English
中文Abstract
This paper looked at the role that consumer theory played in relation to hotels and eco labels. It took into account three main factors. These factors were related to globalisation, post-modernism and changes to psycho-social desire. They were analysed in terms of the theorists who put these notions forward and against a number of theorists related to changes in the business domain, including management. After the analysis, a conclusion was made that novel experience was a primary driving force of consumer desire. However, the conclusion also suggested that although hedonism and concerns related to global forms of production were prevalent and could be identified in consumer behaviour, managing the experiences of the individuals was not viable to the hotel and tourist industry. Rather, it was suggested that older models of behaviour and value be addressed by the producers by bunching certain types of experiential stimuli together in relation to consumer desire.
Aims and Objectives
The aim of this essay was to attempt to first identify and then expand upon key factors in understanding the relevant theories that underpin consumer choice and the decision making processes in the domain of leisure and hospitality. The objective was to develop knowledge of the various research issues that are currently used in managing consumption and consumer behaviour to understand the key contemporary constructs in consumer behaviour analysis. This included the importance, pros and cons and reliability of certain techniques in the generation of marketing data and developing strategic responses to changes in consumer tastes.
here has been a strong need identified in relation to advanced level analyses of consumer behaviour in tourism and hospitality. Due to this, having a good appreciation of the critical issues that govern the consumption of service sector produce will be of obvious benefit to knowledge of the industry and any future involvement. It is from this that a critical evaluation of key theories was to be undergone, whilst developing a view of the available literature. The evaluation of certain models and methodologies drawing upon certain instruments of measurements and their use in understanding highly subjective constructs will be undergone. Further, the role that consumer phenomena such as post-modern consumption, hedonistic consumption, globalisation, standardisation, sub-cultural, sociological and psychological purchasing powers have to play in the way we consume the services and produce that form part of our leisure time will be analysed.
Introduction
The hospitality industry has undergone vast changes throughout its history in the west. This can be seen as originating from the opening of services and regions of desire for tourists stemming from Europe’s period of Empire building. However, this somewhat hedonistic desire for exotic holiday destinations is now in conflict. It has been replaced by the current cultural fascination, and some would say need, for environmentally conscious means of produce and locally focused economies in the global age. For instance, new areas of oriental prestige have opened up in the Middle East in the last few years and the focus has been centred upon keeping an ecologically sound form of economy, whilst finding, maintaining and expanding a consumer base. In the 21st century, competitive organisations across a wide span of business domains have had to turn to analyse the behaviours of consumers and potential consumers in the pursuit of their targets. This has included the decision making process of their target audiences and more intensively to correctly develop, promote and sell a product or service on the basis of certain values, trends and desires. This has meant that there has been a particular imbalance to meet between the traditional notion of holiday as the ultimate hedonistic experience and the contemporary notion of conscientious global cosmopolitan. It is from this premise that every organisation must have some form of understanding of their consumer’s behaviours and attempt to address this problem of understanding in relation to competition and market. It is due to this that an in-depth analysis into the development of consumer behaviour in the Hospitality industry dealing with high levels of green produce was determined for this essay.
Main Body
If we are to believe the development in modern consumer processes and produce, it could be argued that as consumer choice increases and consumption becomes more complicated, the rationality of our purchasing decisions becomes more irrational (Soloman, 2007). This is primarily observable through the move away from choices based upon function and use in relation to the individual and their socio-economic needs. The psychological processes underpinning this behaviour have been linked to the notion of hedonism (Sirgy & Su, (2000). Leisure behaviour in hospitality settings worldwide has followed this same dynamic in the contemporary sense. Essentially, sociological processes underpinning this behaviour detail the split between one’s working identity and one’s more hedonistic leisure identity (Soloman, 2007). For example, liberal ideologies often highlight the split between job role and the free self. This can be seen in such statements as ‘I am not my job’. The theoretical basis of constructs belonging to psychological, social and economical constraints requires further analysis. For instance, further elaboration of the role that perception, motivation, beliefs and attitudes have on identity could be undertaken in relation to consumption and consumer behaviour. The role of this hedonic response when in a relatively irresponsible existential state, mood and/or emotion as well as spontaneity in leisure/tourism decision processes are crucial and will be the main source of analysis throughout.
The modern setting in business is one that is deeply immersed in consumerism. However, the role of consumerism and the means in which consumerism is actualised is no longer one governed by a material reality created by producers. Rather, the state of consumption is now facilitated through consumer desire long before produce takes place. In the modern affluent setting, this is facilitated more commonly through technological apparatus, such as the internet and cyber communities. However, this is not to say that material reality does not exist. For instance, the prestige of material products is still sought after and the production and trade of these products still requires a vast degree of material activity, such as sourcing, refining and transporting. However, what has altered so vastly is the way in which the relationship between produce and consumer operates. This can be seen in relation to three key features. The first of these key features can be seen in the notion that the signs essential to the identity of what the product is, and what it means, has become detached from its essential source of signification. This can be better understood when considering globalisation and the lack of establishing a sense of effect on the resources in the consumption of a product. For instance, post colonial philosopher and cultural critic Homi Bhabha highlights this lacking in his seminal text stating that:
”The global cosmopolitan configures the planet as a concentric world of national societies extending to global villages. It is a cosmopolitanism of relative prosperity and privilege founded on ideas of progress and free market forces of competition. Such a concept of global ‘development’ has faith in the virtually boundless powers of technological innovation and global communications. Global cosmopolitans of this ilk frequently inhabit the ‘imaginary communities’ that consist of silicon valleys and software campuses; although, increasingly, they have to face up to the car cereal world of call centres and sweat shops of out sourcing.” (Bhabha, 1994)
This clearly shows the loss of the relationship between material produce being signified in consumption and how this is easily exploited. However, it also forewarns of the way in which global production will eventually have to start accounting for their resources and the way in which the products have been created.
The second of these key features is observed in the desire for certain qualities in relation to what is offered by purchasing a product has given over to a new source of meaning. This can be seen in the relationships that exist between the commercialised product and consumer, signified in the purchasing experience. Essentially, the consumer is no longer perceived as a person looking for the functional value of the product or in need of a specific use of a particular product. Rather, the age of structured morality from which the consumer would conceptualise an idealised world is no longer present. Rather, this socio-economic structural world of functional produce has been displaced. For instance, philosopher and post modern theorist Jean Baudrillard explains this relationship in his extract in which he states that:
‘Through planned motivation we find ourselves in an era where advertising takes over the moral responsibility for all of society and replaces a puritan morality with a hedonistic morality of pure satisfaction, like a new state of nature at the heart of hyper civilisation’ (Baudrillard, 1968, p.3)
Essentially, instead of puritan morality, the consumer is an individual entirely exposed to an almost limitless array of moralities personified in interactive technologies and the process of commercialisation and lifestyle choices. This lends the consumer to the hedonistic voyage of self discovery in a fractured and interactive social world. It is in this relationship between the identity of the product and the particular social statuses signified in identifying with it that products become essential to a lifestyle. Baudrillard explains the change in environment from that of a static functional experience to one of interactivity and self construction in his extract in which he states that it is constructed from a:
‘Whole imagery based on contact, a sensory mimicry and a tactile mysticism, basically ecology in its entirety, comes to be grafted on to this universe of operational simulation, multi-stimulation and multi response. This incessant test of successful adaptation is naturalised by assimilating it to animal mimicry, and even to the Indians with their innate sense of ecology tropisms, mimicry, and empathy: the ecological evangelism of open systems, with positive or negative feedback, will be engulfed in this breach, with an ideology of regulation with information that is only an avatar, in accordance of a more flexible platter.’ (Baudrillard, 1976, p.9)
The third of these key features is the notion that the older dichotomies of hedonism versus safety have created another significant reality. Further, this reality has seen the production of a consumer environment composed of a range of desirable products combined with their ideological opposite. Essentially, the desirable hedonistic product trait has had its dangerous quality removed making the hedonistic experience devoid of any danger. This is explained by Lacanian neo-Marxist philosopher and cultural critic Zlavoj Zizek, who states that:
‘On today’s market, we find a whole series of products deprived of their malignant property: coffee without caffeine, cream without fat, beer without alcohol. We live in a permissive universe, you should strive for pleasures and happiness – but, in order to have a life full of happiness and pleasures, you should avoid dangerous excesses, be fit, live a healthy life, not harass others… so everything is prohibited if it is not deprived of its substance, and you end up leading a totally regulated life.’ (Zizek, 2004)
These three factors are essential to understanding consumer behaviour in the contemporary, technologically advanced regions of the world. The psychological emphasis is clearly one in which one must identify with a product. However, what is being identified with is hedonistic and interchangeable. The self regulation Zizek refers to here and the subsequent dependence upon products to define a relationship/lifestyle based upon social status, devoid of substance, does not preclude the producer from creating intended products. Nor does it make consumer behaviour nihilistic, arbitrary and/or erratic. Rather, it offers the institution of business, as well as other institutions often perceived as more noble such as health services and welfare states, a different way of operating based upon a separate source of value. This alternate way of operating is achieved conceptually through the notion of what French post-modern philosopher and psycho-social theorist Michel Foucault called ‘bio-power’ (Foucault, 1975). Bio-power, or its ideological relation bio-politics, is the socio-political mechanism that acts in regulating a person’s self concept in an otherwise free and nihilistic social state of being by trading the self for security (Foucault, 1975). This is done so through the regulation of the most prized possession that the self arguably has autonomic power over; that being the body. Essentially, through consuming concepts such as well being, health and fitness the potential for hedonism is traded against the desire for health. Detailing the relationship between what is lacking and what is required, Foucault states the mechanics between the production and the consumption of identities as:
‘A real subjugation is born mechanically from a fictitious relation. So it is not necessary to use force to constrain the convict to good behaviour, the madman to calm, the worker to work, the schoolboy to application, and the patient to the observation of the regulations. Bentham was surprised that panoptic institutions could be so light: there were no more bars, no more chains, no more heavy locks; all that was needed was that the separations should be clear and the openings well arranged.’ (Foucault, 1975)
This regulation of good behaviour acting as a moral base for the individual in their quest for hedonistic satisfaction provides the producer with an emphasis upon the purchase of goods and services (Schiffman & Kanuk, 2006). Essentially, the consumption of produce is based primarily upon the contradictory relationship between health and hedonism. In relation to the hotel and hospitality industry, this means that offering a brand that has a relationship immersed in the protection of the body, such as with health and well being, is of prime importance in relation to sales. However, the notion of hedonistic pleasure should not be overlooked or seen as being replaced by healthiness. Rather, the marriage of well being and pleasure should be the main emphasis of what the hotel or service has to offer. When combining this with the current notion of green branding and the associated fair trade brands, this notion of hedonistic responsibility comes into place.
By having an emphasis upon knowledge of the production and resource of the service being provided from its locality has become significant in terms of hotel trade (Kotler et al, 1996). There is an emphasis upon such branding as fair trade, eco friendly and renewable sources. However, this must also combine with the novel experience of hedonism otherwise its consumption would not be as likely. The branding of green conscious produce and a green relationship with produce has also emphasised an incorporation of local produce, due to the damaging environmental effects of using global produce (Schiffman & Kanuk, 2006). However, this has not simply stayed as a political reality. Rather, in relation to Baudrillard’s social signification of the object, the consumer has come to value brands associated with local culture as both ethical and prestigious, highlighting Zizek’s contemporary culture of opposites. Essentially, the consumer is now situated in an experience of hedonistic desire amidst a global value system. So the question should perhaps be asked at this juncture, what can be done to accommodate this form of consumer in relation to competition? This can be answered in relation to consumer theory and models associated with management.
The rise of the experience manager is one of the ways in which management has come to engage with this form of consumption in relation to the service trade. The problem of the hedonistic consumer in relation to management is indicated in research conducted by the expert Palmer in which it is stated that ‘hedonistic definitions based on novelty of experience pose challenges for learning organisations, for whom experience is more commonly associated with accumulated knowledge and predictable responses’ (Palmer, 2007). The way in which this can be seen as a challenge to customer experience managers and management is through the dependency that management has upon built up, static forms of knowledge, which act in contradicting the emphasis that hedonism has upon experience. Essentially, individuals perceive and selectively retain knowledge. This is done through bundling certain descriptives, such as specific attributes, of a product through the integrating device of schemata. A schema is described by Vernon as ‘persistent deep rooted and well organised classifications of ways of perceiving, thinking and behaving’ (Vernon, 1966). Schemata or schemas comprise of complex cognitive frameworks and well defined pathways that interpret and organisation new information, whilst facilitating it with new understanding. This is ultimately how a person assimilates new stimuli and applies meaning to it (Baron & Byrne, 1991).
Essentially, the stimulus characteristics are prevalent in this area. That is to say that as people perceive a stimulus differently according to its sensory characteristics and information content, the stimuli that differs from others around them is more likely to be noticed by them, which will lend itself to the uniqueness of the experience of the stimuli (Solomon, 2006). Similarly, as schemata and schemas are culturally bound, no two people can develop the same emotional response to any given stimulus (Soloman, 2008). This means that both stimulus itself and the person observing it will never have the same experience of it. In relation to the breach highlighted by Baudrillard in relation to the consumption of produce, the experience of the consumer is going to vary at an immense rate compared to a consumer whose only concern was to build a better product based upon knowledge gained from further experience.
The apparent failure of consumer experience management indicates that there is a different approach needed in dealing with the consumption of any particular produce, such as with green produce. For instance, rather than simply seeking to manage the individual’s stimulus in isolation, a number of higher order management frameworks could be used to seek and integrate the bundles of stimuli highlighted by Baudrillard. This could perhaps be done in a manner that is useful for planning and controlling the experiences of eco labelled goods and ecologically green brands. If this were adopted then managers would perhaps benefit from having the ability to identify the various components of a total customer experience and matching them to those that contribute most significantly to profitable customer retention and recommendation (Palmer, 2007). This can then be referred to management and product theory, which constitutes higher order constructs transcending the hedonistic values of the individual. Three of the higher order constructs relevant to a customer’s experience are quality, relationships and brands (Palmer, 2007). This is reflected by a degree of associated literature on each of the constructs. However, there has been little to link any of these together. Essentially, it would appear that further research should be focused upon a relationship between these three factors and how they come to inter-relate with each other as opposed to futilely attempting to manage produce to match people’s experiences.
Conclusion
In summary, it would appear from the analysis of contemporary consumer theory in relation to psychology, society, technology and culture that consumption of leisure and hospitality conforms to the same trends as most other produce in the western world. It has undergone a change in which brand has taken over from function and desire for green and renewable resources in the production of services and products has become part of the relationship between consumer and producer. However, although the brand is desirable and social status is an inherent part of the identity with the produced object, the object itself has to be consumed as a relationship and is experienced in terms of its pleasurable or unique experience. Essentially, the emphasis that hedonistic culture has placed on society and its consumption has combined with the green brand emanating from the emerging global reality. Although it would be good to suggest that the producers and managers were to take identity and relationship forming into account when devising their brand, it would be potentially dangerous to overlook the role that novel experience plays. Experience is clearly an important part of the decision making process in relation to consumption. However, there are problems in managing people’s experiences due to the vast array of stimuli present in experiences and the difficulty in addressing holistic forms of consumer feedback. Perhaps the best way forward is therefore to construct models that can identify groups of stimuli to observe in relation to normative, rather than individual experience.
