Last year, Coyle Hospitality Group conducted exclusive market research within the spa industry to uncover the motivations behind spa consumer behavior. This year, as spa owners and consumers proactively evolved to combat the prolonged recession, Coyle reengineered its research strategies to reach a broader range of respondents and include more objective, relevant questions: Why do people go to spas? What spa deals are capturing their attention? What is the impact of deal websites like Groupon? And, most importantly, how do spas retain clients and get them to inform their social networks? The result is the 2011 Global Spa Report—a compilation of spa trends and spa consumer priorities that industry professionals should know about as they enter the second half of the year.

Coyle uncovered some big changes between 2010 and 2011, the most alarming being the increased dependence of spa consumers on technology and the internet to source deals and information. A major example of this is seen in the explosion of social commerce through deal websites, such as Groupon and Living Social. Groupon enjoyed a tremendous increase as a site to seek spa information, jumping from 22% in 2010 to 52% this year. Living Social, a site that was not even included in 2010, is now the fourth most-popular website for seeking spa information, tied with Facebook and beating out sites like Yelp, Citysearch, and SpaWeek. When asked about website usage, we saw a 9% increase in the usage of websites primarily for deal-seeking, compared to only a 2% increase in the usage of websites primarily to learn about a spa altogether.

Clearly, these trends call for a risk-analysis on deal-offerings versus retention, and fast. Other interesting findings include:

• 47% of spa consumers listed “improving appearance” as one reason they visit a spa
• 69% of those surveyed visited a spa based on word-of-mouth
• 66% of respondents have utilized online-deal sites to book a service
• 86% of respondents would feel comfortable receiving a follow-up correspondence post-visit

To download and view the full report, please visit Coyle’s website at www.coylehospitality.com/2011-global-spa-report/.

To find out about how Coyle can assist you with mystery shopping services and improving the spa experience, please visit http://www.coylehospitality.com/mystery-shopping-services/spa-consulting/.

When we look at what prompts guests to recommend a restaurant, atmosphere is one of the top factors.  As the graph below shows, luxury and upscale diners are affected much more positively by atmosphere (38% and 28%, respectively) than in the casual dining environment (15%).  Atmosphere, indeed, shows greater differentiation across restaurant segments than other categories.

Conversely, cleanliness is mentioned more often in the upscale and casual segments than in the luxury segment, suggesting that cleanliness is a bigger part of the value proposition when check averages are lower.  Either way, diners expect cleanliness, therefore it’s not considered either a highlight or a positive dependent variable. Our mystery shopping services, which include facility evaluations, also point to this conclusion.  A clean facility is not enough to elevate the atmosphere, but lack of cleanliness is certainly a negative.

What drives negative comments, when it comes to atmosphere?  Cramped seating, poor table location and noise are the top three negative attributes that our survey respondents mention.  These problems could result in negative overall views of a restaurant and lose valuable word-of-mouth recommendations for the restaurant.  As the chart below shows, being crammed into seats, stuck next to waving kitchen doors or placed under harsh lights negatively impacts overall guest experience. 

Once the guest is seated in a bad location, or one they are dissatisfied with, the entire dining experience turns to recovering from that “bad” atmosphere.  When maximizing seating, restaurant operators should take note of these particular complaints and how they impact restaurant referrals. 

Diners across segments – from luxury to casual – make similar complaints regarding atmosphere.  The following comments come from all three restaurant categories:

“Tables are packed into every available place, giving you a feeling of claustrophobia” . . . “I heard nearby conversations easily” …“Our table was placed immediately next to another couple, despite the fact it was an 18:00 booking and the majority of the restaurant was empty.”

While cleanliness, or lack thereof, carries only a negative penalty for a restaurant, well-crafted interior design and comfortable spacing seem to be money well spent for a positive gain.

Previous posts on this research report:

Good or Bad: Attitude Matters to Diners

How’s The Food?

Are Your Guests Raving About Your Restaurant?

When we look at what prompts guests to recommend a restaurant, staff attitude is one of the top factors.  As the graph below shows, upscale and luxury diners are affected much more positively by staff attitude (32% and 36%, respectively) than in the casual dining environment (14%).  This means, the more positively they see the staff exhibit certain behaviors, the greater the chance they’ll recommend the restaurant.

How do our respondents describe positive staff behaviors?  “Friendly” is the clear winner.  Slightly more diners report happy and friendly staffers at their last casual restaurant (57%) than do diners at luxury restaurants (47%). Interestingly, staff product knowledge is given practically equal weight across all three restaurant segments, but “well trained in service” pops up as an attribute solely in the luxury segment. This indicates diners in luxury restaurants both notice and appreciate servers that are polished and care somewhat less about staffers being “happy.”

On the Down Side

When the staff is perceived as unprofessional, poorly trained, unhappy or unknowledgeable, on the other hand, scores and recommendations decline, but they don’t decline equally in all segments. Yes, we find “bad” service coming up as a complaint almost evenly across restaurant segments, but “bad” is described in different ways according to the level of restaurant (see chart).

Luxury diners do not mention unhappy, unfriendly or rude staff or not feeling appreciated, indicating that engagement is not the major issue for luxury diners.  They do notice deficiencies in training, attentiveness and knowledge.  With 25% of the mentions, lack of knowledge is the most mentioned deficiency.  Luxury diners pay for service that doesn’t need prompting. In this segment, training and delivery are key. Says one luxury restaurant respondent: “I had to tell the server that Champagne was often made from red grapes, just without the skin.  He laughed at me and continued mispronouncing the bottle I chose.”  And complaints about being ignored come up only in the luxury segment; luxury diners expect mastery of service recovery. When that’s not handled well, recommendations suffer.

In upscale restaurant comments, however, poor training is a more prominent complaint, with 28% mentioning it, compared to only 15% mentioning lack of knowledge.  Here, unfriendliness and lack of appreciation also become prominent.  Overall, it would seem that upscale diners expect high-quality service and knowledgeable, helpful servers.  Even though the price point varies from luxury, expectations appear to be equally high in terms of service quality. 

Next, we’ll explore the impact of atmosphere on diner recommendations.

 Food is the most powerful positive and negative dependent variable in the restaurant experience.  When food is superior, respondents rave about a restaurant, and when it’s not, their recommendations can turn negative. 

What constitutes “bad” food?  In the chart of the top food complaints across all markets (below), the number-one issue across all segments is that food is not served as ordered. In general, this complaint indicates dishes that are undercooked, overdone or arrive with items missing. But how does the importance of food quality vary according to segment?

Casual: Accurate Order, No Frills

In the casual market, we can deduce that accurate preparation and temperature are most important.  At this price range, the consumer knows what the quality of the food will be and simply wants it presented as expected, with no major frills.  This is reflected in one of the many respondent statements: “My wife ordered a fish entree that was served nearly cold and its sauce had separated.  My steak was overdone (ordered medium, received well).”

 In the casual market, guests are trading a meal cooked at home for a meal out.  While expectations are not high, they must be met consistently and with speed. Based on our results, casual restaurants need to focus on accurate food preparation.

Upscale: Taste Moves Into the Equation

While food preparation and temperature still come up most frequently among complaints in the upscale market, taste also moves into the equation. We can surmise that the upscale diner is seeking unique, high-quality food.  Upscale restaurants need to focus more closely on food, since the quality of the dish is measured more subjectively.  It becomes more a measure of taste and creativity than an objective measurement of proper preparation. 

 Luxury: Taste, Selections, Creativity

In the luxury segment, satisfaction with food is the number-one driver.  If the food is outstanding, every other aspect can be low and guests will still recommend the restaurant. 

Taste becomes a more prominent concern in this segment, and “limited selection” becomes a top complaint. The latter may be a reaction to the shift toward fewer options at restaurants that embrace regional, seasonal menus.  As restaurants shrink menus, however, they should note that for 23% of luxury restaurant diner respondents, limited menus equal limited satisfaction.  To accommodate the luxury diner’s need for variety and taste, menu flexibility and variation appear to be key. Says one luxury diner: “There were only a few choices on the menu, so we were pretty much forced to order from these options with very little alternative.”

 Since diners are often not very specific about what constitutes “great food”, it may be that it’s ultimately unquantifiable and truly in the taste of the beholder. Still, it makes perfect sense that every operator should be making specific and meaningful inquiries about food quality. 

 Tomorrow we’ll explore how staff attitude affects restaurant recommendations across segments.

What do they do?  Certainly, a key focus is on retaining a greater share of repeat customers.  But predicting loyalty is extremely difficult for restaurants.  For one thing, 35% of the money spent in full-service restaurants comes from travel and tourism; the guests that spend 35 cents of every dollar are probably not coming back soon, unless they are frequent travelers to the same locale.  So how can we gauge this loyalty?

One way to measure loyalty is to determine how likely consumers are to recommend your restaurant to others.  This is exactly what Coyle sought to discover in a recent survey.  We asked nearly 2,500 unique consumers on a scale of 1-10 how likely they were to recommend the last full-service restaurant at which they ate.  We’ll be sharing the results of these findings in a series of blog posts on our site this week.

What did these numbers tell us?  Comparing segments is tricky because the casual experience offers something different than the upscale one.  It is interesting, though, that true positive recommendations (a score of 9-10) are garnered less than half the time in all segments.  We suspect that restaurateurs in the luxury environment, where the intention is to “wow”, would feel that number is low (and therefore offers opportunity), while the casual operator might be quite happy with 40% of guests giving them a 9-10. (See chart below).

On the flip side of the coin, it is clear that casual and upscale restaurants draw a much larger percentage of negative overall scores, whereas only 10% of respondents say their luxury dining experience wwe poor. 

Somewhat troubling, however, is the large number of passive ratings; these are fairly even across all three segments (37%-43%), suggesting that a large percentage of diners are on the fence in their perception of the restaurant.  Again, an opportunity for many segments.

What are the attributes that turn a 7-8 (passive) into a 9-10 (positive)? We looked at the impact of  variables including food and beverage, timing, atmosphere, staff attitude, value, table service and hosting functions, and discovered where the opportunities may be for restaurateurs in casual, upscale and luxury segments.  As might have been predicted, food and staff attitude hold the most sway. 

We’ll explore these variables more specifically across segments in our blog posts this week. 

Methodology

Each open-ended survey response was read and catalogued into the following categories: People, Product, Post-Treatment, and Price.

People Power

62% of the respondents mentioned ‘People’ as a significant contributor to the bad experience. Let’s put it in context. Nearly two out of every three people that have a bad experience at a spa are talking about staff behavior. This is most interesting because most spa owners feel that the quality of their staff is their most significant competitive advantage.

The bad news is that changing behavior is harder than changing the music, which by the way was the number one thing guests complained about the ‘Product’. The table below shows the most often mentioned ‘People’ complaints.

Type and Ranking of ‘People’ Complaints

The good news is that changing behavior is not capital intensive, but it does require vigilance and commitment. How many of these things above would be correctible by simply making your staff more aware of it? Some training and role play about how much we speak (#2), what we say or fail to say (#3), how we say it (#6, #10, #20) and who we say it to (#11) would go miles in addressing almost half of the top ten things that drive guests away. Spa guests are vulnerable, so remind your staff of the saying “You cannot un-ring a bell,” or the one about “loose lips.”

It also appears that all the yield management training of recent years has created issues as well, with ‘rushed treatments’ and ‘pushy sales’ taking two of the top five spots.

Changing behavior is not solved by a memo or webinar. Staff development requires diligence and stamina, and it must be a daily thing that gets measured, so there is accountability, leading us to another saying: “You get what you inspect.”

Brace yourself: Some excerpts of why ‘People’ caused the worst spa experiences:

• “The male massage therapist quipped coyly that “I had issues with my tissues,” and other choice rhymed phrases. It lacked professionalism and made me uncomfortable.”
• “The massage therapist asked me if I had seen a doctor about my back acne. I was mortified.”
• A staff member blatantly ignored a guest who was talking on their cell phone in a ‘No Cell’ relaxation area.”
• “The massage therapist never asked if I had a massage before and a deep-tissue massage caused me a great deal of pain.”
• “The [staff member] had bad body odor and talked during the entire treatment.”
• “An esthetician continually pitched microdermabrasion services during the facial. When I declined the upsell, she sulked and made me feel as if I had done something wrong.”

Perhaps the biggest conundrum that faces spas is that a lot of guests would feel too embarrassed to even complain. The massage therapist who thinks he has coined an endearing term about muscle tissue could actually be making your female guests very uncomfortable. The well-meaning massage therapist who sincerely wants to help the guest solve a skin problem could actually have mortified a guest.

The ‘People’ category was also divided into ‘departments’ to identify what staff, in particular, was mentioned the most. The results are highlighted in the table below.



News Flash: Besides general complaints, Massages account for 300% more negative comments than any other modality!

Massage services are generally the most frequently scheduled, accounting partially for its bulge in the numbers, but despite that, it is clear that massage is the most volatile in terms of guest response.

It makes sense then that massage clients would be most carefully gauged before the treatment, thoroughly informed during the treatment, and most carefully followed-up with to ensure that the ‘word of mouth’ the treatments they provide result in is the kind you want. These meetings may be tough, but preventing another guest walking out with hurt feelings or with the thought that the therapist came on to them, will be worth the awkward sit-down.

Product

The good news about the ‘Product’ category is that while it encompasses 26% of the overall complaints, many complaints were not about the facility, almost certain to be an expensive fix. Most complaints in this category are correctible without calling a contractor (ugh) or ‘doing it yourself’ (Help!).

We divided comments into four subcategories and ranked them in the degree of difficulty for change:

A total of 294 complaints fell on the left half of the line graph above, meaning 84% of the ‘Product’ complaints are generally easy to fix. This is very good news for the cost-conscious operator; changing easy elements like cleanliness, noise, lighting, temperature, etc. would potentially eliminate over 20% (84% times the overall 26%) of the worst spa experiences.

Post-treatment

The post-spa results constituted 10% of the worst experiences overall, and the actual number of complaints can be seen below.



It makes sense that most guests that get a deep tissue massage should feel some soreness. Instead of the cursory medical history review or the blunted, “Do you have any medical problems?” which almost always begets a ‘no’, massage therapists would be wise to do a thorough review and check in regularly about pressure. This is also one of those cases where a guest really would appreciate a follow-up call the next day. A three-minute call or an even less intrusive email will show sincere concern, building trust. You also may just catch the guest while bad word of mouth is still just a muted thought.

All of the remaining issues seen above could be addressed on this follow-up call as well by putting some variation of the words ‘How’ or ‘What’ in front of the items above and creating a question that can not be answered with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Though we know sales are always at the forefront of everyone’s mind, “So, I am glad you did not feel too much soreness, how did you feel about the rest of the
experience?”sounds a lot better than “So I hear you have back acne. Can I schedule you for a back facial?”

Price

The small number of complaints attributed to price is probably one of the most telling and insightful findings from this study. Only a total of 35 out of 1,350 respondents spoke about value.

This shows that the price paid is not at the heart of the problem, which in turn suggests that discounting will not create demand or improve perception of value. It’s about how the guest felt, not what they spent.

Takeaway

We think the story for spas overall is very positive. The things that people complain about most are almost all entirely correctable, something a savvy spa owner can address. The one thing a spa owner can not do is vivdly measure the guest experience from the guest perspective. For that, you need a trusted friend or a professional mystery shopping service to anonymously test and measure these crucial moments of guest interaction. A shameless plug? Maybe, but spas are so unique in that the experience they provide happens behind closed doors, that things are said, implied, or left undone, rubbing guests the wrong way. Wouldn’t you like to know about them?

For more information, please contact:

Stephanie Perrone Goldstein
VP of Sales and Marketing
Coyle Hospitality Group
sperrone@coylehospitality.com

If you would like to receive notification when Coyle’s research reports are published, please sign up for sQoreboard, Coyle’s news & research mailing list at: Coyle sQoreboard

More guest experience research can be found at: www.coylehospitality.com/news/

About Coyle Hospitality Group

Coyle Hospitality Group, based in New York, N.Y., is a market research leader providing mystery shopping and brand quality measurement services exclusively to spas, hotels, resorts, restaurants, timeshares, and cruises worldwide. With over 50,000 evaluations successfully completed, Coyle is uniquely positioned to help any business that trust cares about the guest experience. www.coylehospitality.com

What makes guests rave about a hotel experience? In the current economy, with tight travel budgets, this question is becoming increasingly important to hoteliers and travelers alike. Coyle Hospitality Group undertook the gargantuan task of gathering word of mouth feedback from 5,000 unique travelers to gain a better understanding of what makes a great hotel stay.

Unlike the typical quantitative survey, with multiple choice questions that are unable to capture emotion and nuance, Coyle researchers simply asked two questions:

1. 1) What hotel provided you with the best experience in the last year?
2. 2) Why?

“We began this project recognizing that word of mouth referrals, are in themselves stories, complete with heroes, heroines, and a supporting cast,” said Jim Coyle, President and Founder of Coyle Hospitality Group. “The story is told in the first person and, in many cases, contains a defining moment that galvanizes the guest’s opinion, turning them from a customer into a promoter.” Surveyed guests stayed at properties ranging from Extended Stay and Economy to Luxury and Casinos, and everything in between. Coyle pored through the narratives and categorized the data into over 86 attributes that guests cited as important. Among the top four mentioned attributes across all brands were cleanliness, bed & bedding, staff friendliness, and staff helpfulness.

Some of the key takeaways were:

• The top attributes mentioned across all segments were ‘Guestroom cleanliness’ and ‘Staff is helpful, capable with tasks, and accommodating’. Guestroom Cleanliness, however, was mentioned in 42% of Economy best experiences and 39% of all best experiences. As expected, the attribute occurred less frequently for Upscale and Luxury best experiences, at 28% and 22% respectively.
• The attribute ‘Staff is helpful/capable with tasks/accommodating’ was mentioned in 38% of Economy best experiences, but only 22% of Luxury best experiences. This does not mean that these things were not important in Luxury and Upscale environments, but that they were not the key factors in differentiating a ‘best experience’ stay from any other at an upscale location.
• In the Bath attributes, towels were the top mentioned attribute in Economy best experiences. However, bath amenities were the key attributes mentioned in luxury and Lifestyle segments.
• Not surprisingly, the guestroom decor and layout was the second most frequently mentioned attribute in the Lifestyle segment, after the property design attribute, which was first. The guestroom decor and layout attribute was in the top ten attributes for the Casino and Upscale segments as well, but was interestingly not in the top ten for the Luxury segment.
• Staff attentiveness and availability was mentioned in 19% of Luxury best experiences, but it was much lower at 11% or lower for other segments. Clearly, travelers at luxury hotels rely on the staff more to ‘make the experience’.
• Price was the sixth most frequently mentioned attribute in Economy best experiences and the 14th most frequently mentioned item in Midscale best experiences.
• Guestroom View was one of the Top Mentioned Attributes for all best experiences, and was in the top 20 mentioned attributes for Upscale, Luxury, and Lifestyle best experiences.

More to come…

The information above is the tip of the iceberg. Coyle researchers have cross-indexed the data revealing numerous trends as they relate to segmentation. Several reports will be published in the upcoming weeks. Topics will include:

• Why the Rave Reviews? What guests mentioned most about their best stays and why
• Beds and Bathrooms – How function forms the guest experience
• Service vs. Engagement – Is it what they do or how they do it?
• Guestroom – The main drivers of satisfaction
• Price – What attributes really make guests feel value
• Food & Beverage – Bars & Breakfasts

In addition we reveal the common and differentiating attributes of the following commonly categorized hotel segments:

• Economy
• Extended Stay
• Midscale
• Upscale & Lifestyle
• Luxury
• Casinos

If you are interested in receiving them, please email research@coylehospitality.com

About Coyle Hospitality Group

Coyle Hospitality Group is a market leader providing mystery shopping and brand quality assurance services exclusively to hotels, restaurants and spas worldwide. Since 1996, Coyle has completed over 30,000 quality evaluations exclusively for hospitality clients. For more information please visit www.coylehospitality.com or call (212) 629-2083.

The bed and bathroom have been made the primary focus of the guestroom in the industry. Hospitality companies have spent significant sums of human and monetary capital on the bed and bathroom to gain competitive advantage. But was this money spent in vain? Do guests talk about the bed and bathroom when describing their best experiences? When guests do talk about the bed and bathrooms, what do they talk about?

By looking at about 5,000 guest experiences, CHG hoped to find out how important the bed and bath were in the best hotel experiences.

Bed & Bedding

When respondents talked about their best experiences, 18% of the time bed & bedding was mentioned. In fact, bed & bedding was the fourth most frequently mentioned attribute overall. The attribute was mentioned in 20% of the Upscale best experiences and was one of the segment’s top five mentioned attributes. Bed & bedding was a key attribute for just about all segments.

Bath

While bed & bedding was mentioned in 18% of best experiences, only 10% of best experiences mentioned bath attributes (towels, amenities, water pressure). Except for the Economy and Luxury segments, most segments showed that bath attributes were mentioned in fewer best experiences than the bed & bedding attributes.

However, when we separated the Lifestyle and Casino best experiences from the segments, we found that the bath category was mentioned more often than usual. In fact, bath attributes were one of the top attributes for Casino best experiences.

Looking at the specific bath attributes, Lifestyle best experiences often mentioned the bath amenities attribute, and respondents would often describe the brands of bath amenities provided. Interestingly, for Casino best experiences, respondents often mentioned attributes that described the physical facilities, such as the water pressure and the shower, but the attribute was not frequently mentioned in most of the best experiences.

Bath Attributes	% of All Best Experiences	% of Lifestyle	% of Casino
Bath	10%	18%	22%
Towels	3%	0%	4%
Bath Amenities (shampoo/conditioner)	4%	12%	6%
Water Pressure/Shower	2%	4%	9

For Economy and Luxury best experiences, bath attributes were mentioned in 13% of the time, which is similar to the percentage mentioned for bed & bedding. However, Economy best experiences often mentioned towels, while respondents at Luxury best experiences often talked about bath amenities, such as shampoo and conditioner. Of particular note, W Hotels were often given positive remarks for their Bliss product line.

In conclusion, the bed & bedding is definitely a key aspect of a hotel best experience. The bathroom, however, differs depending on the segment or whether the hotel has a Lifestyle concept or is part of a Casino experience. The bathroom was frequently mentioned in Casino best experiences, particularly due to descriptions about the shower and water pressure. Lifestyle best experiences had an unusually high number of mentions for bath amenities at 12% of Lifestyle best experiences. Bath amenities were also a key attribute for Luxury best experiences.

Economy best experiences also mentioned bath attributes more frequently than other segments, primarily due to the descriptions about towels. This suggests that the budget-conscious traveler cares more about the quality of the towel than the brand of shampoo that is provided.

Our conclusion is that the Luxury and Lifestyle consumer cares more about the bath amenities the hotel supplies, and this impression is probably taken home with them, literally.
Hotels or hotel companies wishing to learn more about how their particular brand or segment fared should contact Katie Ho at research@coylehospitality.com.

Upcoming studies are:

• Differentiating attributes of commonly categorized hotel segments
• Service vs. Engagement – Is it what they do or how they do it?
• Guestroom – The main drivers of satisfaction
• Food & Beverage – Bars & Breakfasts

If you would like to receive any of these reports when they are published, please sign up for sQoreboard, Coyle’s news & research mailing list at: www.coylehospitality.com/sQoreboard

More data from the survey can be found at Coyle’s website at: www.coylehospitality.com/research

About Coyle Hospitality Group

Coyle Hospitality Group is a market leader providing mystery shopping and brand quality assurance services exclusively to hotels, restaurants and spas worldwide. Since 1996, Coyle has completed over 30,000 quality evaluations exclusively for hospitality clients. For more information please visit www.coylehospitality.com or call (212) 629-2083.

Once again, let’s revisit why we did this study and what it means. We wanted to know specifically what caused rave reviews that ultimately lead to word of mouth marketing and repeat business. It is important to keep in mind that the data does not reveal what makes a hotel good or bad. Rather, the study looks at what made a stay particularly memorable, giving hoteliers an edge in securing a favorable place in their guests’ social networking. We asked:

1) What hotel provided you with the best experience in the last year?
2) Why?

The findings are promising. Although the economy and cutbacks were primary themes in 2010, price alone was not cited frequently as a key attribute contributing to great hotel experiences. While price was, and still is, most likely a key factor in securing the budget conscious traveler’s business, once on property it was rarely the reason why guests’ experiences were so positive. What we did find, however, was that adding value to a guest’s stay did, in fact, influence their experience more frequently.

As expected, and demonstrated in the chart above, the mention of price was varied amongst the segments. While in Luxury and Upscale hotels, price was only mentioned 1% and 4% of the time respectively, while in the Economy segment it was mentioned 17% of the time. Price was also in the top ten list of attributes for the Economy segment, though in all other segments, it was not.

This indicates that value for Economy properties truly is found in the price, which can significantly drive a positive guest experience in that segment. However, in the other segments, the actual price alone will probably not make a guest experience positive enough to rave about it and, thus, other measures will need to be in place.

Along those lines, Coyle tracked the mentioning of ‘added value’ items and their contribution to positive guest experiences. Based on the survey responses, they were categorized into Welcome Amenity, Complimentary Breakfast, Upgrade, and Other complimentary items. These value added items came up 14% of the time overall.