POST COVID CONSUMER CONFIDENCE: ROLE OF SERVICE INNOVATION IN IMPROVING RESPONSE EFFICACY IN THE UK HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY.

Abstract

The unprecedented pandemic rushed operational and strategic changes in the operationalization of hospitality industry as guests fear for their health and safety at the hotels. The protection motivation theory provided rationale for the need to innovate in order to develop guest response efficacy when choosing to stay at hotels. Beyond covid, the hygiene and cleanliness concerns remain, for which the need for process and organization innovation remains key. This research, thus, focused on understanding the perception of business travellers in the UK in context of process and organization innovation on their response efficacy towards hospitality industry effort to overcome covid, hygiene and cleanliness related issues. The study was conducted using quantitative methods, with 146 complete responses collected using online platform. The analysis of the data provided a positive correlation between process innovation, organization innovation and response efficacy. Similarly, risk of covid and other hygiene and cleanliness related concerns perceived by the guests also positively influenced their response efficacy. However, the correlation strengthened as education level of guests increased. A closer analysis of hotel chains revealed that hotels with higher perception of process and organization innovation had a significantly higher score of response efficacy, whereas the hotel chain with less perception in process and organization innovation had somewhat lower score of response efficacy. The findings can be used by the strategic decision makers in hotel chains to focus on inculcating technologies to facilitate process innovation while strategically investing in their human resource to develop long term competitive advantage.