Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a crisis in the hotel industry worldwide, but few studies have suggested methods to retain customers. This study proposes hygiene management as a means to minimize the indirect damage from COVID-19 to the hotel industry. It identifies perceived hygiene attributes and explores their influence on hotel image, word of mouth, and revisit intentions. This study identifies and validates three types of perceived hygiene attributes through qualitative and quantitative methods. It uses structural equation modeling to validate hypotheses and concludes that there are significant relationships of influence between the proposed variables. This study provides important and meaningful insights into hotel image and customer behavior through perceived hygiene attributes.
1. Introduction
In today’s globalized world, the rate and range of the spread of infectious diseases are rapidly accelerating due to developments in transportation, growing population, increasing number of travelers, and shared sphere of life of the entire world. Coronavirus disease (COVID19), a new infectious disease, has spread rapidly from its first discovery in Wuhan, China in December 2019 to the designation of COVID-19 as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). The unexpected outbreak and rapid spread of COVID-19 has shocked the world, and has had a major impact on the health and economic well-being of individuals, as well as corporate performance. The impact of COVID-19 on the global economy and society is rapidly intensifying. The damage from COVID-19 is acute in the hotel industry. For example, French multinational hospitality group Accor reported that more than half of its hotel brand locations had ceased to operate worldwide, and that this number was expected to grow (Hotel Management, 2020). In addition, the American Hotel and Lodging Association (AHLA) reported that hotels in the United States had lost more than $15 billion in room revenues since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, and expected occupancy rates of 20% or less in the coming months, with even further deterioration possible in the future (AHLA, 2020). Therefore, there is a need to investigate how the hotel and tourism industry must prepare for serious disaster situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic (Faulkner, 2001).
6. Conclusion
COVID-19 is a newly discovered infectious disease, with no proven methods of treatment or prevention. The prevalence of COVID-19 has significantly reduced the use and visits of hotels, which are utilized by large numbers of people. It is necessary to manage hygiene thoroughly to prevent infections of hotel guests and staff. However, there is no research on hotel hygiene amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, this study explored perceived hygiene attributes and investigated their influence on hotel image and customer behavior. This study determined the influence of three attributes, namely, hygiene of customer-use spaces, personal hygiene of staff, and workspace hygiene. The empirical analysis found that the perceived hygiene attributes influenced hotel image, word of mouth, and revisit intention. Furthermore, this study confirmed the partial mediating roles of cognitive image and affective image in the proposed theoretical framework.
