Hospitality Consumer Behaviour: Factors, Trends and Decision Making

This report delves into the intricacies of consumer behavior within the hospitality sector, using Hotel Intercontinental as a case study. It examines various factors influencing consumer decisions, including cultural, social, personal, and psychological aspects, while also exploring the significant impact of digital technology on consumer trends. The report further investigates the consumer decision-making process in the hospitality industry and emphasizes the importance of consumer mapping for understanding and improving customer experiences. It also provides a comparison between Business-to-Business and Business-to-Customer approaches and outlines different market research methods relevant to the field. Finally, it discusses the key factors involved in market research, providing a comprehensive overview of consumer behavior and its implications for the hospitality industry.

HOSPITALITY
CONSUMER
BEHAVIOUR
INSIGHT

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
LO1 .................................................................................................................................................3
P1 Different cultural, social, personal, psychological factors to influence consumer behaviour
.....................................................................................................................................................3
P2 Impact of digital technology on consumer trends. ................................................................4
LO 2.................................................................................................................................................6
P 3 Consumer Decision Making Process In Hospitality Industry...............................................6
Importance of Consumer Mapping in Hospitality .....................................................................7
LO 3.................................................................................................................................................8
P 5 Comparison between Business to Business and Business to Customers..............................8
P 6 Different Approaches To Market Research .........................................................................9
LO 4...............................................................................................................................................10
P 7 Different factors of Research in the Market......................................................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

Introduction
Consumer is required for development of business at large scale. The smooth working of
business largely depends on the their consumers. Companies needs to analyse facilities and
services that drive the target audience towards the organization services. Business needs to
prepare marketing strategy for development of business at large scale. Consumer behaviour helps
organization to study the individuals and groups in an organization. Individuals are required to
analyse to satisfy their needs and wants. The consumer behaviour is required to analyse the
buying decision of an individual. The report is going to show the influence of consumer
behaviour on Hotel Intercontinental that helps them to develop business at large scale. The report
is going to cover different factors that influence overall consumers while using services of an
organization. Impact of digital technology on the working of an organization. The stages of
consumer behaviour that influence them in decision making in an organization. The decision
making process of consumer is analysed effectively and how it is important for marketers.
Different type of market research method helps to understand decision making.
LO1
P1 Different cultural, social, personal, psychological factors to influence consumer behaviour
Intercontinental hotel group in U.K is have a large number of branches all over the world.
The business needs to analyse working to establish an effective environment in their
organization. The business needs to analyse the behaviour of their consumers to develop
effective use of their resources. Consumers are one of the important factors for development of
business at large scale that helps business to achieve their goals and objectives(Grimmer and
Miles, 2017.) . The hotel needs to analyse each and every working of their customers for their
smooth working in an organization. Company needs to analyse various factors to develop their
business at large scale.
Personal factors
Personal factors are analysed to know the basis requirements of the customers. The age,
gender, education, income level is important to develop business at large scale. Age is most
important factors to analyse in an individual or an consumer. Each and every individual of
different age have their own choices and business needs to analyse the choice of every
generation to achieve their business goals. The income level or occupation of customers play an

important role as Intercontinental hotel provide facilities that have heavy costs and prices to
develop business at large scale. Occupation helps business to analyse their customers. Financial
abilities of an individual is important to afford the services of hotel. Personal factors of
consumers also involve their choices on the basis of their personality.
Social factors
Social factors effects the overall decision making of an consumer. Social factors plays a
important role in buying and selling of customers. Hotel intercontinental needs to analyse the
interruption of family and friends in decisions of an individual. Friends and family opinion plays
an important role in decision. The consumers need to maintain their status that makes them to
book hotels which provide them facilities.
Psychological factors
Psychological factors plays an important role in overall decision making of an individual
that helps them to achieve their goals and objectives. Factors shows the requirement of
consumers to use the resources of an organization. The customers are motivated to use the
resources of an hotel. The taste and preference is analysed effectively to motivate customers
towards the company products and services.
Cultural factors
Culture of an individual plays an important role in their decision making. The
hotel needs to analyse the culture of customers and develop resources according to requirement.
The values and morals of an individual is analysed effectively(Díaz, Gómez and Molina, 2017.).
The hotel needs to maintain culture so that it will not effect the values of customers. The culture
analysis helps hotel to know the buying behaviour of an individual.
P2 Impact of digital technology on consumer trends.
Digital technology is developing day by day and customers feel comfortable to use
services online. As large number of hotels are providing their services online so it helps
customers to develop their business using those functions.
Stay connected
Due to increase in technology all over the world it helps business to connect the
customers with their product and services. Whenever an individual likes to book an hotel he can

use the website of hotel and check availability and rooms hotel. Large number of consumers are
active online and use the services of organization.
Fulfil consumer expectations
Consumer are able to know all the offers and facilities provided to them by using online
sites. It helps Hotel Intercontinental to engage customers effectively with their products and
services. Consumers will like to go for a product that are able to satisfy their wants. Consumers
have an idea of their purchasing power that helps them to develop their expectation from the
product and services.
Ease to access information
Consumers are able to use the technology. With the help of websites they are able to
gather information about the services provided to them by an organization. Due to transparency
in information the consumers are able to analyse the services provided by hotels. They are able
to conduct a research on services as well as facilities provided to them by hotel(Christou, 2016.) .
Hotel Intercontinental needs to increase their online presence as to develop their business at large
scale.
Brand trust and likeability
Increase in technology makes business to develop their business online. The reviews by
the customers plays an important role for an individual to use products and services of an
organization. The positive reviews of customers increase the trustworthiness of other individuals.
Increasing trust helps hotel to attract customers. Effective appearance of organization help
business to develop their brand trust.
Customer expectations
Technology increases the expectation of customers as large number of facilities by
different companies are available online. Customers wants the product that fulfil their needs and
helps them to satisfy. Customers expectation for hotel services is also increases due to effective
technology.
Need for personalization
Business needs to identify their target audience and develop their products and services
according to the wants and desires of their customers are creating personalized experience for
customers.

LO 2
P 3 Consumer Decision Making Process In Hospitality Industry
Intercontinental hotel have analysed the need to understand the decision-making criteria
of their consumers so that they can improve the factors which the consumers are not liking to
attract them for the stay and also increase their satisfaction with the increase behaviour Patterns
of buyers of better strategy and services. Consumers are the king of the market and also have the
right to choose their suitable products and services according to their willingness to pay and also
having the better satisfaction available in them market. The consumers in the hospitality industry
are very considerate about their services and the amount and to the hotel as they want to get
relaxed in the given amount. The consumer also take many decisions to analyse the right hotel
before finalizing the right service for them as they do not want to wast6e their money on the
wrong service and regret later. There are many factors which help the consumers to opt a better
services in their surroundings.( Hameed and Madhavan, 2017)
1. The need to go in a hotel arises from the self actualizing need of the consumers they want
to fulfil to be mentally stable and happy in life. These needs give birth to analysis of
different factors of opting the right hotel which will provide optimum satisfaction to
them.
2. After the consumer is aware of their need now they have to analyse the medium and
sources through which they can satisfy their needs and increase their efficiency in their
life to do work effectively. The more active the consumer in finding the information the
better option he will get. The information about the intercontinental hotel can be gained
by the close friends who have experienced the services, by advertisements of the hotels,
newspapers, or they can also consider the hotel by their own experiences.
3. After the consumer have analysed all the better option which are compared by the
intercontinental hotel to find the better services in order to satisfy their needs and increase
their experience about the hotel they choose.
4. The consumer will finalize the hotel after understanding all the factors.
5. Tin this final stage the consumer will analyse that the money they paid for the services
are actually worthy or not and compare their satisfaction level according to the price
charge to the consumer. (Sirgy, Lee and Grace, 2016)

Importance of Consumer Mapping in Hospitality
The journey of the consumer is very important for the hotel industry to understand.
Intercontinental hotels have also analyzed that keeping the track on the journey of their consumer
will help the company to establish a better strategies so that the company can understand the
behavior of the consumer and provide them with better services. The journey of the consumer
will increase the knowledge of the hotel by gaining the experiences of their consumers and
analyzing the problems which they faced in the journey.
 With the help of consumer mapping the company can analyses every step which the
consumer is taking. It will also help the company to know how the consumer will be
attracted to them so that they can increase that factor in order to increase the sales of the
hotel.
 Intercontinental Hotel also track the journey of the consumer as it helps to understand the
pattern and seeing weather the consumers are going on the rightbehaviour Patterns of
buyer path to opt their hotels or not.
 It also helps the intercontinental hotel group to understand the needs and wants of the
customers so that they can make their marketing strategy in such a way so that they can
attract the customers to their hotels.
 It also helps the hotel to increase the knowledge about the other competition by knowing
their strategies ans services which they provide to their customers.
 Intercontinental hotel will also know what the customer wants and what they are
providing to the customers.
 This will also help the hotel to focus on improving the one factor so that they can save the
cost and provide the reasonable prices rooms to their customers.
The company have made a very effective strategy to collect all the information about the
consumer mapping whenever it is possible. Intercontinental have also used the feedback, call
interview, online questionnaires which will help them to gain the information about the customer
behavior. Intercontinental have aggressively kept the environment of their hotels efficient by
adopting the bench marking and balanced scorecard techniques. The company have also
increased the activities to enhance the work ethics and also have served in the corporate
responsibility which have also increased the goodwill and attracted many customers to the hotels.

The hotel group have developed the nearby villages and also try to spread awareness to save the
environment by doing many awareness campaigns.
LO 3
P 5 Comparison between Business to Business and Business to Customers
The business environment comprises two factors which is business to business and
business to consumers which have different activities going to in the market. The two marketing
models will help the Intercontinental to understand both the approaches which van increase the
business of their hotels and also make them effective in providing with the better services. Both
the marketing models re very different and also provide the different structure to the business.
Business to business is the commercial transaction between two businesses in order to increase
the activities and also help the company to grow. In business to business transaction bot the
business is dependent on each other to increase the market of their business. The suppliers of the
industry are the Business to business transactions and they are only selling their goods to the
other businesses.
Business to consumer is another model which enable the business to directly sell their
byproducts and services to the customer the end element of the product cycle. This will also give
the business more profit margins and in this the business also have to maintain their goodwill to
increase their market share to attract the customers towards their business and also increase the
sales of the business. (Holloway, 2016)
Base B2B B2C
Definition Providing the good and
services in the two or more
business entity.
The products and services are
directly sold to the consumers,
and tbehaviour Patterns of
buyerhey are also have to
maintain the quality of the
products and services.
Scale The transaction between two
business are large in nature as
they are mainly the mediator in
The products and services in
this are in small scale as they
are dealing with the one

the market, and they provide
the proper supplies to the
retailers.(Smith, 2019.)
customer at a time.
Time Period The business transaction
between the two business can
be done for long time.
The customer pay the money
for the products and services
and do not contact again.
Decision making process of B2B and B2C
B2B B2C
In B2b the business s not concerned about
their cost and do not make any strategies to
increase their profits.
In B2C the business are more focused on the
cost efficiency and product efficiency of the
company.
The business help the market to increase the
knowledge about the products.
These business use the different marketing
techniques to increase the sales of them and
increase the profits of the business.
The business develops the brands to supply
their products to different businesses.
They use those brand products to sell it to the
customers and earn profits. (Viale, 2017)
P 6 Different Approaches To Market Research
Market research very important for the business as it provides the better information
about the market which make the business easy to increase their efficiency by making the
effective strategies and also doing the market research accurately business will also learn the new
business strategies which are in trend and can benefit the business. There are different marketing
research approaches which will also help the company to know about the business environment
by analyzing all the required factors in it. This approaches help the business in making the right
decision and also increase the sales of the company. (Ballantyne, Moutinho and Rate, 2018)
Primary Data
Primary data collection is the very essential aspect by which the business can conduct the
research and also increase the knowledge from it. The primary data is the data which is collected

by the researcher for the first time and it is fresh in nature as it is exclusively used for a specific
business. The primary data collection method ca be used for conducting both qualitative and
quantitative research and it also helps the researcher opt the right data according to the objectives
of the company as they have the control over the data collection process. There are different
methods which can be used in collection of primary data which is interviews both personal and
public, questionnaire online and personal, investigation of the facts directlybehaviour Patterns of
buyer by the researcher. Observations are also the type of data collection which the researcher
use.
Secondary Data
Secondary data is the already available data which is collected earlier by some other
person and it can be used for the business according to their need. Mainly the secondary data is
collected by the government to check the country's actual position and the companies who think
that secondary data is related to their business research they can also use that data. (Marriott,
Williams and Dwivedi, 2017)But the researcher has no control over the data collection and the
theories which are developed according to the secondary data can also not be accurate and can
show false results. The company can collect the secondary data by analyzing the sales report of
the company, reports and feedback of the customers, government census , reports of the banks
and various books which are having the data about the society and libraries and most importantly
internet.
LO 4
P 7 Different factors of Research in the Market
The marker search Is based on the behaviour of the consumers and Intercontinental
hotels also have to analyse the behaviour so that they can make the effective strategies and
increase the services of their hotel chains. The different factors which can improve the hotel sales
are always analysed by the researcher of the company. (Karimi, Papamichail and Holland, 2015)
Culture and sub-culture
culture of the consumers is very m=important aspect in understanding the behaviour of
them as by evaluating the whole society with the help of different tools and techniques. The
culture of the consumer have the different food styles, different laws, religion, languages and
also they have different sub languages in the same culture which makes the research more

difficult but effective in doing. As the hotel will help to analyse the culture of the consumer
which will make them more familiar and attract them to provide them better services and high
satisfaction.
Buying patterns of the consumers
The researcher also have to analyse the different buying pattern which can be analysed by
the behaviour of the customers. The businesses also need to understand the place and location
where the most costumers need to purchase their goods and services so that they can also be
available in that location to increase the sales. And they also have to analyse what type of
products and services the consumers need in order to satisfy themselves in that particular
location. Which also include the willingness to pay for the products and services, different
product choices, customers preferences, etc. this will help the company to increase the sale s and
also increase the profits if they understand their customer's behaviour effectively.(Narula and
Desore, 2016.)
CONCLUSION
In this report there is a detailed information about the different factors which affect the
hospitality industry and what are the problems which was analyses by the researcher by
different methods of market research. The social and culture of the consumer has been very
important in making the decision for choosing the right hotel according to their preferences and
willingness to pay that price to increase the satisfaction and also increase the mental stability.
Intercontinental hotels Group had used the primary and secondary data to increase the research
efficiency of the company so that they can understand the customers and become the leader of
the market by improving their goodwill.

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