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Service value in hospitality industry 129
faction. This means both service providers (marketers) and service users (customers)
will be satisfied. The unique characteristics of service made it necessary to
propound a new dimension of value chain. These characteristics include as it was
mentioned before – intangibility, inseparability, heterogeneity, perishability.
4. Characteristics of Surveyed Enterprises and Findings
To find out, if this theoretical research could be improved in practical life, a
survey was prepared and presented to Hotel managers during the annual meeting of
members of Association of Hotels and Restaurants of Latvia. In Latvia there are
very few studies about service value or customer value or value management in
hospitality industry. After a brief presentation of this topic most hotel managers
were ready to participate.
50 hotel managers responded to the survey. The distribution was as follows:
30 questionnaires were from Riga – capital, 10 questionnaires were from other cities
of Latvia, and 10 were from country side. According to the level of service – 3
questionnaires were from five star hotel managers, 8 from four star hotel managers,
25 – from three star hotel managers, 4 – from two star hotel managers and 10 –
from guest house managers. The largest group – 30 entities comprised small size
hotels (10-50 rooms), 5 hotels were big according to Latvia standards and had 100-
550 rooms, and 15 were medium size hotels with 50-100 rooms. 3 hotels had management
contracts with known international chains, while 10 other were in Baltic or
local chains. 30 hotels had less than 50 employees. The finfings are shown in table
4.
The respondents were grouped into five groups according to service level of
the hotel. Hotel managers were asked to name components, which could be important
for a hotel business and could form a value chain. Each component had to be
evaluated with five points. About 40 different factors were analyzed in detail; according
to frequency twelve were selected and ordered. The differences persist
across different classes of hotels, especially when valuating reputation, not so valuable
by two star hotels; training courses for employees, not so valuable by two star
hotels and guest houses, support systems – the same as before. Five components are
evaluated with a higher mark – guest service, guests, employees, variable offers,
value for money, reputation. Many hotel managers mentioned communication and
cooperation as very valuable components. This correspondent with a Value Cocreation
Model for Services given in the theoretical part and testifies, that further
investigations are required and important, especially examination of value from two
perspectives, i.e. that of the service provider and that of the customer.