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Hospitality Leadership Through Learning
Faculty & Research

Segmenting Hotel Customers Based on the Technology Readiness Index

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Vol 7 No 13
By:  Rohit Verma Ph.D., Liana Victorino Ph.D., Kate Karniouchina, and Julie Feickert

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Executive Summary: The extent to which hotel guests accept and use technology both during a hotel stay and on their own can be a useful means of segmenting guests. One excellent mechanism for establishing segments based on customers' inclination toward technology is the Technology Readiness Index (TRI), as shown by the study described here. A test of the TRI with 865 business and leisure hotel customers in the United States revealed an approximate normal distribution that ranged from people who seek to use technology at every turn to those who essentially want nothing to do with it. Furthermore, a comparison of the travel habits of the high and low technology-ready guests revealed numerous differences that should be of interest to the hotel companies. For example, guests with a high TRI score tended to travel more frequently on business and were willing to pay relatively high room rates. A greater percentage of male guests were in the high TRI group than were in the low TRI group. The study also found that the hotel guests with high TRI scores were relatively young, more highly educated, and more affluent than the sample as a whole. The technology-adept guests were more likely to patronize upscale hotels than were the other members of the sample. Thus, executives who wish to differentiate their hotels using technology should carefully consider the response to high-tech innovations that will come from their target guest segments.

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About Rohit Verma Ph.D.

Rohit Verma is an associate professor of service operations management at the School of Hotel Administration, and also serves as the Executive Director for the Center for Hospitality Research. Prior to his current appointment, he was the George Eccles Professor of Management, David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah. He has also taught MBA and executive development classes at DePaul University, Chicago, IL, University of Sydney, Australia, Norwegian School of Logistics, Norway, Helsinki School of Economics, Finland, and Indian School of Business, India. His research interests include new product/service design, quality management and process improvement, supplier selection strategies, and operations/marketing interrelated issues. He has published over 40 articles in prestigious business journals such as California Management Review, the Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, Decision Sciences, Journal of Operations Management, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Journal of Service Research, MIT Sloan Management Review, Production and Operations Management, and other journals. His research has been sponsored by the Hospitality Sales Association International (HSMAI), United States Forest Service, Marketing Science Institute, and various corporations such as CSFB, First Chicago, NCR Knowledge Lab, General Growth Properties, Siemens, Mead Johnson, Kimberley Clarks, Hammerson and others. Verma has received several teaching and research awards including the "Skinner Award For Early Career Research Accomplishments" from the Production and Operations Management Society; "Spirit of Inquiry Award" the highest honor for scholarly activities within DePaul University; “Teaching Innovation Award” DePaul University; and “Doctoral faculty Teaching Award” University of Utah. He serves as the associate editor of Journal of Operations Management, and Decision Sciences; senior editor of Production and Operations Management; and editorial board member of Journal of Service Research, and the Cornell Hospitality Quarterly. He also served as guest editor for four issues of the Journal of Operations Management on topics related to effective management of service businesses.

For more information visit http://www.hotelschool.cornell.edu/research/facultybios/faculty.html?id=179