation will account
for a change in the future aspects that will have to be implemented which plays a major role.
Cultural barriers: hospitality industry is segregated on the basis of culture. There are many
people all around who visits the organisation for a stay or regular process. The organisation will
have to deal with certain cultural barriers where the customers will be from different aspects. In
order to match their expectations to our organisation will have to purchase the identity in order to
reach out their needs and that will determine the decision making process of the organisation.
Different perceptions: each and every individual is composed of various ideologies as well as
perception. Arriving at the heart of decision making it is necessary that people will have to
understand the formulations on an exact basis and only then the service can be gratified. This
cognitive bias is will stand as one of the barrier for decision making and it will also determine
the consumer buying behaviour (Abdel‐Basset and et.al, 2019).

MARKETERS INFLUENCE ON DIFFERENT STAGES OF THE
HOSPITALITY DECISION- MAKING PROCESS
Marketers can influence the different stages of the hospitality decision- making process
Consumer behaviour is regarded to be one of those entities that will determine the entire page of
the organisation. The marketing in the organisation is set to be incorporated by various stages of
letting the company into existence. There are certain decision making policies with respect to
marketing and the influence of marketing can change the methods and methodologies of entire
decision making criteria. Marketing is one of the finest technique that can be incorporated in the
organisations and that with respect to hospitality industry will be one of the added benefit. In
respect to the decision making criteria of the consumers or the customers it is also essential that
the marketing concept will have to grab the entire ideology of the customers. The customer
might have a different perception with respect to the organisation and the marketers in the
organisation will derive the standards in an entirely new methodology. With the essence of
marketing the need of recognition will have to be arrived and that will also bring about an
information that will have to be made prominent. All the alternatives that are to be derived will
have to be enhanced with respect to the influence of marketing upon the sales decisions as well
as the post sales decision. The business model will be entirely dependent upon how far these
marketers are being able to solve the queries that are in regard to customers. There are certain
demands of customers that are in regard to hospitality industry and those will have to be
evaluated by bringing about a complete review by not damaging the customer relationship. A
perfect research is carry forwarded in this regard in order to make the decision making criteria
that will identify the needs which are to be processed.
Marketers response to decision making criteria
The response of marketers in regard to the decision making criteria will be the one that will fall
under identifying different macro as well as micro environmental factors. These factors will
determine the strategies that will have to be incorporated in the organisation and every decision
making criteria will fall under how far the organisation can be able to withstand the changes. The
important factors will constitutes the kind of a promotional activities that are to be incorporated
in the crowd such that they can get to understand the aspects that the hospitality industry is
dealing with. When it is in regard to the customers as well as a crisis the promotional activities
will have to choose a stream of moving forth such that they can get to understand the kind of

ideologies that are being dealt in the organisation. The need for recognition is one of the aspects
that every marketer usually deal with (Karl and et.al, 2020). For this they will have to bring
about the motivation that is in regard to customers and also the information that is necessary to
understand customers will have to be gathered as a part of response to stop these responses will
derive the kind of implementations that will have to be made in the organisation. Marketing
strategies are as important as any other activity in the organisation and therefore in order to move
ahead with a perfect decision making process all these experimental factors will have to be
scattered.
Theories of decision making
Decision making process is one of the crucial criteria and the different theories that are included
in order to move ahead with the consequences of deciding upon implementations are as follows:
Casual decision theory: this particular theory will state that the outcomes are based upon how far
the decisions are being inculcated with respect to one's own self. This particular decision making
theory is usually followed by many organisations and that with respect to the organisation that is
being adopted in this report.
Evidential decision making theory: dividend decision making theory is the one that will bring
about an outcome on an accurate basis (Karl and et.al, 2020). It is already known that this
particular decision will be the one that will elevate entire choice of the organisation.
Game theory: this particular decision making theory will bring about the onset of two or more
strategies as outcomes. This theory will also include the conflict and cooperation considerations
between different decision-makers.
CONCLUSION
The entire report concludes up on identifying the aspects that are in relation to hospitality
consumer behaviour and insight. Through this report one can easily understand the factors that
will influence of hospitality consumer behaviour and the different attitudes that will fall in regard
to it. The ability to map a path to purchase in a hospitality contexts as well as the inclusion of
decision-making processes are being evaluated. The certain research methods as well as the
methodologies that influence hospitality consumer decision making process is being portrayed in
this report. The different stages of hospitality decision-making process are identified and are
explored accordingly.

REFERENCES
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Varkaris, E. and Neuhofer, B., 2017. The influence of social media on the consumers’ hotel
decision journey. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology.
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Decision making process (2021): [Online]. Available through: < 8 Steps in the Decision-Making
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