Abstract

Since the increasing number of foreign visitors in the U.S. incites the hotel industry to be more competitive, hotels need to expand services to meet the foreign guest's needs and wants in order to stay in the business. Most often foreign guest complaints occur when the hotel services can not satisfy the guests. Misunderstandings and communication barriers occur when the hotel staff is not familiar with foreign guest's culture and does not speak the guest's language. This research was done to help hotel management explore the various cultural characteristics, identify the most frequent complaints of foreign guests, and discern the interpersonal and communication skills needed when interacting with culturally different guests. In addition to the library research, most data on guest complaints was collected by telephone and personal interviews of hotel employees and travel agencies such as front desk clerks, bell personnel, waiters /waitresses, and travel tour guides . The frequent complaints of foreign guests were listed to identify the various needs of several different ethnic groups. An analysis of the cultural characteristics of Japanese, Chinese, French, and German visitors was done and specific examples of cultural differentiae were noted.

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Hotel management; Customer relations; Intercultural communication

Publication Date

1992

Document Type

Thesis

Department, Program, or Center

School of Food, Hotel and Tourism Management (CAST)

Advisor

Whitlock, Carol

Advisor/Committee Member

Whitlock, Carol

Comments

Note: imported from RIT’s Digital Media Library running on DSpace to RIT Scholar Works. Physical copy available through RIT's The Wallace Library at: TX911.3.C8 C43 1992

Campus

RIT – Main Campus

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