Techniques in stated preference for the analysis of hotel service

The usual way that customers show their response to service quality attributes is when they use the service effectively. But those occasions alone do not cover all the cases of interest. One way to partially reduce this limitation is to collect and analyze the customers’ preferences with the aid of a statistical experiment called stated preference surveying, or conjoint analysis. In order to do this, the attributes are combined such that their values cover a range of interest, representing realistic scenarios. These scenarios are usually presented in the form of cards (text, drawings), and the interviewed person is asked, after the introductory explanations, to rank then in a decreasing order of preference. A two-stage calibration technique is used to adjust a logit model, yielding the coefficients of a utility function. In Santa Catarina, a southern Brazilian state, resort beaches receive lots of Argentinean tourists in the summer. The official hotel classificatory system in Brazil considers only physical attributes of the facilities (bedroom and reception characteristics, garage, etc). Service factors such as comfort, attendance, accessability, etc are not included. The paper describes a stated preference survey and customers’ preference modeling with regard to hotel services in Balneário Camboriú.