Accommodation theory in the tourism and hospitality sector.

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2022-06-13

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en

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This study aimed to determine whether the use of accommodation in terms of formality in customer service interactions positively influences the attitude towards the conversation, the perception of the agent, and the intention to book with the company. To do so, 4 fictive interactions between a customer and a customer service agent of a hotel company were created. These 4 conditions used either a formal or an informal language and were either converging or diverging to the customer's style. It was then decided to run a Qualtrics experiment in which the participants were divided into four groups, each exposed to only one condition. The study had a between-subject design to make sure the participants are not aware of the manipulation. The three dependent variables were measured with an online questionnaire on Qualtrics composed of 7-points-Likert scales. Additionally, at the end of the study, participants were asked to do an English test, since English proficiency might have an influence on their sensitivity to formality.

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Faculteit der Letteren