e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 15, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 1 Ahmad Azmi M.Ariffin Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Atefeh Maghzi University of Newcastle Jason Lam Mun Soon Multimedia University Syed Shah Alam Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Exploring the Influence of Hospitality on Guest Satisfaction in Luxury Hotel Services The aim of this study is to expound the influences of the five dimensions of hotel hospitality or HotHos as proposed by Ariffin & Maghzi (2012) on guest satisfaction in the context of luxury hotel experiences. This preliminary study involved the participation of 101 hotel guests from Malaysia and overseas and covered the five dimensions of hospitality, which are personalization, warm welcoming, special relationship, straight from the heart and comfort. The findings indicate that out of the five dimensions, only three dimensions, namely personalization, comfort and straight from the heart; predict guest satisfaction in a luxury hotel setting. The findings help luxury hotel managers to better understand how to increase their guest satisfaction within the context of hospitality. Key words: Commercial Hospitality, Hotel Marketing, Guest Satisfaction, Personalization Ahmad Azmi M.Ariffin UKM-Graduate School of Business Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 43600 UKM Bangi, Selangor Malaysia. Phone: [60] 3 8921 3780 Email: aama@ukm.edu.my Atefeh Maghzi Newcastle Business School University of Newcastle University Drive, Callaghan NSW 2308, Australia. Phone: [60] 017 2925 886. Email: atefehmaghzi@gmail.com. Jason Lam Mun Soon Faculty of Business Multimedia University Jalan Ayer Keroh Lama 75450, Bukit Beruang Melaka, http://ertr.tamu.edu/ mailto:atefehmaghzi@gmail.com e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 15, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 2 Malaysia. Phone: [60] 012 623 2317. Email: mslam@mmu.edu.my. Syed Shah Alam Faculty of Economics and Management Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 43600 UKM Bangi, Selangor Malaysia. Phone: [60] 3 8921 3724 Email: shahalam@ukm.edu.my Dr Ahmad Azmi M.Ariffin is an Associate Professor of Marketing at UKM-Graduate School of Business, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). His research interests are in the areas of tourism and hospitality services, as well as tourist behaviour. Ms Atefeh Maghzi is a doctoral student at Newcastle Business School, University of Newcastle with research interests in strategic management and marketing environment. Dr Jason Lam Mun Soon is lecturer at Faculty of Business, Multimedia University with research interests in edutourism marketing and services marketing. Dr Syed Shah Alam is an Associate Professor of Marketing at Faculty of Economics and Management, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). His research interests are in the areas of internet marketing and consumer behaviour. Introduction The tourism sector has played a significant role in contributing to the Malaysian economy over the last ten years (Ariffin & Hasim 2010; Ariffin 2013). The Malaysian hotel industry, including the luxury segment, is also expanding radically in line with the robust development in the tourism industry of the country (Ahmad, Ariffin & Ahmad 2008). A luxury hotel establishment is a lodging establishment that offers premium services, and that places importance not only on the physical aspects of the hotel but also on the non-physical aspects, including consumer emotional attachment with the hotel and its employees. It is the ultimate aim of such luxury hotels to provide their valued, affluent customers with “memorable staying experiences”. It was argued by Lashley (2008) that if the goal of a company is to ensure that their customers enjoy “memorable experiences”, then hospitality is http://ertr.tamu.edu/ e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 15, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 3 a vital hosting behaviour attribute. Hospitality is also widely referred to as an “enhancing service” (Lovelock et al. 2009) where it is vital to provide services of exceptional value. In general, if a guest comes away feeling that the host went out of the way to meet his/her needs and had a sincere concern for his/her personal well-being, then it can be said that the guest has experienced hospitality (Lashley and Morrison 2000). A high level of hospitality would result in the development of a powerful emotional attachment between the guest and the hotel, something that rival hotels would find hard to duplicate. According to Ariffin and Maghzi (2012) and Ariffin (2009), in terms of the services provided by a hotel, there are five distinct but inter-related dimensions that can be used to define hospitality, and these are personalization, warm welcoming, special relationship, straight from the heart and comfort. Personalization denotes any behavior that arises in all communications aimed at enabling a customer to feel he/she is receiving individual attention (Surprenant & Solomon 1987). The second dimension, warm welcoming, concerns the ritual, manner or approach that is employed by the hotel to greet its guests on their arrival. Special relationship refers mainly to the capacity of the hotel to meet the unique needs of their guests that extend beyond the regular services that are offered. The fourth dimension, “straight from the heart”, is concerned with the authenticity of the service, where service should be part of the natural charm of the hotel and not because of any regulation or reward system. Finally, comfort means focussing not only on the physical but also on the psychological comfort of the guests throughout their stay at the hotel. Thus, this study strives to add to the body of knowledge by examining the influences of hospitality dimensions in the context of luxury hotels. Although Ariffin & Maghzi (2012) successfully explored the dimensionality of hotel hospitality, known as HotHos, they did not explain how these dimensions actually affect guest satisfaction with their hotel experiences. This preliminary study helps to provide some http://ertr.tamu.edu/ e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 15, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 4 insights and empirical evidence on the influences of the five dimensions of hospitality on guest satisfaction. The specific objectives of this study are twofold: 1. To ascertain how the five dimensions of hotel hospitality (HotHos) are related to guest satisfaction, and 2. To examine how the five dimensions of hotel hospitality (HotHos) predict the level of satisfaction within the context of luxury hotel experiences. Hospitality and Guest Satisfaction Lashley (2008) stated that hospitality in the commercial context comprised the provision of food, drinks, and accommodation by service providers such as hotels, cafes, restaurants and caterers in exchange for a certain sum of money. Hemmington (2007) categorized the five major aspects of hospitality in a business setting as the host-guest relationship, generosity, theatre and performance, lots of little surprises, and safety and security. All those involved in the hospitality industry must endeavour to impress their guests with their services by concentrating on providing them with stimulating experiences. Companies must play the role of hosts at a private gathering and think of creative ways to surprise their guests with a “moment of truth”. Those who deal directly with the guests need to perform similarly to professional actors providing endless entertainment. As for the “lots of little surprises” dimension of hospitality, Ritzer (2007) proposed that some of the barriers to the creation of “memorable” experiences in hospitality services were predictability and control. Lashley et al. (2005) conducted a study concerning “memorable meals” and discovered that the emotions had a greater influence than the quality of the meal in the creation of unforgettable dining experiences. Emotional value is determined by the level of interaction between front of house and the guests as well as the environment that is produced by the hospitality setting. The type of emotions aroused by such experiences then lead to the generation of guest satisfaction http://ertr.tamu.edu/ e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 15, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 5 (Lashley, 2008). One other important feature of hospitality in the business sector is the genuineness of the behaviour behind the services rendered (Lashley, 2008). Langhorn (2004) discovered that guests are not really taken in by the “acting performances” of the front-liners in their attempts to mask their emotions while rendering their services. It was argued by Rafaeli and Sutton (1987) that front-liners needed to smile, regardless of whether they felt like it or not, in order to keep the customers satisfied. However, it has been proven by experimental research that there have been less positive reactions to such inauthentic rather than to authentic behaviour (Ekman, 1992; Ekman & Friesen, 1982; Frank, Ekman, & Friesen, 1993). Grandey, Fisk, Mattila, Jansen and Sideman (2002) discovered that the authenticity of the service offered was actually an “extra-role”, behaviour that had an added effect on customer satisfaction only when other factors are ideally present. Hospitality is not just about putting on a smile, but whether the guests perceive that smile as coming from the heart. In the same way, hospitality is not just about welcoming and assisting the guests, but it is about the “warmth” behind the welcome, and the earnestness and the willingness to go “all out” to assist. It is the quality of these exchanges that take place between the service providers and the guests that will long remain in the memories of the guests as their best experiences. Customer expectations are defined as the perceptions that customers have about the services that are provided to them, and these are used as the benchmarks or standards against which the actual performance is gauged (Zeithaml, Bitner & Gremler 2006). A comprehensive knowledge about guest expectations, including an understanding of how they were formed, is essential to hotel marketing because guests compare what they believe to be hospitality against these benchmarks when assessing the quality of the services as a whole. Customer service satisfaction is determined by the degree to which the services that customers receive correspond with their expectations (Austin, 1992). Some of the http://ertr.tamu.edu/ e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 15, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 6 demographic or personal characteristics that could be attributed to the formation of many of these expectations are age, sex, self-identity or self-image, race and income (Ariffin & Maghzi 2012; Webster 1989). Guest expectations with regard to hospitality are also assumed to be affected the by features of the hotel, for example the star rating. Star rating can be viewed as an obvious promise of services, and as stated by Zeithaml (2006), one of the factors that determine the service expectations of guests are the explicit service promises. Guests may assume that they will receive a higher level of hospitality from a hotel that has a higher star rating. In the context of high contact services, such as experiences with hotels, airlines or restaurants, the image factor, such as the corporate image and the image of the firm’s country-of-origin, undeniably plays an important role in determining the level of service expectation. In general, customer satisfaction is based on an assessment of whether the actual experience was at least as good as it was expected to be (Hunt, 1975). More specifically, it has been defined by Oliver (1981) as an emotional reaction to the use of a particular product or service. Conventionally, customer satisfaction is defined based on a disconfirmation concept of consumer satisfaction/dissatisfaction (CS/D), which proposes that CS/D is the outcome of the interaction between a consumer’s expectations before making a purchase and the evaluation that follows after the purchase (Engel et al., 1990). Since the study of hospitality as a hosting behaviour is still in a stage of infancy, there is a dearth of empirical evidence on how hospitality influences guest satisfaction. Al-Alak (2011) contended that luxury hoteliers need to focus on the human value factor when dealing with Asian guests in general and Malaysian in particular. The contact- staffs of luxury hotels must be courteous, empathetic, and friendly with the Asian. Western hotel guests on the other hands are more influenced by the quality of the guest room as a whole (Choi & Chu 2000). Mey et al. (2006) indicate that Malaysian hotel guests alongside http://ertr.tamu.edu/ e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 15, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 7 those from other Asian countries had the highest expectations on the assurance aspect of the hotel quality, while their western counterparts focus on the responsiveness dimensions. All these aspects have been incorporated in this present study. The Five Dimensions of Hotel Hospitality (HotHos) Although Smith (1994) identified hospitality and service as two characteristic features of tourism, in practice, it is often difficult to distinguish between the two. Hospitality is viewed as an “enhanced service” which includes the style or attitude that is assumed when performing the service. Ariffin & Maghzi (2012) asserted that the dimension of “personalization” provides the best explanation for the hospitality services that are rendered by hotels. According to the authors, the “enhanced service” or “something extra” mentioned by Smith (1994) is fundamentally personalization. The more they are made to feel or believe that they are being given special treatment as guests of the hotel, the higher the rating that they will give to the hotel. In addition to special treatment, Nouwen (1975) and Lashley (2008) argued that all guests should be accorded equal worth as persons irrespective of their traits. The second most important dimension to the hospitality accorded by hotel services is “Warm welcoming” (Ariffin & Maghzi, 2012). According to Smith (1994), hospitality is a demonstration of welcome extended by the locals to tourists on their arrival in their neighbourhood. This demonstration is shown in the style or attitude that is assumed when extending the welcome. In the context of hotel services, this welcoming tradition would include the heartfelt greeting and the opening of the door to the guests when they first step into the hotel. The giving of tokens of appreciation such as a welcome drink or a gift upon checking-in at the reception counter is one of the methods employed by hotels to show hospitality by creating surprise and excitement for the guests. As part of this warm http://ertr.tamu.edu/ e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 15, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 8 welcoming experience, guests would feel even more like “friends” of the hotel if, upon check-in at the foyer, they are shown to their rooms by a hotel employee. Another aspect of this “warm welcoming” experience is related to how the guest’s luggage is handled by the staff upon their arrival at the hotel. The guests would feel very welcomed if the hotel staff were to assist them in carrying their luggage. The third most significant dimension in HotHos is “special relationship”, which refers mainly to the ability of the hotel to comprehend the special needs of their guests which extend beyond the normal services provided by the hotel. This can only be successfully extended on an individual or one-to-one marketing basis. As such, the guests would expect the staff to give them a warm “goodbye” on their departure from the hotel. It is highly important that personalized programs focus on the promotion of relationships in order to make the guests feel that they are special and to have them believe that the hotel has targeted them for exceptional treatment (Ariffin, Ahmad, Ishak, 2008). The fourth dimension to the hospitableness of hotel services has been identified as “straight from the heart”. Hospitality should be extended as a natural outflow of the character irrespective of any management rules or reward system. It has been established that emotional intelligence is the key to the success of an organization, particularly if that organization is connected to the hospitality and tourism industries, where staff (internal customer) relations have such a direct influence on external customer experiences (Goleman, 1998; Lashley, 2008; Langhorn, 2004). A smiling face is seen as a symbol of hospitality in the cultural and commercial fields, but in the latter, the genuineness of the smile is more valuable as an indicator for non-profit reasons. Finally, the fifth dimension of hospitality in the hotel industry is “comfort”. This dimension refers not only to the physical comfort but also the guest’s psychological comfort or feeling of well-being during their stay at the hotel. According to Herzberg’s (1966) http://ertr.tamu.edu/ e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 15, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 9 Motivational Theory, the physical aspects are possible “dissatisfiers”. If one were to place high expectations on the physical aspects, then it will certainly not help to produce guest satisfaction with the hotel services. What produces customer satisfaction and lasting loyalty is actually the quality of the emotions that are generated as a result of the quality of the performance by the staff, the hospitality and fellow diners (Lashley, 2008). A study conducted on Malaysian hotel services by Ahmad et al. (2008) revealed that staff performance was of greater importance than the tangible features of the hotel. Methodology This study used the questionnaire survey as the main method for the collection of data. The respondents in this study comprised both local and foreign guests who must have stayed at least one night at a four or five-star hotel in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia within the last 3 months prior to the survey. The respondents were either approached during their visits to tourist locations or while they were out shopping at the major shopping malls in Kuala Lumpur. Out of a total of 115 questionnaires that were collected, only 101 were fit to be used for further evaluation. The profiles of the respondents were as follows: Table 1: Respondent’s profile Demographic N Percent Gender Female Male 48 53 47.5 52.4 Age 20 – 25 26 – 30 31 – 35 36 – 40 41 – 45 46 – 50 50+ 30 16 14 18 12 3 8 29.7 15.8 13.8 17.8 11.8 2.9 7.9 Education Secondary or high school Diploma/certificate Undergraduate degree Postgraduate degree 14 22 31 34 13.8 21.7 30.6 33.6 Nationality Malaysian Non-Malaysian 41 60 40.5 59.4 Income Less than RM 3,000 16 15.8 http://ertr.tamu.edu/ e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 15, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 10 (Malaysian) RM 3,000 – RM 5,000 RM 5,001 – RM 8,000 RM 8,001 – RM 11,000 RM 11,000+ 16 7 0 2 15.8 6.9 0 1.9 Income (Non-Malaysian) Less than 3,000 $ 3,001 $ - 5,000 $ 5,001 $ - 10,000 $ 10,000 $+ 16 15 16 13 15.8 14.8 15.8 12.8 Purpose of stay Holiday Business Other 82 11 8 81.1 10.8 7.9 Ariffin & Maghzi’s (2012) measurements for the five dimensions of hotel hospitality (HotHos) within the context of luxury hotels have been fully adopted and presented in Table 2. As expected, the Exploratory Factor analysis (Varimax rotation) performed on the 22 items produced the same five dimensions with 65.4 percent of total variance explained. No item was discarded as all their loadings were greater than 0.50. The KMO of 0.93 and Bartlett’s Test of Spherecity were significant indicating that the items were appropriate for factor analysis. The first dimension, “personalization” explained 19.3 percent from the total variance followed by 15.4, 12.3, 10.7 and 7.7 for “warm welcoming”, “special relationship”, “straight from the heart” and “comfort” respectively. The scale of 22 items employed was summarized in Table 2, with all the items being measured on a 5-point Likert scale with 1 representing “not important at all” and 5 representing “extremely important”. Table 2: Measurement items for the five dimensions of hospitality Dimension 1: “Personalization”  The hotel staff knew my name and/or nationality  The hotel staff treated me with full respect  The hotel staff made eye contact with me during conversation  The hotel staff made me feel like an important person  The hotel staff gave me authentic smiles all the time Dimension 2: “Warm Welcoming” http://ertr.tamu.edu/ e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 15, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 11  Given a warm welcome at the door step.  Walked to the hotel room by the staff upon check-in  Presented with an unexpected welcoming token or gift  The hotel staff helped me with my luggage (if any) Dimension 3: “Special Relationship”  Understanding my special requirements while staying in a hotel  Building good relationship rather than making money seemed to be the most important drive of the hotel  Given warm “good bye” after checking out at the counter  Entertained with the services provided by the hotel  Treated as a friend rather than a customer Dimension 4: “Straight from the Heart”  The hospitable behaviour seemed to be rendered as a natural extension of their characters regardless of any control and incentive systems  The hospitable behaviour seemed to be motivated by a genuine need to please and care for their guests and not to deliberately impress the guest Dimension 5: “Comfort”  Ensured all aspects of the room were in good condition  Felt as if I was at home while staying at the hotel  Ensured that the room was comfortable for me A five-item scale was employed to measure the construct of guest satisfaction as presented in Table 3. The first four items were adapted from Olorunniwo, Hsu and Udo (2006) while the final item was newly developed for this study. The five-point scale used to measure these items ranged from 1(strongly disagree) to 5(strongly agree). Table 3: Measurement items for guest satisfaction  I am satisfied with my decision to visit this hotel  My choice to stay at this hotel was a wise one  I think I did the right thing when I chose to stay in this hotel  I feel that my experience with this hotel has been enjoyable  I would recommend this hotel to others Data was entered into the SPSS package and analysed mainly by using the correlation and multiple regression analyses. The dependent variable in the regression model was guest satisfaction and the independent variables were the five dimensions of hospitality identified as personalization, warm welcoming, special relationship, straight from the heart and comfort. Figure 1 shows the conceptual framework employed in the research to analyse the data based on Ariffin and Maghzi (2012). http://ertr.tamu.edu/ e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 15, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 12 Figure 1: Key dimensions of hotel hospitality Based on conceptual framework presented in Figure 1, this present study strives to find empirical evidences to support the following hypotheses: H1: There is a positive relationship between personalization and guest satisfaction in the context of luxury hotel. H2: There is a positive relationship between warm welcoming and guest satisfaction in the context of luxury hotel. H3: There is a positive relationship between special relationship and guest satisfaction in the context of luxury hotel. H4: There is a positive relationship between “straight from heart” and guest satisfaction in the context of luxury hotel. H5: There is a positive relationship between comfort and guest satisfaction in the context of luxury hotel. Research Finding The Pearson’s correlation analysis revealed that all the five dimensions of hotel hospitality (HotHos) were significantly and positively correlated with guest satisfaction with Personalization Guest Satisfaction Comfort Straight from Heart Warm Welcoming Special Relationship http://ertr.tamu.edu/ e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 15, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 13 all the results being significant at the level of 0.01. The highest beta coefficient of 0.675 was recorded by personalization, followed by straight from the heart (0.657), special relationship (0.627) and comfort (0.614). The least correlated hospitality dimension with guest satisfaction was warm welcoming with the beta coefficient being equal to 0.593. Table 4 gives a summary of the results of the correlation analysis. Table 4: Correlation analysis Satisfaction (Pearson’s Correlation) Personalization 0.675 Warm Welcoming 0.593 Special Relationship 0.627 Straight from the Heart 0.657 Comfort 0.614 A multiple regression analysis with the stepwise method was employed to examine the influence of the five dimensions of hospitality on guest satisfaction. Prior to that, the data were tested to ensure that assumptions of multivariate analysis were met. The skewness and kurtosis values of all variables had met the prerequisite of normality test. The VIF values of below 10 for all variables indicating that multicollinearity was not an issue in this study. Through an analysis of residuals and partial regression plots, non-linear pattern was not found. No discernible patterns of residuals were also noted indicating that homoscedasticity exists for the independent variables of this study. Table 5 shows the results of the multiple regression analysis. The results indicate that the overall regression equation was significant at 99 percent of confidence level in explaining the influence of hospitality on guest satisfaction within the context of luxury hotels in Malaysia. The resulting multicollinearity diagnostics also revealed that multicollinearity was not a problem in this regression model. The results revealed that out of the five dimensions, only three contributed significantly to the prediction of guest satisfaction within the context of luxury hotel http://ertr.tamu.edu/ e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 15, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 14 experiences. The three dimensions were personalization, comfort and “straight from the heart”. The R Square’s value of 0.541 indicates that 54 percent of the dependent variable, guest satisfaction is predicted by these three independent variables. Thus, out of the five hypotheses, only H1, H4 and H5 were supported in this study. As anticipated, with a coefficient of 0.314, personalization appeared as the most powerful dimension in predicting guest satisfaction, followed by comfort (0.263) and “straight from the heart” (0.255). The results on personalization and comfort were significant at the 0.01 level while the result for straight from the heart was significant at the 0.05 level. Table 5: Multiple regression analysis Model Unstd. Coeff. Std. Coeff. t Sig. Collinearity Statistics B S.E. B Tolerance VIF (Constant) 7.456 0.652 H1:Personalization 0.342 0.034 0.314* 2.751 0.007 0.503 1.553 H2:Warm Welcoming 0.107 0.047 0.161 1.630 0.106 0.731 1.432 H3:Special Relationship 0.093 0.125 0.118 1.036 0.303 0.663 1.865 H4:Straight from the Heart 0.311 0.038 0.255** 2.270 0.025 0.572 1.633 H5:Comfort 0.288 0.023 0.263* 2.881 0.005 0.553 1.654 *Significant at 0.01 level, **Significant at 0.05 level, R=0.735, R Square=0.541 Dependent Variable: Satisfaction Discussion From the results of this study it can be deduced that all the five dimensions of hotel hospitality (HotHos) as proposed by Ariffin & Maghzi (2012) are significantly and positively correlated with guest satisfaction within the context of luxury hotels. However, correlation does not imply causation. Correlation indicates that there is a relationship between two variables. However, correlation does not provide an indication that one variable causes the other (Malhotra, 1999). Interestingly, the results of the multiple regression analysis show that only three of the dimensions, namely personalization, comfort and straight from the heart, significantly predict guest satisfaction. As anticipated, the dimension of personalization appears to be the best predictor of guest satisfaction in luxury hotel services. According to Surprenant and Solomon (1987), http://ertr.tamu.edu/ e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 15, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 15 “good service” is frequently interpreted to mean service that is more personalized. The authors described any behaviours occurring in the interaction intended to contribute to the individuation of the customer as “personalized service”. Personalization is also about fulfilling the hotel guest's needs more efficiently and effectively, making service encounters speedier and simpler, and subsequently leading to an increase in guest satisfaction and the prospect of return visits to the hotel. In summary, personalization is about responding to the needs of customers in an unequaled way (Talbott 2006). Personalization emphasizes on the emotional dimension of the service rather than on the functional dimension. Emotional experience is difficult to be copied by the competitors, giving it a main competitive advantage or unique selling proposition in the hotel industry worldwide. It is the value that actually determines the level of overall satisfaction with hotel services. Dabholkar, Shepherd and Thorpe (2000) identified personal attention as the components of service quality while Talbott (2006) argued that the quality of personal service is the answer to the series of questions as to what constitutes the best luxury hotel experience, what do guests desire most and how can hotels respond effectively. According to Talbott (2006) nothing matters more to affluent hotel guests than personal service, given their stressful and pressured lifestyles. Personalization is a true competitive advantage for hospitality-oriented organizations because it is not easy to deliver and at the same time it can also be differentiated in various fashions. The second most important predictor of guest satisfaction within the context of luxury hotels is comfort. Comfort has been mentioned as the most important factor in service quality (Dobholkar et al. 2000) that affects the success of service delivery (Lloyd & Tuk 2011). Past research has provided evidence that the enhancement of comfort leads to customer satisfaction (Lloyd & Tuk 2011; Spake et al. 2003). Talbott (2006) also mentioned that the definition of great service also refers to what feels appropriate and comfortable to the guests, http://ertr.tamu.edu/ e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 15, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 16 and luxury does not necessarily mean an elegant physical environment and gourmet meals. An upscale hotel catering to affluent travellers can help reduce the stressful daily life of their guests by providing services for their comfort and convenience. Comfort is actually the attribute that differentiates the experiences associated with luxury hotels from those of budget hotels. Guests stay at four or five-star hotels to enjoy the hotel facilities, amenities, and physical surroundings while in the context of budget hotels, the guests spend almost all of their time outside the hotel facility and return only to sleep. Finally, apart from personalization and comfort, guest satisfaction has also been found to be predicted by the dimension of “straight from the heart”. Straight from the heart is about the authenticity of the service behaviour rendered by the hotel employees. Authentic or genuine hosting actions or behaviour in service delivery is considered a vital element of consumer service evaluation by many scholars (Grayson 1998; Bitner et al. 1990; Hochschild, 1983). Winsted (2000) identified authenticity or “natural feeling” as one of the service behaviours that highly correlates with customer satisfaction and functions as an important element of the service encounter. Grandey et al (2005) also discovered that although the authentic behaviour of the host serves to boost the opinion of the guests with regard to the friendliness of the employees, guest satisfaction is only affected when the service is carried out well. Within the context of luxury hotels, it is presumed that all service tasks are performed relatively satisfactorily, and therefore it is the authenticity of the service that plays an important role in influencing the guest satisfaction level. Thus, the hotel contact staffs’ emotional displays are required to appear sincere to create guest satisfaction. Guests of luxury hotels expect that the treatments provided to them are not fully scripted. The proliferation of scripted services experienced by customers in their daily life diminishes the value of service http://ertr.tamu.edu/ e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 15, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 17 authenticity (Gountas & Ewing 2003). The aspect of emotional intelligence is therefore very important for the employees of luxury hotels. Conclusion, Limitations and Future Research It is very important for hotel managers to understand how service behaviour, particularly hospitality, affects the level of satisfaction of their guests. Out of the five dimensions of hospitality studied, only personalization, comfort and “straight from the heart” have been found to influence guest satisfaction significantly within the context of luxury hotel experiences. Personalized service is associated with good service (Surprenant & Solomon, 1987) and it is even more important for premium service provision. In luxury hotel experiences, emotional value is the thrust of the service offerings, and according to Talbott (2006) strong emotional attachments are created through the giving and receiving of personal services. Comfort is the second most important hospitality dimension in influencing guest satisfaction. Affluent travelers desire opportunities to reaffirm who they are through the way that comfort is provided to them (Talbott, 2006). Comfort is the factor that substantially differentiates upscale hotels from their budget hotel counterparts. Finally, “straight from the heart” or authenticity of service has also been found to influence guest satisfaction. In luxury hotel experiences, the service offerings are relatively well-planned and executed, and in such situations, the guests would look for that extra-role of service behaviour to evaluate the quality of the hotel services. According to Grandey et al. (2005), that extra-role in the service encounter is in the authenticity of the service, which has an added impact on guest satisfaction. An inherent limitation of this study pertains to its small sample size. Further research with large sample size is required to confirm on the dimensionality of hospitality in the context of luxury hotel. Further research could extend this study to investigate in greater http://ertr.tamu.edu/ e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 15, No. 1, 2018 http://ertr.tamu.edu 18 detail how personalization, comfort and straight from the heart actually affect guest satisfaction as each of these dimensions are multidimensional and complicated in nature. Image plays an important role in shaping the expectation levels of hospitality. Thus, further research is required to understand how factors like the brand image; country-of-origin image, as well as self-image influences the expectations on hospitality. 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