Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
3 METHODOLOGY
Table 2.
Degree of experience expectancy of variables.
Percentage of
expectancy
The methodology for this paper includes site obser-
vation, literature reviews, a structured questionnaire
survey and an analysis of guest comments through
online review sites such as Tripadvisor, Orbitz, Trav-
elocity, Expedia and booking.com. Thirty ques-
tionnaires were pilot to tested Postgraduates from
the Faculty of Hotel and Tourism Management,
Universiti Teknologi MARA. These Postgraduates
had stayed in boutique hotels. This sample includes
representatives from all departments in the faculty,
namely, Hospitality Management, Tourism Man-
agement, Gastronomy and Food Service.
The questionnaire was designed to measure
the respondents' level of agreement or disagree-
ment with various statements or items developed.
Each scale has a minimum of “1” and a maximum
of “7”. A score close to “7” means a very strong
attitude in favour of the statement, while a score
close to “1” means a very strong attitude against
the statement. All data were analysed through the
Statistical Package for the Social Sciences software
(SPSS) version 21.0.
Variable
Unique character
57
Personalised
57
Homely
73
Quality
40
Value added
77
important features of a boutique hotel is the
unique design offering a distinctive stay.
“We recently stayed in the Eiffel room and had a fan-
tastic time. The room was new and had a fun twist to
it.” - Guest A
“The decor is made from the personal collection of
the owner. It is a very tasteful collection of old Chi-
nese antiques. So you'll certainly take away some-
thing to remember from this stay.” - Guest B
In the literature, personal service was also
stressed as part of a boutique hotel's character
(Aggett, 2007; Henderson, 2011). This observa-
tion corresponds to some statements from the
respondents.
4
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
From the literature review and site observation, 63
boutique hotels exist in Malaysia and 21 percent are
located in the city of Kuala Lumpur. This high den-
sity of boutique hotels in the country is located within
this vicinity. In Kuala Lumpur, the average number
of guestrooms was 29, and hotels with a total number
of rooms of 10 to 50 will be the focus of this study.
The pilot survey was conducted in March 2014
and involved postgraduates from the Faculty
of Hotel and Tourism Management, Universiti
Teknologi MARA. The respondents are from all the
departments as follows: Hospitality Management
(28 percent), Tourism Management (25 percent),
Gastronomy (17 percent) and Food Service (30
percent). The majority of respondents was female
(80%), local travellers (96.7%), below 30 years old
(76.7%) and holds a degree in hospitality and tour-
ism management (98.7%). The main purpose of
their previous travel was leisure and vacation (70%),
and most of them have stayed one to two days in the
hotel during their previous holidays (60%).
The preliminary findings suggest that a majority
of the respondents (89%) are aware of the existence
of boutique hotels, and more than half (56%) look
forward to staying in boutique hotels in the future.
Table 2 summarises the degree of expectation that
potential local guests have for each variable.
The online interview results recorded various
positive comments from respondents whereby
many respondents emphasised that one of the
“Friendly staff are helpful and dedicated to our
travel needs” - Guest C
“The staffs are excellent! The staff showed us maps
with great recommendations for wherever we wanted
to go” - Guest D
The findings also suggested that the location of
the boutique hotel either in the city centre or near
historical places determine different types of trav-
ellers. Some comments regarding the location of
the boutique hotels are as follows:
“We spent a long weekend to visit the main sights in
the heritage zone. The hotel building is a renovated
old heritage building in the heart of the core heritage
zone. It is a small, boutique hotel and is within walk-
ing distance of all the main sights.” - Guest B
“The location is great, within walking distance of
all the entertainment spots in Bukit Bintang and the
local food streets. It also has convenient access to the
monorail stations, which are only a five to ten minute
walk.” - Guest E
5 CONCLUSION
It can be concluded that different characteristics
offered by boutique hotels have created different
experiences to different guests. Examining what
Search WWH ::




Custom Search