Assessing customer dissatisfaction in the hotel industry in Assin Fosu Municipality

Abstract

The hotel industries are shifting their focus from transactional exchange to relational exchange for developing mutually satisfying relationship with customers. Serving the customers, in true sense, is the aim of every hotel management as the customer was, is and will remain the central focus of all hotel industries or organizational activities. The purpose of the study was to assess customer dissatisfaction in the hotel industry in the Assin Fosu Municipality. Areas examined include the demographic characteristics of customers, causes and effects of customer dissatisfaction and strategies hotel industries have taken to reduce customer dissatisfaction. The population of the study comprised all the workers, management and customers of the six hotels selected for the study. A questionnaire was employed to collect data for the study. A sample size of 158 respondents was selected using census, purposive sampling and simple random sampling techniques. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze the data gathered. Among other things it was found out from the study that the youth patronize the services of the hotels either as workers or clients. The study also revealed that customers do not often go to the hotels and even those who patronize the services do so when they are on official business trips. It was further revealed that improper portering and general services such as room space, hygiene, privacy, location, food and drinks served and non-acceptance of credit cards were disincentive to customers which make them dissatisfied with the services of the hotels. On the basis of the findings, it was recommended that hotel management should offer proper portering and general services to customers to ensure their regular patronage of the facilities and clearly defined responsibilities given to staff members.