Eureka! Institutional Repository

Increasing occupancy rates and revenue by improving customer experience has become the aim of modern hospitality organisations. Investigation of attributes that creates customer hedonism has been suggested in several disciplines, such as sociology and psychology, to better understand consumer emotions and behaviours in maximising the value of customer experience. Although many researchers have illustrated the significant effect of hedonism on behavioural decisions, the understanding on what are the factors that actually facilitate the creation of hedonism remains in the dark. Moreover, existing studies in this area are often confined to consumer goods and retailing. Notably, much of the pioneering work on consumer behavioural decisions in existing hospitality researches has largely focused on the cognitive aspects of decision-making without exploring extensively on its emotional dimension. This study attempts to address this gap by examining the antecedents and consequences of customer hedonism in hospitality services. Results from the study supported all proposed hypotheses, which suggests that customer hedonism is positively influenced by service quality, servicescape, exclusivity, brand and personalisation afford by hospitality providers. Further, the results highlighted the importance of understanding and facilitating service offerings that is aligned to consumers’ need for hedonism in creating satisfaction and positive perceived value to facilitate favourable behavioural intentions. Implications for theory and practice are articulated, research limitations are identified, and avenues for future research are presented.