Customers' Behavioral Intentions in the Service Industry: An Empirical Study of Taiwan Spa Hotels

Abstract

In this study we identified the process how consumers chose a particular hotel for spa service which was appropriate for themselves under such intensely competition among spa hotels in Taiwan, and the key factors that affected consumers' behavior or purchasing decisions. Previous studies have indicated that the creation of outstanding consumer value was for spa hotels to achieve sustainable financial and market success. A conceptual model of perceived value and six hypotheses based on previous literatures review had been developed in this study to identify the factors considered by customers while they were making the serious purchasing decisions. The conceptual model in this study provided a framework how the consumers might come up with a solution toward the process of resources allocation or the decision making. The economical deduction was adopted to provide the adequate rationality and somewhat the causality of the conceptual model, and the analysis of correlation was used to verify the hypotheses proposed. The results suggested that the service‐related decision was almost in accordance with the product‐related decision, but it was questionable for perceived value for money to be a significant mediator of perceived quality, price and risk and willingness‐to‐buy. The findings have important implications for understanding how consideration sets of service‐related consumption are formed and how the recent downsizing economy affects their attitude in “leisure service consumption” toward the selection of spa hotels.

Citation

Lu, I. and Yuwen Shiu, J. (2009), "Customers' Behavioral Intentions in the Service Industry: An Empirical Study of Taiwan Spa Hotels", Asian Journal on Quality, Vol. 10 No. 3, pp. 73-85. https://doi.org/10.1108/15982680911021205