TY  - CONF
ID  - HEVS295
T1  - eService by Swiss and Austrian Hotels: Does Language Matter?
A1  - Schegg, Roland
A1  - Liebrich, Andreas
A1  - Liu, Fang
A1  - Murphy, Jamie
ED  - Hitz, Martin
ED  - Murphy, Jamie
ED  - Sigala, Marianna
TI  - Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2006, Proceedings of the ENTER Conference 2006, Lausanne, Switzerland
Y1  - 2006
SP  - 357
EP  - 368
PB  - Springer-Verlag
SN  - 978-3-211-30987-2 (Print) 978-3-
UR  - http://www.springerlink.com/content/t4k2p7748j640857/
M2  - doi: 10.1007/3-211-32710-X_48
KW  - e-mail
KW  - hotel
KW  - mystery guest survey
N2  - This paper examines e-mail responses, from 195 three- and four-star hotels in four Swiss and Austrian regions, to room queries from a potential guest. Whereas the response rates in this research resembled earlier studies, replies arrived faster; the average response time was under 10h compared to over 20h in previous studies. Similar to earlier research, organisational characteristics — hotel size and hotel category — showed few significant relationships to responsiveness but did relate to response quality. The results also show significant differences in quality aspects between the replies to emails sent in two languages: German e-mails were answered with a higher quality and with a higher probability, but in about the same time as English e-mails. To some extent, language related to the hotels’ email responses.
ER  -