Influence Of Cultural Difference On The Perception Of Hotel Service Quality

With rapid development of globalization of economy and internationalization ofservice, cultural differences among different countries and areas become visible,which makes culture an important factor influencing service industry. Customersevaluate the service quality from expectation and perception, which are subjective andaffected by culture. In this point, the research between culture and evaluation ofservice quality becomes hotspot in the service quality field. Hotel industry as a typicalservice industry, its service quality is close to its survival and development. Especiallyas the development of China’s economy, hotel service industry is not only enjoying awealthy development, but also facing threats for the changes coming from differentbuying behaviors of buyers under different cultural background and strategies ofservice companies. Enhancing the service quality is most important for enterprise’ssurvival. Under such conditions, service companies are in great needs to grab the“know-how” of how to make different marketing strategy according to the differencesof customers from different cultural background.America and China are highly dissimilar in cultures. The cultural differenceswould result in different values and responses to service quality for American andChinese customers. Based on the cultural value model of Hofstede as well as theSERVQUAL evaluation model, this article will test the differences in perception ofservice quality between Chinese and American customers and to find out how culturesinfluence this perception styles.The results of the study largely confirm the hypotheses, the main conclusions are:compared to American customers, Chinese customers are more sensitive to the qualityof hotel services, mainly reflected in the quality perception of tangibles, reliability andempathy; while in the reaction and assurance of perceived quality, there is nosignificant difference between the two customers.This thesis seeks to primarily confirm the role of culture in cross-culturalmarketing and management research. It helps with an understanding of service quality perception in developing competitive and successful marketing strategies acrosscultures. It intends to further verify the application of quantitative research method toassess cross-cultural customer behavior in the international marketing research.Implications of the study for marketing academicians and practitioners are alsodiscussed in the paper.