Guest Services within Boutique and Design Hotels All Over the World - Term Paper Example

We live in a world where national economies, once isolated and fenced off by deliberate protectionist policies and laws, have become irreversibly linked through powerful globalizing forces while prominent among these forces are consumers, products, and companies’. The issue examined in the current paper is the operation of boutique hotels around the world with a particular emphasis on the quality and the forms of guest services provided by most of them. A series of issues can be related to the above subject.

The differentiation of customer preferences, the development of customer loyalty and the appropriate strategies for the improvement of the performance of boutique hotels internationally are considered to be the most important of them. It could be stated that boutique hotels represent a specific category of commercial activity within the hospitality industry and that this activity is not much developed that could justify such an analysis. However, the research over the particular issue proved that boutique hotels represent a significant percentage of customers’ preferences within the hospitality industry and for this reason, they should be examined through a particular study.

The structure of boutique hotels is specific. In fact, in accordance with a relevant description presented by Colliers International (2006, 17) ‘boutique hotels are properties that do not exceed 150 rooms; they believe that what distinguishes boutique hotels from standardized hotels is the connection that hotel guests experience with members of the hotel staff’. It is also supported that ‘boutique hotels generally target customers who are in their early 20's to mid-'50s, with mid- to upper-income averages’.