Aryanto, R. (1999). Rating to Hotel Information Sources Analysis. Journal Management Expose. Vol. 1, No. 2, p. 18 - 28

Journal Management Expose

Vol. 1, No. 2, p. 18 – 28, Mei 1999

Rating to Hotel Information Sources Analysis

(Domestic Guests on Ratings Jakarta Star Hotels Information Sources)

Rudy Aryanto

Bina Nusantara University

Abstract

Information sources a product or service will potentially affect a domestic guest’s purchase decision.  The characteristics of guest’s influence the manner in which they search for, rate, and use information about tourism related product or services.  The purpose of this research is to determine the influence of domestic guests’ characteristic to Jakarta Star Hotels and information source importance ratings.  It concludes that word-of-mouth information is rated most important on image analysis, followed by past experience and other media sources.  Additionally, several relevant demographic and social psychological characteristic are related to rating of hotel information sources.

Introduction

Understanding domestic guest’s decision to purchase specific products or services is becoming increasingly important to hotel marketing manager.  The consumer behavior encompasses four domains: the psychological core, the process of making decisions, the consumer’s culture, and consumer behavior outcomes (Hoyer & McInnis, 1997).  And consumer decision making has the following stages: need recognition, search for information, pre purchase alternative evaluation, purchase, consumption, post purchase alternative evaluation, and divestment (Engle, Blackwell, Miniard. 1995).  Research in tourism consumer behavior must continue to try to understand the factors related to purchase decisions (Andereck & Caldwell, 1993)

One of major factors influencing consumer decisions to purchase a product of service information sources about the product or service.  Information search or information seeking is the process of consulting various sources before making a purchasing decision, consumer recognize the need for more knowledge, which activates the decision to search for information about alternatives (Moutinho 1987).  Awareness of a particular product or service and resulting purchase decisions largely depend on the information consumer are able to gather and the credibility of such information (Raitz & Dakhil., 1989).  The search process may be spontaneous and lived of occur over a longer period of time and involve intense exploration of the product or service.  Information may be sought internally from an individual’s memory (Wicks & Schuett, 1991).  Searches may also be conducted externally, which involves an active process in that information must be sought out.  Additionally several information sources may be used (Moutinho, 1987, Runyon & Stewart, 1987).

Generally the promotion of Indonesian tourism industry depend on inbound and outbound.  The actual fact that inbound and domestic tourist sector high potential than outbound.  According to the future tight competition, domestic market segment though our attention necessary (Marzuki U &Ardika IG, 1998).

Jakarta as the Indonesia capital is a metropolitan and in the 470^th years old has been the gate of Indonesia and the centre of distribution to other tourist destination.  The Jakarta hotels develop according to the increase of tourism activity.  The star hotels in this city have dominated to provide rooms, facilities, and get large guests than the other accommodations.

Related Studies & Theories

Past studies have found that consumers differ in their likehood to seek out product knowledge (Mountinho, 1987), ranging from intensive seekers to those that engage in very limited searches.  Consumers also differ in the number of sourches consulted for product or service information and the importance placed on the sources; frequently consumers seek information from several sources prior to making a purchase decision.  Numerous factors may influence a consumer’s information seeking behavior.  Past information seeking research based on information search theory has found several general relationships between consumer characteristics and search behavior (Snepeger, Mcged, Snelling & Worral.1990. Raitz & Dakhil, 1989:Capella & Greco.1987.Runyon & Stewart, 1987, Newman, 1977; Andereck Caldwell, 1993).

Demographic Characteristic

Individual demographic characteristics may influence information seeking behavior (Mountinho, 1987-,Thorelli&Becker, 1981). Research in consumer behavior has generally found that people of higher income and education search more for product/service information (Runyon & Stewart, 1987; Robertson, Zielinsld&Ward, 1984.-Newman, 1977).  Age tends io be inversely related to amount of search, while the relationship between search behavior and other demographic characteristics, such as social class and occupation, tends to depend on the product/service being investigated (Newman, 1977).  Certain demographic characteristics  of travelers have been linked to information search behavior.  Studies have found that college educated individuals were more likely to use destination specific literature (Gitelson&Crompton, 1983), and people of higher socio-economic class frequarithy used travel agents as information sources (Woodside & Ronkinc, 1980).  Gitclson and Crompton (1983) found that older people were more likely to use a travel agent than younger people.  Older people have also been reported to heavily rely on information from friends and family (Capella & Greco, 1987).

Social Psychological Factors

Perceived benefits of information search will influence search behavior.  Consumer that already have knowledge of the product will usually engage in limited search activity perceiving that the benefits of additional information search are minimal (Robertson et al., 1984).  Studies of the relationship between experience and information search have had mixed results, however.  Likely the relationship is mitigated by man), factors, such as product/service satisfaction (Runyon & Stewart, 1987).  Generally, however, it seems that consumers with more knowledge of a product or service engage in different types of information search than those with limited knowledge, and frequently less information seeking behavior will occur (Anderson, Engledow&B&ker, 1979).  Such individuals will rely more hevily on internal information search.  Two tourism studies related to this idea found that:(1) information seeking for visit to a hotel was related to previous visitation, with professional sources used more by first-time visitors (Woodside, 1980);and (2) information seeking was greater with unknown destination (Van Raaij, 1986).  Finally, motives for visitation can influence information seeking, Motivation is a state of need that “pushes” a person toward actions that may bring to the need for optimal arousal and I largely effected by social factors (Moutinho, 1987).

Internal Search

Searching for information from memory.  Internal search is a critical aspect of the judgment and decision making process, almost all decision making involves some from of memory processing.  Each consumer has stored in memory a variety of information, feelings, and past experiences that can be recalled in making a decision.  Consumer researchers have been very  interested in determining (1) the extent of the search, (2) the nature of the search, and (3) the process by which information, feelings, and experiences arc recalled to enter into the choice process (Hoyer & Maclruiis, 1997).  Internal search is knowledge stored in long term memory.  Whether consumers rely solely on internal search will heavily  depend on the adequacy or quality of their existing knowledge.  First time buyers may need to undertake external search.  Experienced buyers may find their knowledge to be inadequate for product categories characterized by large inter purchase times (the amount of time between purchase occasions) during which there are significant product changes in term of prices, features, and new brands and stores.  Even if product changes have been minimal, internal search is hindered by large inter purchase times due to problems of forgetting. Nor may existing knowledge be sufficient when the present. Consumption problem is perceived to be different from  those in the past (Engel, Balckwell, Miniard, 1995).

Experiences & Familiarity

One important aspect of internal search that greatly affects decision making is the set of brands.  The consider action self.  Usually consists of those brands that are “top of mind” or easy to remember when making decision (Hoyer & Mac Innis, 1997).  There are four main sources of information stored in memory; prior purchase experiences, previous low involvement learning, previous learning about the environment (latent learning) and the degree to which one uses internal (one’s own memory) as opposed to external (packages or lists) memory, all of this stored information can of course be used by consumers to generate new information by deduction or inference (Bettman, 1979).

Image Analysis

Each brand within the awareness set is Rely to have a set of associations between itself and other bits and pieces of information that are stored in memory.  The first step, on an image analysis is to identify the particular associations that define a brand’s image, the second step is to assess the strength of a brands associations, Companies may find it useful to probe for a deeper understanding of what a brands associations represent in the consumer’s psyche as part of an image analysis. (Engel, Blackwell, Miniard, 1995).  Stephen Rushmore (1992) defined that gendrally guests choose a hotel considerate on four basics criteria: (1) facilities offered, (2) convenience of location, (3) price, (4) quality of amenities.

Product and Location: Engel: Blackweel, Miniard (1995) gift an example of how information about the strength of association between a brand and specific attributes could be collected and used for simplicity, our example will focus on four specific attributes, they are: product/service, location, price and friendship of personnel.

Price knowledge: Aspect of product knowledge that deserves to be singled out is that involving product prices.  An examination of what consumers know about an absolute price (for example, the price of a 1-1b can of Maxwell house coffee), and a relative price (for example, whether one store charges more than another for the same item) can provide important information for guiding marketing actions.  Marketing executives’pricing decisions may depend on their perceptions of how well informed consumers are about prices (Urbany, Dickson, 1988).

Consumer satisfaction: The degree of satisfaction with prior purchase “I also determine the consumer’s reliance on internal search. If the consumers has been satisfied with the result of previous buying action, internal search may suffice (Kiel, Layton, 1981).  In assessing the key dimensions of quality for a hotel, the servqual determinants are a useful starting point: reliability, respormv veness, communication, credibility, security, competence, courtesy, understanding, access (Lewis, 1995).

External search

Searching for information from the environment.  Sometimes a consumer’s decision can be based entirely on information recalled from memory.  Other times, information is missing or there is uncertainty surrounding the recalled information when this occurs, consumers can acquire additional information from outside sources through an external search.  Outside sources include dealers, trusted friends or relatives, published sources (magazines, pamphlets, or books), davertisements, or package itself.  Consumers can collect information on what brands are available as well as information on the attributes and benefits associated with those that are in the consideration set (Boyer&Malcnnis, 1997).

Word-of-Mouth

Marketers are especially interested in a form of influence called word-of-mouth (WOM). WOM refers to information about products or services communicated verbally. Consider the number of consumer behavior that are likely to be affected by WOM. WOM pervasive with another person; it is also more pervasive than written information (Boyer & Maclnnis, 1997).

Advertising and Media

We define advertising as any paid from of non personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services by an identified sponsor. (Kotler, bowcn, Makens, 1997).  Advertising is mass, paid communication which is used to used transmit information, develop attitudes and induce some from of response by providing information to potential customers, by trying to modify their desires and supplying reasons why they should pref6r that particular company’s services (Palmer, 1994).

Billboard/Highway sign: This is useful for reminder copy and can support other media activities the effect of an advertisement on television can be prolonged if recipients are exposed to a reminder poster on their way to  work the following day, if strategically placed, the posters can appeal to segmented audiences.

Radio: radio advertising has often been seen as the poor relation of television advertising, appealing only to the sense of sound. The threshold cost of advertising is much lower than for television, reflecting much more local segmentation of radio audiences and the lower production costs of radio adverts.

Television: This is an expensive but very powerful medium. Although it tends to be used mainly for the long term task of creating brand awareness, it can also create a rapid sales response the very fact that a message has been seen on television can give credibility to the message source, and many smaller service companies add the phrase’as seen on TV to give additional credibility to their other media communications.  The power of the television medium is enhanced by its ability to appeal to both the senses of sight and sound and to use movement and colour to develop a sales message.

Newspapers: Daily newspapers tend to have a high degree of reader loyalty reflecting the fact that each national title is targeted to specific segments of the population.  This loyalty can lead to the printed message being perceived as having a high level of credibility on the part of the reader.  Therefore, daily papers may be useftil  for prestige and reminder advertising. They can be used for creating general awareness of a product of a brand as well as providing detailed product information.

Magazines: Advertising in magazines may at first seem relatively expensive compared to newspapers, they represent good value to advertisers in terms of the large number of readers per copy and highly segmented nature of their audience (Palmer, 1984).

Brochure/Folders and Guidebooks/Catalogues: Direct marketing normally involves direct response to media such as advertisements, catalogues, and direct mail (brochures). Direct marketing offers the possibility of selecting specific target markets through the use of specialized mailing lists, data bases, or media.  This permits customized appeals and creative strategy based on the lifestyles and needs of the target market segments.  Direct marketers are also heavy users of predictive modeling, mailing list enhancement, life time value analysis, and advanced forms of cross-selling or up selling. They arc heavy users of controlled testing and experimentation (Engel, Balckwell, Miniard, 1995). Various product rating agencies have risen to the forefront in recent vears.  The most widely known being consumers’ union, which publishes consumer report.  Several manufactures have found, frequently to their dismay, that rating by such agencies have a potent effect, especially the if rating are negative (Weinberger & Dillon, 1980).

Study Purpose And Hypotheses

Marketing managers of hotels must have knowledge of the importance guests place on various information sources because of its influence on purchase on purchase decisions.

The effectiveness of information varies with the nature of the product/service and the characteristics of the people interested in consurning the product/service. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relative importance guests to star hotels placed on various information sources.  Additionally, this study will determine the relation sources.  Additionally, this study will determine the relationship between guest characteristic and information source importance ratings. It is hypothesized that:

1.      Word-of-mouth will be rated as the most important external information source influencing guests’ decision to visit an hotel.

2.      Courtesy will be rated as the most important internal information source influencing guests’ decision to visit an hotel.

3.      Differences in importance ratings of information sources “ill be related to guest demographic and guest motives to visitation

4.      If memory scan reveals sufficient information to provide. A satisfactory course of action, external search is unnecessary. When internal search proves inadequate, the consumer may decide to collect additional information from environment (Engel, Blackwell, Mianiard, 1995).

Methods

Procedures and Sample

Data were collected from guest to Jakarta star hotel who overnight to that hotel more than one time.  From October 12 through October 31, 1998.  On the days of data collection, research assistants approach every domestic guest and asked his or her cooperation in the study. The sampling interval was pre-determined based on a three years history of overnight rates. If the guest agreed to participate in the study, the research assistant asked a set of questions, The guest then completed a set of self administered questions.  The “interview” technique was utilized to establish rapport and therefore increase response rate for the entire study, 200 people agreed to participate.  Of those 200 people, 150 response are valid and become study data.

Variables

To determine the importance of various information sources. Respondents were asked to respond to the query “how important were the following sources of information influence you to overnight the Jakarta star hotels?” using a five point scale, where I=not important/influence and 5 = extremely important/influence.  Thirteen sources of internal information were listed: past experience/familiarity, facilities offered: price, convenience of location, reliability, responsive ness, communication, credibility, security, competence, courtesy, understanding, and acces.  And eight sources of external information were listed: word-of-mouth, billboard or highway sign, radio or program, TV commercial or appearance, newspaper ad or article, magazine ad or story, brochure or folder, guidebook or catalogue. These twenty one source of information were used as dependent variables in later analyses.  The process by which these variables were collapsed is described in the results section.  Measurement of the independent variables is described bellow:

§    Age was categorized in fours from less than 30 to over 50.

§    Guests respondent to gender and married or not married.

§    Education categories of: less than and SMA graduate.

§    Respondent to occupation categories of: employee, supervisor, manager, director, owner and other kind of occupation.

§    Income was measured in incremental Rp. 1000.000 categories up to over Rp. 6000.000. This were collapsed into categories of  Rp. 3000.000.

§    The final independent variables of motives were categories of Business and leasure overnight motive.

Data Analysis

The major type of data analysis employee was multivariate analysis of variance (One Way ANOVA) and factor Analysis.  MANOVA is used when there are multiple dependent variables that are interval or ratio-scaled variables.  There may be one or more nominally scaled independent variables (Zikmund, 1997).  The MANOVA technique was originally developed to analyze the effects of experimental treatments on a set of two or more dependent variables, but can also be used in non experimental studies which employ random selection.  MANOVA is analogous to the more commonly  used ANOVA in univariate analysis.  However, in situations when more than one dependent variables is being investigated, and the dependent variables are conceptualized as measuring aspects of a single underlying variable, the multivariate test is more appropriate.  Using univariate statistics to measure multivariate data increases the chance of finding significant results where none exit (type 1 error).  Additionally, the likehood of making  a type 1 error increase as the number of dependent variables increases (Biskin, 1983).   

The one way analysis of variance (One-Way ANOVA) is the appropriate statistical tool.  This bivariate statistical technique is referred to as “one-way” because there is only one independent variable (even though there may be several levels of that variable).  The F-test is procedure for comparing one sample variance to another sample variance.  In the analysis of variance situation, the basic consideration for the F test is to identify the total variance.  There will be two forms of variation: (1) variation of scores due to random error or within group variation due to individual differences, and (2) systematic variation of scores between the groups due to the manipulation of an independent variable.  Thus we can partition total variance into within group variance and between group variance.  The larger the ration of variance between groups to variance within group, the greater the value of F. If the F value is large, it is likely that the results are statistically significant (Zikmund, 1997)

The Factor Analysis is procedure that takes a large number of variables or objects and searches to see whether they have a small number of factors in common which account for their inter correlation. The factor Analysis has a number of possible applications in marketing research.  These include data reduction, structure identification, scaling and data transformation.  There are essensial three steps in a factor Analysis solution.  The first is to develop a set of correlations between all combinations of the variables of interest.  Since we are using correlations, we must then be second step is to extract a set of initial factors from the correlation matrix developed in the first step.  The third step is to “rotate” the initial factors to find a final solution (Kinnear & Taylor, 1990).    

Table 1. Factor Analysis of Internal Information Sources

Factor intrl. inf.sourc	Factor loading
	1	2	3	4	5
Experience/familiarity	0.170	0.049	0.196	0.810	0.085
Image analysis:
·         Facilities offered	0.232	0.070	0.1144	0.087	0.870
·         Price	0.070	0.850	0.034	0.068	0.064
·         Convenience of Location	0.123	0.021	0.827	0.221	0.183
·         Quality of amenities:
o   Reliability	0.710	0.303	0.016	0.041	0.063
o   Responsiveness	0.771	0.185	0.095	0.074	0.146
o   Communication	0.714	0.099	0.094	0.205	0.042
o   Credibility	0.800	0.222	0.156	0.244	0.058
o   Security	0.672	0.334	0.057	0.110	0.215
o   Competence	0.601	0.280	0.284	0.004	0.291
o   Courtesy	0.677	0.125	0.469	0.133	0.236
o   Understanding	0.662	0.184	0.070	0.402	0.005
o   acces	0.726	0.108	0.223	0.215	0.01-71

Table 2. Factor Analysis of External Information Sources

Factor	Factor loading
Extrt.inf.sourc	1	2	3
Word-d-mouth	0.017	0.121	0.900
Billboard/highway sign	0.769	-0.055	0.054
Radio ad/program	0.896	-0.017	0.070
TV commercial/appearance	0.829	0.246	0.006
Newspaper ad/article	0.756	0.261	0.044
Magazine ad/story	0.654	0.532	0.172
Brochure folder	0.306	0.812	0.031
Guidebook/catalogue	0.268	0.806	0.146

Table 3. Importance of Internal Information Sources in Decision to Overnight the Jakarta Star Hotel

influence intrl. inf.sourc	high		Influence rate			low
	5	4		3	2		1	mean
Experience/familiarity	24	19		33	49		25	2.787
Image analysis:
·         Facilities offered	43	51		31	25		0	3.747
·         Price	25	52		16	31		16	3.127
·         Convenience of Location	33	85		28	2		2	3.967
·         Quality of amenities:
o   Reliability	26	104		18	2		0	4.027
o   Responsiveness	27	100		19	3		1	3.993
o   Communication	27	101		18	3		1	4.000
o   Credibility	31	70		45	2		2	3.840
o   Security	38	70		35	5		2	3.913
o   Competence	17	75		52	4		2	3.673
o   Courtesy	43	91		12	3		1	4.147
o   Understanding	13	63		61	4		9	3.447
o   Accessibility	25	89		28	6		2	13.8001

Table 4. Importance of External Information Sources in Decision to Overnight the Jakarta Star Hotel influence high influence rate low

factor	High		influence			rate low
Extrt.inf.source	5	4		3	2		1	mean
Word-d-mouth	50	57		40	2		1	4.020
Billboard/highway sign	6	N		73	44		3	2.907
Radio ad/program	5	22		70	48		5	2.827
TV commercial/appearance	12	53		59	22		4	3.313
Newspaper ad/article	6	46		66	30		2	3.160
Magazine ad/story	9	51		61	26		3	3.247
Brochure folder	20	49		59	21		1	3.440
Guide book/catalogue	127	59		52	12		0	13.6791

Table 5. Hotelings Multivariate lest MANOVA Between Independent Variables and Information Sources

Variables	V*		Sig.Of
	Value	D.F.	F
Internal Information
o      Age	0.238	3.146	0.789
o      Gender	0.084	1.148	0.579
o      Marriage	0.037	1.148	0.972
o      Education	0.547	3.146	0.002
o      Occupation	0.732	5.144	0.012
o      Income	0.531	3.146	0.003
o      Motive	0.193	1.148	0.024
External Information
o      Age	0.198	3.146	0.297
o      Gender	0.036	1.148	0.755
o      Marriage	0.41	1.148	0.670
o      Education	0.190	3.146	0.355
o      Occupation	0.400	5.144	0.074
o      Income	0.235	3.146	0.131
o      Motive	10.082	1.148	0.184

Result

Before testing the hypotheses, the thirteen internal information sources were factor analyzed to identify internal information sources that tended to group together.  Principles components factor analysis with Quartimax Rotation resulted in five distinct (Table 1). Past experience/familiarity, facilities offered, price, and convenience of location, respectively, all of the other internal information sources factored together united in quality of amenities group.  The eight external information sources tended to group together too.  Quatimax Rotation result in three distinct (Table 2).  Word of mouth was factor by itself, brochures/folders and guidebooks/catalogues were factor by direct marketing group and all the other external information sources allied into mass media group.

Finding suggest that two information sources stand out as the major sources that influenced guests: courtesy (mean = 4.147) as an internal information (table 3) and word of mouth (mean = 4.020) as an external information (table 4).  This supports the first hypotheses that word of mouth information will be rated as the most important external information as the most important intemlil  information source influencing guests decision to overnight the Jakarta star hotel.

Relationship between individual independent variable and the information sources, tested with MANOVA, appear in table 5, 6, and 7. Results suggest that over 50 and 31-40 years old male people rated information as mote important than female that lower 30 and 41 -50 years old.  The married people rated external information as least important than unmarried people.

The information source of past experience/familiarity was rated differently by individuals depending on their educational level.  People with higher educational levels rated past experience/familiarity as more important than people with lower educational levels, although education did not influence importance ratings of mass media, direct marketing, and word of mouth (table 6&7).

Finally, testing the last hypotheses (table 6 & 7) for occupation, income, and motive individual variables, that people who have more knowledge and internal information sources, searching relative least important to information sources from external (word of mouth, mass media, and direct marketing) and so on the contrary. The business motive guests searched information from external relative than leasure motive guests, because they have had better knowledge and them internal information about that hotels.

Discussion And Conclusions

Results reveal that guests to Jakarta star hotels use sources of information, with word of mouth information rating as the most important external information source and courtesy image information source.  This finding is consistent with other studies that have also reported the importance consumers place on word of mouth external information.  Gunn (1988) suggests that part of the reason for this is the perceived credibility of information passed on by friends, neighbours , acquaintances, and family.  Regardless of potential biases in the information, it is usually unquestionably believed because the informal is viewedas credible. This finding points to the necessity of maintaining high levels of satisfaction among guests to the Jakarta star hotels.

The interesting thing about this set of analyses is that importance of mass media is not what expected.  Mass media is more important to those who had lower levels of education and income to those who had lower levels of education and income than more highly social class and educated individuals.  Additionally, while others have suggested that people of higher social class search more for product and service information (Runyon & Stewart, 1987; Robertson et al , 1984; Newman, 1977), Runyon and Stewart also suggest that individuals of lower social class watch more TV than their higher social class counterparts. As well individuals of lower social classes are more receptive to advertising.

Finding of this study indicate that motives play a significant role in the utilization of product information.  In particular, the findings suggest that people who are strongly motivated, regardless of their motivation, rate all information sources higher.  This is consistent with Crompton (1979) and Engle et al. (1973) who found that the vacation motive of novelty and variety led to more intensive information searches.  It appears that the more highly motivated or purposeful the individual, the more important it is to gather external information about hotels. It may be that a strong perception of a need will activate information search behavior.

Marketing Implications

Hoyer & Maclnnis (1997) explain that word of mouth (WOM) is important to marketers because it can have a dramatic positive effect on consumers’ product perceptions and an offering’s marketplace performance.  To preventing and responding to negative WOM Given the pervasive impact of negative WOM, marketers need to be particularly concerned about preventing negative WOM and then rectifying it once it occurs.  Preventing negative WOM can best accomplished by providing quality products and ensuring quality service.  Rectifying negative WOM can be accomplished when firms try to deal with consumers’ unsatisfactory consumption outcomes before more negative WOM occurs.  Engineering favorable WOM: Marketers may also try to engineer favorable WOM by creating quality products and services. Targeting opinion leaders, and using networking opportunities at trade shows, conferences and public events.

Dealing with rumors: When rumors surface, the issue becomes how best to deal with them.  Several strategies may be used.  One strategy is to do nothing.  Often this is a preferred strategy because consumers may actually learn about the rumor by hearing marketers’ attempts to correct it.  A second strategy is to do something locally, putting the rumor to rest on a case by case basis.  A third option is to do something, but do it discreetly.  A fourth option is to do something big using all the media resources at one’s disposal.   Media vehicles such as advertising might be used to directly confront and refute the whether it is negative, it is sometimes useful to track identified. One such way of tracking WOM is through network analysis. In this analysis, consumers can be asked from whom they heard the information.  This person, in turn, can be asked how he or she heard the information.  By literate through this procedure, critical information sources may be identified.  In Addition to providing information on relational from (who is connected to whom), marketers may also query consumers as to relational content (what specific information they heard from the source).  This analysis might track the distortion of information and key sources directly.  For example if individuals are communicating positive WOM and acting as referrals, they can be thanked or more explicitly rewarded for their efforts. Referral incentive programs that reward both the referrer and referee can be similar de designed.

Follow up, the other results of this study is the courtesy information as the part of customer satisfaction indicate most importance internal information source.  Kotler, Bowen and Mackris, (1996) suggest: A service quality program involves a cooperative effort between marketing and operations.  To develop quality service, a firm must follow certain principles.  These 10 principles of quality service offer a framework for a quality service program: Leadership. The CEO of the organization must have a clear vision and convince employees to believe in it and follow it; Integrated marketing through the organization.  The marketing concept states that marketing should be integrate through out the organization: Understand the customer.  Companies with quality products know what the market wants; teamwork, employees must realize how their job affect the rest of the team; Apply operational fundamentals.  The organization has to be well planned and managed, leverage the freedom factor.  Employees must have the freedom to shape the delivery of the service to fit the needs of their guests: Use appropriate technology.  Technology should be used to monitor the environment, help operational systems. Develop customer databases, and provide methods source management.  Employees must be capable of delivering the services promised to the customer, set standards, measures performance, and establish incentives.  The most important way to improve service quality is to set service standards and goals and then teach them to employees and management, employees who deliver good service should be rewarded.

For Further Research

It should be noted, however, that the causal nature of this relationship is unclear.  It is possible that information sources have contributed to the development of motivation to overnight the hotel. For example, someone who has been influenced to overnight the Jakarta star hotel through recommendation of a close friend may become highly motivated to overnight the hotel. Future research may wish to address this issue of causality further.

Overall, result of this study agree with prior consumer behavior research in that search behavior differs among individuals.  Additionally, the high level of importance placed on interpersonal sources of information is consistent with past research.  Differences between the findings of this study and other studies may be due in part to the specific tourism business or a destination being investigated.  While past tourism information search studies have focused on vacations in general, or a vacation to a broad geographic region, this study focused on one particular tourism and hospitality business (Jakarta star hotels).  It is possible that similar findings may emerge from future information search research for specific tourism business.

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