Feeling (un)welcome in Switzerland: The perception of commercial hospitality by domestic and international tourists

Abstract

Hospitality has been identified as one of the vital enhancing services of tourism organizations. However, insights about how tourists perceive the hospitality of touristic service providers and how these perceptions vary between guests of different origins are still scarce. Using the case of Switzerland, we conducted a survey of 600 tourists to investigate the different perceptions of hospitality by domestic and international guests in touristic service encounters. The results confirm the idea that domestic tourists are more demanding and less satisfied with the hospitality of touristic service providers than international guests. The regression analyses further indicate that tourists’ gender and age influence their hospitality perceptions. Importance–performance analyses on single dimensions of the hospitality concept suggest that touristic service providers’ professional expertise is a key area in which to improve the hospitality perceptions of both domestic and international tourists.