INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION COMPETENCE AND ITS POSITIVE IMPACT ON GUEST SATISFACTION IN THE HOTEL INDUSTRY OF LAM DONG: A CASE STUDY OF BAMBOO VILLAGE RESORT

Tóm tắt

From the ancient times to today's globalized world, the hotel industry serves a very diverse clientele from varied cultural backgrounds. Effective intercultural communication competence (ICC) is academically believed to be most important in ensuring positive guest experiences, loyalty, and favorable ratings and recommendations. This thesis looks into the significance of staff ICC and its positive impact on guest satisfaction in hotel industry, exploring the hotel front-line staff’s and guests’ perspectives on ICC in an culturally-diverse service environment, and consequently providing practical recommendations for improving staff ICC while serving travelers from many countries in the world. This thesis employs a mix of qualitative and quantitative study approach to provide an in-depth understanding of staff perspectives with interviews and thematic surveys and situational observations being used. This thesis finds out that the majority of the staff possess adequate ICC that help them conveniently deal with cultural encounters and challenges to effectively serve travelers from diverse cultural backgrounds. This thesis also recognizes that ICC’s intangible service aspects rather than tangible service aspects have more favorable influence on guest satisfaction. Practically, this thesis provides further valuable insights for the industry management and hoteliers, offering real-life, evidence-based recommendations for improving ICC in training and practices. The thesis can also serve as an empirical model for other hospitality businesses and similar cultural contexts, contributing to improved guest satisfaction and staff performance.