Analyzing Consumer Behavior and Decision-Making in Hospitality

This report provides an in-depth analysis of hospitality consumer behavior, focusing on the factors influencing consumer attitudes and decision-making processes within the context of Bicester Village Hotel in the UK. It explores the impact of social, cultural, psychological, and personal factors on consumer behavior, as well as the influence of digital technology on consumer trends. The report examines the stages of consumer decision-making, including need recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase, and post-purchase behavior, and highlights the importance for marketers to map the path to purchase. It also discusses appropriate research methods to understand consumer decision-making, contrasting B2B and B2C approaches, and explores how marketers can influence different stages of the consumer decision-making process. The report utilizes the Black Box Model to understand customer decision making, including the use of primary and secondary research.

Hospitality Consumer
Behaviour and Insight

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
LO1. FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE HOSPITALITY CONSUMER BEHAVIOR AND
ATTITUDE.................................................................................................................................3
P1. Different factors which are influencing consumer behavior and attitude.............................3
P2. Consumer trends are changing due to the impact digital technology...................................4
LO2. The ability to map a path to purchase in hospitality context, including decision-making
process.........................................................................................................................................5
P3. Stages of consumer decision-making....................................................................................5
P4 Importance for marketers to map a path to purchase and understand consumer decision
making in hospitality service......................................................................................................5
LO3 Appropriate form of research to understand influences on the hospitality consumer
decision- making process............................................................................................................6
P5 Decision making difference of hospitality company when dealing B2B and other is when
dealing B2C.................................................................................................................................6
P6 Different approaches to market research and method for research for understanding the
decision making process.............................................................................................................7
LO4. Marketers influence different stages of the hospitality consumer decision making
process.........................................................................................................................................8
P7 Marketers part in influencing different stages of hospitality decision making process.........8
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
This report is for understanding the factors that influence hospitality consumer behaviour and
attitudes, in this report there is also discussion about how to understand customer decision-
making and how marketers influence customer decision making stages and the whole discussion
which is explained in report is on Bicester Village Hotel of UK which provide hospitality
service. That how company use Black Box model to understand customers decision making like
using primary research and secondary research.
MAIN BODY
LO1. FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE HOSPITALITY CONSUMER BEHAVIOR AND
ATTITUDE.
P1. Different factors which are influencing consumer behaviour and attitude.
 Social Factor – Social factors creates great influence on hospitality industry, as there are
variety of customer who visits Bicester Village Hotel in UK and every individual or
couple who visits hotel is of different mind set and this all customer together creates a
society so if they are happy with the hospitality of hotel then they will like your hotel and
will visit hotel again but if they don't like then they will prefer other hotel. As there are
many things which comes under hospitality like providing proper service to customer,
giving them all the facilities which they think they will get, and that's why social factor
bring great influence in hospitality behavior and attitude.
 Cultural Factor – Culture is like tradition in which different people are living like in UK,
India, Japan, each country is having different culture and this culture gives a great impact
on people minds as they are addicted to the culture in which they live, so this culture also
influences hospitality factor as Bicester Village Hotel in UK used culture factor very
effectively by giving all types of customer a cultural feel of their own country. Whenever
a tourist visits another country, they feel unsafe that they will get proper food or not,
good behavior from the people out their either from hotel staff or from other local people
and after that if they get touch of their country then they get impressed with hospitality of
hotel, and Bicester has all quality of proving best facility to their customer.(Min and
Jeong., 2019)
 Psychological Factor – It is that factor which create judgments either facilities which are
provided to them is good or not. Like if a couple had visited hotel Bicester Village Hotel

and the couple which is from other country comes with a mind set that UK people are
not so sweet which is their psychological mind set and this mind set affects hospitality
factor as they come with negative mind set but as psychology can be change if they got
so much greet from hotel then their mind set will become positive and this thing will
influence hospitality of consumer's behavior and attitude positively.(Moutinho and
Vargas-Sanchez., 2018)
 Personal Factor – This factor is related with individual perception or can be said as
according to individual thinking like many of customers visits Bicester Village Hotel and
the staff of hotel treat all customer equally but the thing is that either all individual is
liking Bicester service or not, so to make each and every individual happy Bicester staff
has to change their behavior according to customers behavior.
P2. Consumer trends are changing due to the impact digital technology.
Customer trends are so much influenced by digital technology as digital world had changed
whole dimension of world as digital technology had came with lot of things in it like now any
individual can book any hotel, film tickets, cab, or can pay bill digitally and this digital
technology is one of the most trending thing in today's world as like Customer who want to book
hotel in UK named Bicester Village Hotel UK and if customer was living in 90's then he would
not able to book hotel digitally, at that time when customer reach UK after that he will find hotel
by asking people about hotel that which is best hotel and after that he had stop a tax and after that
taxi will drop him according to the hotel name given to the taxi driver, but after entry of digital
technology customer trend is highly changed like if now they have to book Bicester Village
Hotel in UK then they can booked everything through their phone like taxi, hotel, or any other
booking which is available digitally.(Yüksel., 2017) The most positive things which customer
has get through digital market is that they can go through different hotels, different shopping
apps and different products according rates, quality, brand etc. So consumer now days do all
their work digitally and technology had provided very good result in term of money for
consumer like they do not need now to go here and their for so many purpose like for paying
bills, for mobile recharge and many more important work.

LO2. The ability to map a path to purchase in hospitality context, including decision-making
process.
P3. Stages of consumer decision-making.
 Need recognition – Whenever any stage start it starts with need recognition, that what is
the need of consumer, or person. Need of consumer explains their willingness to buy or
to get something, for example customer is in need of a hotel in UK so the first thing that
comes is need.
 Information search – When customer know about his need than customer go for
collecting information to fulfil that need because without knowing about the thing that
you want you cant get it. For example As in first stage customer is in need of hotel in UK
and after that he started collecting information about the hotels in UK.
 Evaluation of alternatives – After need had been recognized, than collect information
about need and now use the information or can be said evaluation of alternatives. For
example As in earlier two stage customer collect all the information about his need of
hotel and now he found so many alternative as per his needs.(Gursoy., 2019)
 Purchase – Purchase is that time when customer get the thing which he need and it comes
after collecting information, and from that information customer get so many alternatives
and after finding the best alternative he purchase it. For example – Customer decision
making's first three stages help in finding so many alternatives for customer, and now the
customer who has find so many hotels now get the best matching hotel Bicester Village
Hotel and he had booked it.
 Post purchase behaviour – It is that stage which is also known as feedback in this stage
customer tells about the satisfaction and dissatisfaction he got from the thing he had
purchased and it is last stage of consumer decision making.(Bharwani and Jauhari., 2017)
For example customer who had taken room in hotel Bicester Village Hotel after using all
the facilities and getting service from their staff will decide either the hotel has given the
hospitality service good or not.
P4 Importance for marketers to map a path to purchase and understand consumer decision
making in hospitality service.
It can be understand by understanding Black Box Model :
Black Box Model consist three factors :

 STIMULI – This factors includes external factors like marketing mix or environmental
factors which affects consumer decision making. Marketing mix also contains many
things like product, price, place, promotion.(Sthapit and Jiménez-Barreto., 2018) This
four P's play vital role in decision making of people for example Bicester Village Hotel
of UK which is very big name in term of hotel business in UK so as service provider or
we can say in business of hospitality it is very important to control the factor of
marketing mix like the service which hotel is providing must satisfy customer, price
should also attract consumer, place should be so much comfortable so that they can easily
know the location and reach hotel, and the last thing of marketing mix is promotion
which every service provider do for getting customer.(Gibson and Parkman., 2018)
STIMULI also consist environmental factors in which service provider has to go and find
all the related factor of environment like what is cultural factor, situational factor and
many other factor. For example if Bicester had to know about market than hotel must
know about all the environmental factor which affects decision making of customers.
 BUYER'S MIND – Buyer's mind include internal factors like customers characteristics
and decision making process. Customer characteristics include their knowledge, beliefs,
motives and life style, And this all factors affects directly on customer decision making
so to make this factors good to business Bicester must understand culture and beliefs of
all the customer which visit them like each customer has different lifestyle, different
culture so to deal with this all Bicester but provide them best hospitality service.(Björk
and Kauppinen-Räisänen., 2015)
 Responses – It include purchase decision of customer as response contains many point
like amount, method of payment, and brand. So Bicester has to keep his brand name at
the top so consumer will take decision to visit and stay in their hotel.
LO3 Appropriate form of research to understand influences on the hospitality consumer
decision- making process.
P5 Decision making difference of hospitality company when dealing B2B and other is when
dealing B2C.
B2C B2B

In case of dealing with consumer it take less
time as they have nothing for cross talk they
just want to sell their service to customer.
(Wood., 2017)
In dealing business to business it takes so
much time as in this matter both party want to
understand each others terms and condition and
also need to know what they both are offering
to each other.
In this one is buyer and one is seller. In this there is possibility of either both are
buyer or one can be buyer and one will be
seller.
In this business has to provide facility
according to the demand customers as they are
the one who pay for their services for example
like Bicester Village Hotel wants that their
should be lots of customer who should visit
their hotel to stay and if they want to attract
customer they have to provide hospitality
service according to customers interest if they
are able to to provide then it will attract them
otherwise customer will choose other option,
In Business to Business both party has to give
equal participation as they both have equal
interest in each others business so as to deal
with each other both parties give their 100% to
impress each other.
In business to consumer marketing need is high
as it affects consumer's buying decision.
In case of business to consumer marketing
need is not needed as they deal only if they
both know about each other.
P6 Different approaches to market research and method for research for understanding the
decision making process
Market Research includes two methods :
Primary Research – For understanding customer decision making primary research is must as it
contains many things like survey, observation.(Varkaris and Neuhofer ., 2017) Interviews and
many other primary research method. To understand decision making of customer the first thing
which is important is to know what things affects customer decision making , so in primary
research company had to survey market that which things are more important to customer to buy

their product, and they also need to observe customer mind what is making them and what is not
for example Bicester Village Hotel of UK had survey market through out the world because
different country has different mind set and to understand people of different countries they need
to survey each big countries who's tourist visits their city and what type of hotel they want for
providing them best service. So hotel Bicester had taken idea from survey and from other
primary research that there are different customer some in age term, some in financial term so for
not loosing any customer they provide all type of rooms, different type of food and provide them
feel of their country.
Secondary Research – This research include social media and web analytics through which
companies understand customers mind, social media now becomes a big platform for every
individual as it brings lots of customer at your door if they like it.(King., 2017) Bicester use
social media widely for promotion as they can understand all things by understanding customer
need through customer interaction with their website on internet. Each and Every person now use
social media so it become easy for businessmen to cover market and understand the need of
market. By digital technology it is also possible for company to get information about each user
which had visited their website and by knowing this they can also send notification to users
about their hotel through message, because now days digital marketing has covered so many
things under it, Bicester also post photos on their official pages so that people can see their
quality of rooms, food and other special things of their hotel.
LO4. Marketers influence different stages of the hospitality consumer decision making process.
P7 Marketers part in influencing different stages of hospitality decision making process.
Marketers plays very important role in influencing stages of consumer's decision making as
consumer decision making second stage conclude that after need had been recognized, its time to
collect information so at the time of collecting information they get so many information so to
make sure that what information will affect consumer mind marketers advertise their product and
service in such a way that consumer cant ignore their product for example whenever any tourist
search for hotels hospitality service in UK either through social media, or website or through
public of UK, Bicester Marketing team does great marketing that if they search best hotel of UK
the first hotel come on google is Bicester or either tourist ask taxi driver they also suggest them
about this hotel as their marketing team has done such a great job so that whenever any person

need hotel in UK the best hotel which shows on site is Bicester. Marketers are that part of
hospitality service provider without this it can't run as they are the one who creates such a good
image in mind of consumer that they love to visit and stay their hotel. Marketers do many things
like survey, observation and all other market research as to know that which strategy they use to
attract customer to their business, they are the one who can make business success if they work
effectively and if not than it will become risky thing for company.(Semeradova and Vávrová.,
2016)As in today's world there are many hospitality service provider and they all want that
customer must come their hotel but the customer is only attracted by those who has having good
name in market, as brand is that thing which attract lots of customer because each person now
days is so much conscious for their standard so they easily trust those who has having big name
in market. So marketers are those people who take care many activities of any business.
CONCLUSION
This report conclude about Bicester Village Hotel hospitality service and how they understand
mind of customer because in hotels tourist comes from different countries and to understand their
decision what effort does hotel give to bring or attract customer to their hotel and for this they
using different types of models like Black Box Model in which there are two types of research
primary and secondary which helps in understanding that what thing influence consumers mind
and there are many more things like factors which influence consumer decision making.

REFERENCES
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hospitality industry. In The Routledge Handbook of Consumer Behaviour in Hospitality and
Tourism (pp. 69-77). Routledge.
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Gibson, P. and Parkman, R., 2018. Cruise operations management: Hospitality perspectives.
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