Hotels in a customer-centred business model: empirical findings from Val Gardena

The gradual shifting of the hospitality industry from product to service is due to the orientation of business models towards the customers – i.e. how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value. Guests evaluate such attitude in several and influential review websites. We investigate about the effectiveness of such models on quality perception by studying the determinants of facilities' online ratings. In particular we focus on two critical aspects for customer-oriented business, as price and proximity effect to competitors located near renowned tourist areas. The latter may stimulate quality improvement on hotels placed in peripheral locations. This study considers the accommodation facilities located near Val Gardena, one of the most famous Italian mountain destinations. As done by previous contributors we present separate estimates for sales and advice websites. We find that price is not necessarily a significant indicator for hotel quality and the related business model. In addition, there seem not to be necessarily significant differences in quality perception between hotels located in strictly neighbour destinations and those in peripheral areas. If on one side proximity to a renowned area can be a rewarding factor for quality assessment, on the other side it appears not necessarily to be a critical one.