| Author: | Tang, Lai Fun Irini |
| Title: | Assessment framework for hotel day spa service and facility provision in Hong Kong |
| Degree: | DHTM |
| Year: | 2014 |
| Subject: | Health resorts -- China -- Hong Kong Hotels -- China -- Hong Kong Hong Kong Polytechnic University -- Dissertations |
| Department: | School of Hotel and Tourism Management |
| Pages: | xii, 354 pages : illustrations ; 30 cm |
| Language: | English |
| Abstract: | The escalating pressure in the daily lives of people in the cities has increased the general public's anxiety and depression in recent years. Spa businesses have therefore emerged rapidly both in the United States and the Asian Pacific Region. Against this background, the spa therapy debuted in Asia in the mid-1990s and developed rapidly with the lodging industry in the region. However, the existing spa industry benchmark has been confined to a profile containing eight simple elements. Thus, there is a need for an assessment framework to monitor and enhance the quality of the day spas in city hotels so as to meet the ever-changing and sophisticated needs of international travelers as well as to ensure quality offered. This research study harnesses 29 attributes, derived from the SERVQUAL dimension for hotels, mechanic clues for restaurants and hotel service experience in publications, as a reference to develop an initial assessment framework for the spa service and experience. Four stages characterized by four different approaches (Literary findings, Focus group and Personal interviews, Critical incident technique, and Importance study) have been designed in this study to establish the attributes of this proposed assessment framework. The four staged study strengthen the objectivity and reliability of findings about the main and sub attributes of the quality assessment framework. The first stage establishes the preliminary framework based on the literature review of relevant journal articles. In stage one, besides employing findings from literary review, pre-study site observations and post-study discussions have been conducted to identify main attributes and sub-attributes with the purpose to develop an initial assessment framework. In the second stage, focus group and personal interview discussions are conducted with spa experts from the supply side. The discussion explores new concepts, expectations and requirements for the hotel spa experience in city hotels in Hong Kong. The hotel spa suppliers are used to identify and justify the main attributes of hotel spa. The identified main attributes are recognized and ascertained by three focus groups with comments from the 12 participants, followed by verifying and validating with a more in-depth understanding from 15 personal interviews. These interviews supplemented the solicited views on the content of the conceptual assessment framework of spa service and experience from the focus group discussions. Both the focus groups and personal interviews give comments on the attributes and the processes are guided by researcher to verify, delete, add, modify and / or develop more main attributes during the discussions. The commonly identified attributes are then screened by triangulation. In the third stage, a critical incident technique was used to conduct a more comprehensive and practical assessment on the aspects of main spa attributes. The identified main attributes have been recognized and ascertained. Further potential attributes have been identified for future investigation. The final stage (Importance Study) undertakes a significance study to assign weights to the triangulated main attributes and establishes the sub-attributes branching from the main attributes. In this stage, the main attributes are rated and other potential attributes are explored. Also, suggestions and directions are made by the participants in this stage with a view to develop future assessment framework to enhance and monitor the quality hotel spa service experience. The final part of the investigation concludes with a summary of findings based on the above four stages of study. An assessment framework containing 65 main attributes and 123 sub attributes with corresponding weights is also established and presented. In addition, suggestions about potential attributes for next (future) version of assessment framework for quality hotel day spa services are discussed. |
| Rights: | All rights reserved |
| Access: | restricted access |
Files in This Item:
| File | Description | Size | Format | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| b27616952.pdf | For All Users (off-campus access for PolyU Staff & Students only) | 6.26 MB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
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