Nowadays, families with children have an important place
in tourism purchasing activities. In this context, the concept of
child-friendly hotels come into prominence. A child-friendly hotel can be
defined as the hotel that meets the requests and needs of families with
children. Hotels that provide opportunities such as dining, room options, and
hotel activities for families with children are categorized in this class (ETS
TUR, 2018). In other words,
child-friendly hotels can be described as facilities equipped with
opportunities such as larger rooms and a special menu for children, with
controlled or planned activities, close to entertainment venues (Lim et. al.,
2009).
Families prefer the child-friendly hotel concept for
their children, so they expect to see that the children to be satisfied with
the hotel. If their expectations are not met or in the case of dissatisfaction,
they express their feelings by using the complaint channels. Customers can
express their complaints by expressing this situation directly to the
management, initiating negative word of mouth, interrupting the service
(patronage) or taking legal actions such as arbitration committee for consumer
problems. It is important for hotels holding their current customers in
providing a long-term competitive advantage. In this case, they should satisfy
and compensate their customers' dissatisfaction.
Complaint management is the process of disseminating and
transitioning of information in order to identify and correct various causes of
customer dissatisfaction. It defines strategies are used to resolve previous
mistakes of companies and learn from them in order to restore customer trust to
the credibility of the organization. Encouragements of complaints and quick
response to the e-complaints from the customers by the hotels are very
important in terms of customer satisfaction. It is not possible to not get
complaints and even the best hotels may have deficiencies in this regard. The
important thing is to resolve the complaints reaching the hotels as soon as
possible (Argan, 2014). Thus, hotels that have experienced this kind of
situations will be able to produce goods and services that meet the
expectations of customers without any mistake (Alabay, 2012).
In this study, the complaints of families who prefer
child-friendly hotel concept were examined and it was aimed to determine which
elements are most emphasized. For this purpose, it was evaluated customer's
comments who got service from ultra-all-inclusive child-friendly hotels and
made comments on a well-known website. Comments were evaluated by content
analysis. The list of hotels is taken from a well known holiday website. All
comments until April 2018 were evaluated in the analysis. According to the website, there is a total of
45 ultra-all-inclusive hotel in Turkey.
Some of these hotels are grouped under a single title on the website
because they are chain hotels. Some hotels on the list have not received any
complaints. Finally, 17 hotels were included in the analysis. Complaints were
categorized according to frequency. While making the evaluation, complaints are
limited with words such as children, family, hygiene. A total of 152 complaints were included in
the analysis.
As a result of the content analysis, it was determined
that some words repeated too much. First of all, the phrase
"child-friendly hotel" repeated 31 times of 152 complaints. Looking
at the content of the complaints, expressions of families such as "we came
here because it is a child-friendly hotel" draw attention. The contents of
the complaints were examined and repeated words were collected in certain
categories. As a result of the study, complaints were grouped under five
categories. There are complaints about general cleanliness in the first
category. Hotel cleaning, hygiene, food
safety, environmental cleanliness are included in this category. There have
also been complaints about hygiene, quality, old and stained items. In addition
to this, there are complaints such as insects coming out of food, not having
enough spraying, a cat wandering in restaurants. The second category is
complaints about health. Problems such as lack of doctors and medical equipment
and children contracting "hand- foot- mouth" disease from the pool
were mentioned. One of the most commonly used words is "disease". In
addition, words are used such as "fever", "diarrhea",
infection", "virus" and "vomiting". The third category
includes complaints about services for children. The lack of activities such as
pool facilities, mini club, and animation has been subject to comments. The fourth category covers complaints about
the general difficulties of the hotel. In this category, there are factors such
as the fact that the hotel's wages are very high, the management cannot find
solutions to the problems immediately and about the security. Especially the problems experienced in the
swimming pool were frequently mentioned in the comments. Pools are one of the
places where children spend the most time. Therefore, cleaning and safety must
be provided by the hotel. The fifth category includes complaints about
employees and their behavior. The most prominent is "complaint" and
"problem" words. It was stated that the problems were reported to the
staff or authorities by complaining, but not enough responds were given. The
weakness of customer relations, inability to respond to the complaints and the
indifference of staff are included here. Employee behaviors are effective for
families to choose the hotel again.
As a result, it was observed that families with children
complained mostly about hygiene, cleanliness, and health. If the hotel management evaluates these
complaints and finds solutions, they will be more preferred by families with
children. Complaints may also affect the choice of other families. In this sense,
the managers should take these issues into consideration in order to resolve
the complaints and take measures to prevent new problems. Hotels determine the
expectations, needs, and requests of the customers correctly and to ensure
their satisfaction. This could increase profitability and positive opinions of
customers about the business. It can also provide that customers do not
experience this kind of problems and do not complain again.
Amaç: Ebeveynler tatillerini planlarken,
konaklayacakları otel işletmesinin hem kendileri, hem de çocukları için uygun
bir tesis olmasına dikkat etmektedirler. TUİK 2017 verilerine göre Türkiye’de
toplam hane halkı içerisinde eş ve çocuklardan oluşan aile oranının % 43,5
olduğu düşünüldüğünde, çocuklu ailelerin turistik ürün satın alma kararlarının
önemi daha iyi anlaşılmaktadır. Yalnızca yerli turistler değil, yurt dışından
gelen turistler de çocuklarıyla rahat tatil yapabilecekleri otel arayışına
girmektedirler. Bu noktada “çocuk dostu otel” niteliği taşıyan tesisler,
çocuklu ailelerin ilgisini çekmektedir. Bu tür tesisler, aileler tarafından
çocuklarının rahat etmesi açısından öncelikli olarak tercih edilebilmektedir. Seyahat
eden çocuklu ailelerin sayısı ve talepleri
arttığından; çocuklar için çeşitli imkan ve faaliyetleri barındıran, aileler
için uygun oda, yeme içme gibi olanakları sunabilen oteller olarak tanımlanan
çocuk dostu otellere ilişkin araştırmalar yapmak önem kazanmıştır. Çocuk dostu
otel olma niteliğinin tam olarak yerine getirilmesi bu açıdan önemlidir. Ancak
bu otellere de bir takım şikâyetler geldiği gözlemlenmektedir. Bu çalışma
ile bu şikayetlerin belirlenmesi ve kategorileştirilmesi yoluyla, bu alanda
hizmet veren işletmeler için yol gösterici olmak amaçlanmaktadır.
Yöntem: Bu çalışmada, 2018 yılı Nisan ayına
kadar Türkiye’de ultra her şey dahil çocuk dostu otellerden hizmet alan ve çok
bilinen bir web sitesine yorum bırakan müşterilerin bu otellere ilişkin bütün
yorumları içerik analizine tabi tutulmuştur. Çalışma nitel özellikte olup, web
sitesindeki şikayetlerden meydana gelmektedir. İlgili stedeki yorumların tamamı
incelenerek en çok tekrarlanan kelimeler üzerinden kategorizasyon yapılmıştır.
Bulgular: Araştırma sonucunda şikâyetler: genel
temizlik; sağlık; çocuklara yönelik hizmetler; otelle ilgili genel sıkıntılar;
çalışanlar ve davranışlarına ilişkin şikayetler olarak 5’e ayrılmıştır. En çok
tekrarlanan kelimeler ise sırayla “Havuz, Yemek, Kötü, Temiz ve Para”dır.
Sonuç: Ailelerin bu otelleri çocuklarının
rahat etmesini sağlamak amacıyla seçtikleri yapılan yorumlardan
anlaşabilmektedir. Otellerin bu tür bir konsepte sahip olması ailelerin
beklentisini yükseltmekte dolayısıyla şikayet oranını artırmaktadır. Özellikle
hijyen, temizlik, sağlık gibi konularda çokça şikayet görmek mümkündür. Otel yönetimlerinin bu şikâyetleri
değerlendirerek çözüm bulması, çocuklu aileler tarafından daha fazla tercih
edilmelerini sağlayacaktır.
Primary Language | Turkish |
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Subjects | Business Administration |
Journal Section | Original Articles |
Authors | |
Publication Date | August 30, 2019 |
Submission Date | December 6, 2018 |
Acceptance Date | August 26, 2019 |
Published in Issue | Year 2019 Volume: 7 Issue: 2 |
This journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.