Service Design Strategies for Customization: Implications of Conflicting Emotions and Concerns

This paper examines conflicting emotions and concerns in hotel stay experiences, their implications and emotion-oriented strategies for customization of hotel features and service. Luxury vs eco-friendliness, exploration vs familiarity, enjoyment vs cost, novelty vs practicality are the most common conflicting concerns. Their implications are discussed under the wider context of sustainability, economic austerity and long-term growth of tourism. Conflicting emotions often arise because some hotel features and service are out of hotel guests’ control. Increasingly, hotels are offering guests more control through customization. The model of emotion-oriented customization strategies for hotels is proposed to shed light on three broad types of hotel customization strategies that evoke calculative emotions, explorative emotions and pleasant surprises. Design emphases shift from functional, sensorial, to meaning-oriented as the nature of service changes from transactional to relational. Real-world examples in the hotel industry demonstrate the application of the strategies.