Award Date

Summer 2011

Degree Type

Professional Paper

Degree Name

Master of Hospitality Administration

Department

Hotel Administration

First Committee Member

Kurt Stahura, Chair

Number of Pages

44

Abstract

There has been little study done concerning the service quality of Japanese hotels toward foreign guests; especially e-mail management in English has not been analyzed in Japan before. Since e-mail inquiries in English from foreign guests could be the first step for Japanese hotels to provide good service to prospective guests, managing English e-mails efficiently is a key to attracting more foreign guests. Therefore this study examined the actual condition of e-mail management at Japanese hotels by sending an English inquiry to them. Korean hotels were also included because South Korea and Japan have similar linguistic and economic backgrounds. A mystery guest approach was used in this study and a fictitious customer sent an English e-mail to each hotel, and inquired about hotel room availability. The e-mail message asked about special room rates, amenities and privileges for a honeymoon couple at the beginning of July, 2011. Information about the transportation to and from airports was also requested. After collecting the e-mail replies from the hotels, response rates and time, responsiveness, and the quality of e-mails were analyzed. At the end, some recommendations for e-mail management by Japanese hotels were proposed. It is hoped that this study will provide some insights into how Japanese hotels could achieve efficient e-mail management in English.

Keywords

Customer services; Electronic mail messages; English language; Hospitality industry; Hotels; Japan; South Korea

Disciplines

Hospitality Administration and Management | International and Intercultural Communication | International Business | Technology and Innovation

File Format

pdf

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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