CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION
5.2. Discussion of Major Findings
Table 5.1. Summary of Hypotheses and Results
Hypotheses Supported
H1: There is a positive relationship between personal
eword-of-mouth and hotel brand image. Yes
H2: There is a positive relationship between commercial eword-of-mouth and hotel brand image.
Yes
H3: There is a positive relationship between liking
towards website and hotel brand image. Partially H4: There is a positive relationship between perceived
informativeness of online advertisements and hotel brand image.
Partially
H5: There is a positive relationship between hotel brand
image and behavioural intention. Yes
Source: Developed for research
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5.2.1. The relationship between Personal eWord-of-Mouth and the Hotel Brand Image
Based on Table 5.1, the hypothesis for personal eword-of-mouth with the hotel brand image was accepted indicated by the multiple regression analysis. The results shows that there was a significance of 0.000 among all hotel categories.
Personal eword-of-mouth has shown that it is an important factor when deciding on a hotel. Even years back, people today often rely on opinions and suggestions from peers around them (Brown & Reingen, 1987; Richins & Root- Shaffer, 1988; Westbrook 1987), and most influential opinions are the ones coming from close friends or family (Litvin et al., 2007; Kiecker & Cowles, 2002; Ishida et al., 2016). It is no doubt that the word-of-mouth notion has a strong impact on an individual‟s purchase intention. A simple recommendation or praise on a particular product from a friend would highly influence the individual‟s opinion; vice versa, a simple criticism or bad recommendation will have an individual think twice before purchasing a product (Richins, 1983).
Today, marketers today recognize the power and influences of the word-of- mouth and it has become a common tool when initiating a marketing plan.
This research narrows down the term to electronic word-of-mouth, implying that word-of-mouth today not only comes from physical verbal communication, but text based via an individual‟s electronic gadget. Mauri & Minazzi (2013) stated that may be impactful to a company more than it thinks it does because words can be easily and conveniently passed online. People are often connected via the internet on social media and other platforms, we can assume that the convenience of messaging a family, friend, or associate directly can provide them with useful insights, especially when travelling. The reliance on a strong- tie relationship has increased over the years due to the convenience of technology (Larose, Mastro & Eastin, 2001). Through this research, we can infer that personal eword-of-mouth have a positive relationship with a hotel brand image.
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5.2.2. The relationship between Commercial eWord-of-Mouth and the Hotel Brand Image
The hypothesis of commercial eword-of-mouth in Table 5.1 is supported through literature and data collected for this research. The hypothesis for commercial eword-of-mouth with the hotel brand image was accepted indicated by the multiple regression analysis. The results shows that there was a significance of 0.000 among all hotel categories.
Similar to the personal eword-of-mouth, commercial eword-of-mouth holds some degree of influence as well when it comes to travelling (Ishida et al., 2016). Often, individuals may travel to new particular destinations for the first time without proper knowledge on overall environment. Not everyone may possess a strong-tie relationship to depend on when providing insights into a particular destination, which may be due to the fact that the family, friend, or associate have not been to that particular destination. The most common fall back is to the reviews and ratings of a particular destination online (Henning- Thurau et al., 2014). Unsurprisingly, hotel reviews and ratings are one of the most common behaviour that a tourist do when travelling abroad (Chen & Xie, 2008; Zhang, Ye Law & Li, 2010; Kasavana, Nusair & Teodosic, 2010).
Goldenberg et al. (2001) states that new products generally have higher dependence on weak-tie relationship information source. This can be reasoned by implying the new products do not have enough exposure period for an individual‟s strong tie relationships to experience, therefore, depend on the weak-ties as it may seem more reliable to trust people who have experienced it.
Another benefit of a weak-tie relationship is that it may come in vast amount of reviews that provides a sense of consistency throughout a given time (Ishida et al., 2016). Instead of heavily relying on an in-depth and opinion by a strong-tie relationship, confidence of a product or service can be boosted by the amount of positive feedback by people from various places.
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Online travel agents have grown exponentially in the past few years with tourist travelling more frequent than ever (Ledford, 2008). It is common for tourist of any nationality to provide a feedback or rating that helps.
5.2.3. The relationship between Liking towards Website and the Hotel Brand Image
According to Table 5.1, the hypothesis of liking towards website having a positive relationship with hotel brand image is partially supported. This is due to the fact that, while as a whole the variable was significant, when breaking the data down to the hotel categories, the liking towards website had a higher than alpha value of 0.132 and 0.785 for budget hotels and 3-star hotels, respectively.
The analysis done in this research was as such that as two categories were not significant, the research partially accepts the hypothesis.
A website as stated by (Hwang et al., 2011) represents a company image online.
Having said that, to a certain degree, customers may fall back onto a website to gain insight on purchase decisions (Guillory & Sundar, 2013). This is no exception for the hotel industry where more often than not, customers who have purchasing intention research repeatedly online to affirm their purchase decision (Hwang et al., 2011). In the hotel line, it is common for hotels to upload a picture gallery filled with the facilities, attractions, and most importantly, pictures of the hotel rooms. By doing so, customers can set a pre-expectation of their visit before actually experiencing the hotel for itself.
The budget hotels and 3-star hotels have seem to have no significance in the liking towards website. It could be assumed that perhaps customers who seek out these hotels do not have an uncertain purchase intention as the offerings in these hotels are relatively cheaper than most. According to Phau and Poon (2000), products with low outlay generally have higher purchase frequency and need not have long periods of consideration. We can infer that customers who goes for budget hotels and 3-star hotels are not generally concerned with the products and service received based on the price they are paying.
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From another point of view, another plausible conclusion could be that budget hotels and 3-star hotels may not particularly put their resources into online appearance. In other words, these hotels provide the bare minimum a hotel should online by having the most necessary information available regardless of it being attractive or not.
5.2.4. The relationship between perceived informativeness of online advertisements and the Hotel Brand Image
The fourth hypothesis in Table 5.1 discusses the perceived informativeness of the online advertisements and the relationship towards hotel brand image. The hypothesis for this construct was partially accepted as well due to the fact that the significance value of the budget hotel and 3-star hotels were 0.689 and 0.658 respectively, which was higher than the alpha of 0.05. However, it was below the alpha value when analysing the luxury and as a whole with the significance valued at 0.14 and 0.13 respectively.
Based on the results, online advertisements are generally not highly viewed as a critical factor when deciding to travel at a budget or 3-star hotel. We can assume that while these advertisements are occasionally present for some hotels, many customers do not take notice or not attracted by its presence online. According to Furnham & Farragher (2000), advertisements are generally costly and aimed more for higher-end expensive products. Platforms with higher view count frequencies are often more expensive, and having low resources to target these sufficient customers, we can surmise that the lower end hotel may not be keen towards allocating their funding towards mass advertisement.
Aside from that, while some hotel advertisements are available in third party applications or websites, lower end hotels tend to only have their advertisements in their own website or social media page. Assuming that there are low view counts, some hotels may focus their efforts elsewhere other than on online advertisements. Similar to a hotel‟s website, these hotels may not be particularly
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concerned with their online appearance and thus putting aside their online resources.
As we narrow the discussion to the informativeness of the advertisement, online customers are flooded with ample information in the internet to digest and take in (Eppler & Mengis, 2010). The difficulty of finding the balance between providing enough information and maintaining simple yet attractive has been a common challenge in advertising today (Azad, Aliakbar, Kordalivand, 2012).
Having said that, informativeness is still crucial in getting the awareness of the latest promotion or product. As budget hotels and 3-star hotels may not seem to have much significance, it may be acceptable that these hotels forgo the investment in advertising to the mass market as it may be costly and not as beneficial as a luxury or high-end product (Furnham & Farraghar, 2000).
5.2.5. The relationship between Hotel Brand Image and the Behavioural Intention
Table 5.1 indicated that the hypothesized relationship between hotel brand image and behavioural intention was supported based on the data results.
Segmenting into four categories, all results were highly significant at 0.000, which is below the alpha value of 0.05.
This research has focused the second part of the analysis to examine whether the hotel brand image influences the behavioural intention of a customer. As mentioned in Chapter 2, the behavioural intention from a hotel‟s perspective is a desired outcome from their customers. While the behavioural intention could be in a form of a negative response, the overall feedback would be usually looked for.
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This research inferred that customers who have a good image of the hotel have a tendency to have a certain intention, be it a recommendation to a peer (Turhan, 2013), a willingness to pay a higher premium for the product or services (Anderson, 1996; Herrmann, 2004), or a simple repurchase of a product (Hellier, 2003). Supported by past literatures (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975; 1980; Zeithml et al., 1996; Jaccard & King 1977), this relationship between a company‟s image and the behavioural intention have been positively significant in various areas of research, including the hotel and tourism.
In a nutshell, throughout this research, we can conclude that an image of a hotel has a positive relationship to a customer‟s behavioural intention that is supported by both literature and data results. It is to be expected that a brand image plays an important role in a business‟ success (Zeithaml et al., 1996; Lee et al., 2010)
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5.3. Implications of the Study
5.3.1. Managerial Implications
Based on Table 5.1, it is clear that all variables have shown to be significant towards the hotel brand image. As a whole, the hotel industry should look towards marketing online as the internet is now a competitive ground for businesses to stand out (Nassar, 2012).
Today, many are connected online via social media and other interactive Web 2.0 platforms that provides individuals a chance to speak out and provide feedback (Hennig-Thurau, 2004; Park & Lee, 2009). These feedbacks can be deemed useful for business improvement as online responses and reviews are generally as useful as offline feedbacks such as review forms and rating score sheets. Best of all, the online platform is free and minimal in cost.
Based on this research, the budget hotels and 3-star hotels have no significance when it comes to the liking of their websites and their perceived informativeness of their online advertisements. Fortunately, the eword-of-mouth has shown high significance for all hotels, including the budget and 3-stars.
Managers of these hotel categories can work towards online eword-of-mouth marketing that helps attract attention positive reviews at a relatively cheaper cost. Such examples would be providing a reward, incentive or discount to customers that leaves a feedback for the hotel.
Luxury hotels on the other hand can focus their online marketing efforts as per usual, as all online influential factors have shown significance towards the hotel brand image. Due to their capabilities, these hotels should invest more on their online presence and appearance, and work towards providing a different form of service that is interactive and insightful for guest surfing their website (Toms &
Taves, 2004; Guillory, 2013).
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5.3.2. Governmental Implications
The government plays a huge responsibility in the growth of a country‟s particular industry. This research being, conducted in Malaysia, has a promising growth in the tourism industry as the “Malaysia, truly Asia” campaign has brought much needed attention around the world. Based on the research, online influential factors have been understood to be significant towards the brand image, and hence the behavioural intention of a hotel. Having a positive behavioural intention would indicate a higher economic growth for the country as a whole.
One of the most feasible plan for the government is to improve on the online experience of tourist from around the world. By providing an incentive or subsidy for hotel businesses to venture into online marketing, these businesses can grow rapidly. Smaller businesses such as the budget and 3-star hotels can then allocate more of their financial resources on their operational necessities and need not worry about their financial concern and risk of going online.
From a different perspective, tourist may also benefit from an online web interface such as a forum, social media page or platform that allows for convenient and insightful information for foreign tourist unfamiliar with their destination. As eword-of-mouth has shown to be highly significant in all hotel categories, a platform for feedback, reviews and ratings could assist foreign tourist with better or more specific needs when travelling, such as choosing the right hotel that is nearest or convenient to the destination of choice. Another example would be to provide a forum that has a helpful community to provide a human interactive conversation among tourist interested in Malaysia and actual local Malaysians who know the ropes.
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