The Role of Nationality and Hotel Class on Guests’ Satisfaction. A Fuzzy-TOPSIS Approach Applied in Saint Petersburg

Administrative Sciences. 2020. Vol. 10. No. 3. P. 1–24.

Juan Carlos M., Maria Victòria S. R., Rudchenko V.

Although hotels usually have clients from dierent nationalities, the research analyses
the multicultural eects on hotel customers’ satisfaction is still scant. This paper aims to contribute
to the realm of hotel management by providing interesting managerial insights into how dierent
nationalities perceive hotel attributes dierently using two hotels located in Saint Petersburg as
a case study. To that end, a fuzzy hybrid method based on the technique of similarity to ideal
solution (FTOPSIS) is proposed. The results are based on a sample of 447 guests and show that:
(1) nationality influences the hotel guests’ satisfaction; (2) customers are, in general, more elastic in
three-star hotels than in four-star hotels; (3) welcome gifts in the room and in the bathroom are key
attributes in the clients’ satisfaction; and (4) Italian and Spanish guests are the least and the most
satisfied customers, respectively. The study oers a number of important managerial insights to
hotel managers and practitioners. The average figures obtained by general hotel satisfaction surveys
usually hinder important peculiarities that need to be addressed when managers develop strategic
satisfaction enhancement programmes. In particular, our results show that managers need to adapt
the programmes to the dierences observed by nationalities.

Keywords: TOPSIS, TOPSIS, fuzzy numbers, hotel guest satisfaction, guest nationality, multicultural analysis, key hotel attributes, удовлетворение гостей отеля, национальность гостя, межкультурный анализ, Fuzzy числа, ключевые атрибуты отеля