Theme hotels strategy: Customers’ visit intention and willingness to pay more

• Autor(a) principal: Mondini, Claudia
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10071/30635
• topic: Theme hotels; Themed atmosphere; Visit intention; Willingness to pay more; Hotéis temáticos; Ambiente temático; Intenção de visita; Disposição para pagar mais

Theme hotels comprise a growing niche market in the wide hospitality industry. They provide guests with unique experiences by investing substantially in theme decorations and services. In such a competitive business area like the hospitality and tourism one, creativity and innovation toward differentiation are crucial for hotels success. This study expands the scarce existing literature on European theme hotels with its explorative qualitative analysis of the theming strategy of ten selected hotels located in six different European countries. Moreover, this research focuses quantitively on customers’ visit intention to theme hotels. Following the analysis of previous studies and the qualitative findings of this study, a questionnaire was submitted to 156 international travellers to ask them about their willingness to pay more to stay at a theme hotel, their intention to visit it, as well as the importance they would give to theme elements. Results confirm the importance of theme elements but also of the other servicescape factors, such as location, cleanliness, staff’s caring attitude, and staff’s responsiveness to guest´s needs, to ensure a certain level of hotel’s success. Furthermore, this research concludes that the presence of theme elements does enhance customers willingness to pay a higher price to stay at the hotel, as well as their intention to stay there.