Service innovation in the lodging industry: A perspective of customer value

Abstract

Past studies related to lodging industry mostly focused on service quality satisfaction, business model, and performance, and rarely dwelled into the topic of service innovation. This study explores service innovations of the lodging industry based on customer value perspective, and adopts a qualitative approach when analyzing cases in a single industry. Research subjects are 70 international tourist hotels and 3,688 home stay facilities. A total of 6,216 innovation events were collected from secondary data and in-depth interviews. The unit of analysis is a single innovation event, and analysis is carried out according to pattern matching, interpretation construction, time series analysis, and program logic model. Research findings are shown as follows. International tourist hotels emphasize functional value and relationship value, while home stay facilities emphasize hedonic value, and both attach less importance to contextual value. Moreover, functional value is highly valued in the lodging industry, but international tourist hotels focus more in cuisine and home stay facilities focus more on integrated services. Finally, this study proposes some managerial implications.