Visitor interactions with hotel employees:
the role of nationality
Girish Prayag and Chris Ryan
Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to report the results of a study into visitor evaluations of interactions with
hotel employees in Mauritius. Given that the island’s core tourism product is based on luxury resorts,
tourist-hotel employee interactions possess a potential for determining satisfactory or unsatisfactory
holiday evaluations on the part of visitors.
Design/methodology/approach – A sample of 103 visitors is interviewed using a semi-structured
guide comprising open-ended questions. This approach reflects the lived experiences of guests and
helps to better assess the role played by nationality when reporting visitor-staff interactions. Data are
analyzed using both thematic analysis and textual analysis software.
Findings – Nationality, ethnicity and languages spoken are found to be factors that determine
differences in requirements from hotel staff on the part of tourists. Nationality is the strongest
discriminator of these requirements.
Research limitations/implications – As with many examples of qualitative research, the findings are
time and place specific. Yet nonetheless, the concepts of personal construct theory permit some
generalization.
Practical implications – Resort complex staff and management need to note the differences required
by guests of different national groupings, and to appreciate that less than warm responses by some
clients are not indicative of dissatisfaction.
Originality/value – The paper distinguishes between guests not only on the basis of nationality and
ethnicity, but also languages spoken. No similar study relating to resort complexes in Mauritius has been
identified. The study also uses two modes of textual data analysis to support the interpretation offered.
Keywords Service interaction, Hotel employees, Service values, Social constructionism,
Phenomenology, Cross-cultural differences, Tourism, National cultures
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
This paper examines the different evaluations that made by tourists of differing nationalities
staying in luxury resort complexes on the island of Mauritius. The research uses
semi-structured interviews comprising open-ended questions designed to elicit guest
responses about the hotels, and in particular to assess the role played by interactions with
hotel staff in their holiday evaluations. This paper is therefore structured around different
themes. The first describes the nature of Mauritius as a holiday destination. The second
comprises a literature review divided into two, past research on tourist-host interaction and
the construction and understanding of such interactions. The third section of the paper
relates to the research method adopted, while the fourth reports the results. Finally, the study
assesses implications from both a conceptual and managerial perspective.
Mauritius, located in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar, has emerged as one of the better
performing tourist destinations in the last decade in terms of annual growth. In 2006, 788,276
international visitors visited the island (Handbook of Tourism Statistics, 2007). Traditionally,
DOI 10.1108/17506181211233090 VOL. 6 NO. 2 2012, pp. 173-185, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1750-6182
j
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY RESEARCH
j
PAGE 173
Girish Prayag is an
Assistant Professor
(Marketing) in the Center for
Tourism Management,
SKEMA Business School,
Nice, France. Chris Ryan is
a Professor in Tourism in the
Waikato Management
School, University of
Waikato, Hamilton, New
Zealand.
Received: April 2009
Revised: March 2010
Accepted: May 2010