Recipe for perceived personalization in hotels

Personalization is commonly practiced in hotels as a means of addressing criticism of hospitality products and services as imitable. However, personalization attempts are not always successful, as customers may not perceive a service as personalized. Limited knowledge exists regarding how to craft personalized service successfully. This study explores how perceived personalization is formed in a hotel context by examining the causal relationship between actual personalization and perceived personalization. Mixed research design was adopted and three studies were executed sequentially. Study 1 comprises qualitative inquiries where two key factors (effort and surprise) of actual personalization attempts were identified. Their effects on perceived personalization were then tested through online experiments in Study 2. Finally, the relationships between actual personalization, perceived personalization and customer behavioral intention were confirmed based on survey data in Study 3. The findings can be conducive for hoteliers to implement successful personalization strategies.