Samenvatting

This research project has been conducted by Aivis Palacis, a student of Vitality and Tourism Management at the University of Applied Sciences Zeeland in Vlissingen. This graduation assignment has been fulfilled in the Bellevue Part Hotel Riga in Riga, Latvia.
The overall purpose of this thesis was to come up with a CRM concept which increases guest satisfaction and retention. The aspects are considered to be the ultimate goal within the hospitality industry; however, many companies fail to address this issue properly. Therefore, this bachelor research paper explores guest behavior, as well as the behavior of staff members and its effect on customer satisfaction, expectations and complaint management by using CRM concepts. Additionally, this report provided insight into the relation between guest preferences and their religious heritage. In fact, it became apparent that religions do have correlation with different hotel offers. This was based on a comparison between Christians and Atheists.
The research type of this paper is exploratory because not so much is known before about the topic what includes mixed research design. Qualitative data was gathered from face to face interviews and coded, as well as structured covert observations whereby, quantitative data was collected with use of online surveys and later on analyzed through use of Google drive and Microsoft Excel. Additionally, desk research took place as well to back up some of the data.
Furthermore, the 5 dimension module which described five leading factors influencing guest satisfaction, expectation and retention revealed that guests are expecting to have a memorable experience without any issues. Additionally, it was discovered that front office does not have important knowledge and skills based on reviewed dimensions which strongly connects to satisfaction.
Moreover the study showed that angry guests are difficult to handle, but interestingly the survey also uncovered is that one does not tend to express their negative emotions right away, instead research revealed that use of social networks and word of mouth is the preferred way of expressing negative experiences. Additionally, business guests favored the idea when receiving small gifts, room upgrades, free drinks, dinners or a simple cup of coffee for free can reduce dissatisfaction but this can be applied only in case of small problems.
Therefore, the overall picture of the research gives a good comparison and insight into these matters. In addition, theory of (Torres, Fu, & Lehto, 2014) has been researched by proving partly the influence on preferences of different religious people.
Ultimately, it became clear to implement smaller CRM platforms suitable for mobile phones and tablets. Eventually the outcome of this research was that it is beneficial for BPHR to follow a CRM concept specifically the one developed by the researcher. Nevertheless, this app needs to still be developed and programmed (timely and costly) and therefore, considering the current situation it would make best sense for BPHR to make use of “Conichi”, a mobile CRM app which has been established in Germany in 2014. An implementation would certainly increase the overall business performance by increasing satisfaction among guests and thus leading to retention.