UNIT 3 Service Environment in Tourism and Hospitality Industry PDF

UNIT 3 Service Environment in Tourism and Hospitality Industry Prof. Danceldale Calago  INTRODUCTION Because services are intangible and assessment of them is dif fic ult, customers depend on various indices available in the service environment to...

UNIT 3 Service Environment in Tourism and Hospitality Industry Prof. Danceldale Calago  INTRODUCTION Because services are intangible and assessment of them is dif fic ult, customers depend on various indices available in the service environment to evaluate performance before, during, and after consumption. As a result of exposure to environmental stimuli, customers' perceptions of service quality, which ref lects a global judgment based on characteristics quality, may be regarded as a consequence of this exposure. The service environment includes both physical components (such as ambient factors, interior and exterior design, and so on) and human components, which may consist of static elements such as the number, appearance, and behaviors of customers and employees, as well as dynamic elements such as customer and employee behaviors. SERVICE ENVIRONMENT TOWARDS CUSTOMER SATISFACTION Many factors necessitate that hotel management pays close attention to the environment. You impact customer expectations; establish and maintain a good atmosphere; and inf lu ence attention and morale. Finally, the environment performs valuable functions as part of the service. Even though all hospitality businesses have a service environment in place, only the greatest ones, such as those found in theme restaurants, hotels, cruise ships, and theme parks, understand how crucial it is to add value and quality to their customers' experiences. They understand that their settings are critical components of the service product. Therefore, they take the time to properly design their service settings so that each one contributes to the overall theme. It is now more essential than ever before for a contemporary hospitality company to consider safety and security issues. Customers are becoming more concerned about whether they will be protected from damage or injury when they visit a restaurant, hotel, conference, or while traveling. Guest conf id ence in service environments must be strong, and hospitality companies must develop methods to convey that they are secure places to maintain this confidence in their services. It combines natural light, open space, cheerful staff that makes direct eye contact with customers, and cleanliness that makes customers feel safe. In almost every service scenario, comforting environmental features such as well-lit parking lots and walkways, low-cut hedges that make it impossible to hide behind, and the presence of uniformed employees are suitable and helpful. Many hotels station security guards at the entry point to provide their customers with a sense of security as they enter and exit the premises. Hotels also train their employees to emphasize their presence by looking at guests, making eye contact, and speaking to them. Theme parks have vehicles cruising the well-lit parking lots to reassure guests that they are about to enter a crime-free world.  1. Customer Expectation Customer expectations are shaped by their surroundings even before the service is rendered. If the restaurant's outside is f ilthy, customers will arrive with low expectations and leave dissatisfied. A restaurant's ability to prepare and serve a great meal has little to do with how many cigarettes are left on the ground in front of the restaurant's front entrance. Still, customers do not see the surroundings objectively. Customers may conclude that if the restaurant does not care enough to clean up outside its premises, it does not care about how it prepares the food in the kitchen, either. The restroom test is a popular way for customers to gauge how serious a restaurant is about cleanliness before making a reservation. Clean restrooms are an essential part of a restaurant's reputation.  2. Customer Mood After the customer starts the customer experience, the environment is responsible for setting and maintaining the atmosphere. One method of doing this is to maintain consistency between what the visitor expects and what the customer sees throughout their visit. It is preferable to surprise customers than disappoint them. At this point, the customer sets their mood on how the service environment looks like.  3. Employee Satisfaction In addition to its impact on customers, the service environment also affects employees who do not directly interact with the service, but who collaborate in its creation. However, even while the environment is intended to improve the customer experience, it should, to the greatest extent feasible, be supportive of and compatible with the staff experience. Everyone despises the idea of working in a hazardous or f il thy workplace. Considering that employees spend much more time in the service setting than customers do, a well-designed workplace may help to increase employee happiness, which some believe is strongly linked with customer satisfaction..  4. Customer Buying Behavior Service environment (servicescape) affects buyer behavior in three ways: 1. Message-Creating Medium: Symbolic cues to the distinctive nature and quality of the service experience communicate the. 2. Attention-Creating Medium: Make servicescape stand out from competition and attract customers from target segments. 3. Effect-Creating Medium: Uses colours, textures, sounds, scents, and spatial design to enhance the desired service experience.  SERVICESCAPE Customer impressions of service are inf luenced by various factors which are collectively referred to as the "servicescape." Although the word "servicescape" is the most often used to describe the effect of abstract and tangible aspects on customers, various names have been used to express the same idea in different contexts. In addition to the atmospheric and physical environment, other words used to describe the servicescape include a shop, physiological, and service environments (to name a few). Any hospitality and tourism business where service is provided has a servicescape, which is the physical environment of the surroundings of an area. Instead of being a single component, servicescape is the overall or holistic structure of the environmental dimension. Customers' emotional reactions to services are elicited by servicescape, which also assists them in categorizing the services. Aside from that, servicescape impacts how consumers perceive a location, other people, and/or goods. Customers' f iv e senses are affected by the servicescape since it contains physical dimensions that inf lu ence them. The context of planning and developing servicescape may be benef icial. In the context of the services, the dimensions of the servicescape are:  Dimensions of Servicescape 1. Ambient Conditions Temperature, illumination, noise, music, and smells are examples of ambient conditions in any hospitality and tourism business. Environmental circumstances inf lu ence the mood of the customer experience. Visiting a dark, damp, silent tunnel with occasional sounds and cold air f lowing has a distinct impact on a visitor compared to visiting a bright, airy, music-f illed environment. 2. Spatial Layout Service delivery locations are referred to as spatial layout, and it describes the arrangement of furniture and equipment inside such areas. The use of space has a bearing on how customers see a business. Waiting areas may seem open and welcoming or make a customer feel isolated and alone, depending on how the waiting area is structured. As with any park, the layout of pathways that allow customers to go from one section of the park to another impacts the customer's perception of openness and closedness. With more open space and greenery, closed environments elicit distinct emotions than open ones. The important choice to be made when it comes to space is how to best plan out the service area to serve the customers' needs best. 3. Signs, Symbols, and Artifacts Signs, symbols, and artifacts represent an environment's open or closed components. A sign is a way to communicate with others by using symbols to convey information. Symbols such as representational icons may substitute any language instead of words on specif ic signs. In travel and tourist situations, where signs, symbols, and artifacts abound at themed restaurants, they are used to signif ic ant effect. Visitors come from all over the world and speak many different languages; hence, these indicators need to be particularly effective. When a consumer has to recall information from a sign, a symbol, or an artifact, it is considered a particularly effective option. 4. Functional Congruence The degree to which something has a functional purpose within the context in which it performs is referred to as functional congruence. The operation of the physical landscape of the equipment, the arrangement of the architecture of the structure, and the design of the service environment should be consistent with the expectations of the guests who will be visiting. Visitors should easily f ind their way into the building, and meeting rooms should be big enough to handle the anticipated number of attendees. Restrooms should be spacious enough to satisfy expected demand during a convention break. In a well-designed service environment, the functional congruence of environmental components is given careful attention so that whatever physical or environmental factor the visitor needs for optimum pleasure of the experience is supplied when required.  EXPERIENSCAPE An experienscape is a product or service environment's sensory, functional, social, natural, and cultural stimuli, all of which contribute to an experience for customers, employees, and other stakeholders and lead to either positive or negative cognitive, affective, and behavioral reactions toward the p ro d uc t o r se rv i c e. T he se nso ry component of the experiential framework utilizes colors, sounds, scents, forms, f ig ures, textures, and tastes to evoke sensory responses in the perceivers’ id. These are aspects of initial impressions that help build a service product's brand image. The functional component, the amenities, the signage, and the furnishings created with the harmonious use of sensory components offer advantages for customers, workers, and other stakeholders to function, rest, refresh, socialize, learn, relate, think, and self-actualize. When it comes to achieving these objectives, customers, workers, and other parties are all interconnected. Customers, employees, and other stakeholders' perceptions based on their soc ial stand ard s, norms, trad itions, and expectations for conduct affect how the sensory and functional components are perceived, and vice versa. As a result of cultural factors such as values, conventions, and regulations derived from various social groups, countries, and subgroups, customers' perceptions of sensory information influence their functional and social perceptions and vice versa. So, there are no unidirectional linkages between the various parts. The impression of social, cultural, and even natural aspects may be inf luenced by sensory inputs such as lighting, and vice versa. All other elements are mirrored in the natural one. Customers will be able to taste fruits grown in the service product landscape via the sensory component's use of colors, scents, textures, forms, and other visual cues. The usefulness of a place is def ined by the utilization of natural elements, such as plants and animals, in both the outside and interior design. There is also a cultural component since it enables people to connect with one another and the environment. Even though the resort is located in a different culture, a nature lover visiting a resort full of plants and animals will feel more culturally similar than different. Nature may be the def in ing element of culture, even if the connection between cultural and natural components is dif ficult to discern. The prevailing social climate affects customers' views and responses to the natural world As a result, the natural component is reliant on the local natural environment. In contrast to a resort located in the midst of a lush green forest, a hotel in the middle of the desert will be designed to mirror its natural environment. The natural component plays an increasingly important function as a service offering gets more conglomerate. Despite the fact that all service goods are composites of physical and intangible elements, tourist destinations tend to emphasize the importance of the natural environment when it comes to inf lu encing customer's cognition, emotion, and behavior. Customers, employees and other stakeholders have d ifferent cognitive, emotional, and conative responses depending on how these components are configured. THANK YOU!