Keywords

1 Introduction

The tourism sector has been one of the most important factors in the development of local and global economies in recent decades. It is one of the most important industries in the world and involves very important infrastructure with service organizations, among which the most important feature is the hotel industry [1, 2]. According to [3], hotel service has been considered in recent years as one of the key businesses that formulate the complex tourism system. Therefore, it is logical that the satisfaction of tourists is a key component for the survival and success of the hotel industry. Therefore, hotels need to differentiate their services by better meeting the needs of their customers and improving the quality of the services they offer [4]. In a highly competitive hotel industry, individual hoteliers need to find ways to make products and services to stand out among others. According to Kariru and Aloo [5], one way to achieve this, is for hotel entrepreneurs to understand the needs of their customers and then, find ways to meet and exceed those needs. The furnishing and decoration of hotel rooms are important factors for the satisfaction of customers’ expectations. Customer satisfaction as a key marketing tactic, differentiating the business from its competitors, will enhance the increased understanding of guest preference and the overall value of a guest experience resulting in maximizing hotel revenues [6, 7]. This paper aims to develop a comprehensive pre-approach to tourists’ preferences for hotel furniture in Greece based on primary research, regarding their preferences and assessment of hotel furniture, while it is expected to contribute further to the existing literature on this topic.

2 Literature Review

Customers are considered protagonists in modern marketing as they seek to satisfy a set of needs and desires that are partly linked to the basic services offered and their expectations about how these needs and desires are consistently fulfilled [7, 8] also link service quality to customer expectation as it was found that customer expectation occurs when customers predict service quality using their own characteristics, attitudes and preferences. Customers perceive services differently depending on their perception and expectation, and customer satisfaction can be assessed by the service provided and customer expectation [9]. Research findings [10] confirmed that service quality directly affected tourist satisfaction across destination accessibility, destination facilities and destination attraction. Similar results were also obtained by Gupta and Srivastava [11]. Also, Della Corte et al. [12] measured tourist satisfaction and fourteen indicators were identified in their study, ranging from easy access through various modes of transport and accommodation, to the organisation of cultural events and activities. According to Gupta [13] the quality of service is divided into two parts. The first part is tangible services (furniture, buildings, rooms, decoration, etc.) and the second part is intangible services (personal contact, surprise, special materialization). These tangible services offered by hotels and the perception and expectations of their customers from them have not been explored to a large extent, in Greece as well. Such information is a valuable tool for decision making by the owners of these accommodations to satisfy their customers’ expectations on the one hand and to differentiate themselves from the competition on the other hand [6]. Research on guests’ satisfaction in the hotel industry [14], showed that age and gender affect the satisfaction experienced by hotel guests and that not all characteristics are equally important.

In Greece, a very important architect Mr. Konstantinidis Aris had made a big contribution in the decoration of famous hotel interiors and in the furniture choice [15]. For interior decoration and furniture of the same hotels, Marnellos [16] proposes solutions and highlights that the period from 1950 to 1970 continues, after decades, to greatly influence contemporary hospitality architecture and furniture design, thus, demonstrating its abundance and continuous contribution. Finally, Papadopoulos et al. [17] investigated consumers’ perceptions on green and smart furniture innovation, which may well find application in the hotel industry and thus, enhance the competitive advantage of Greek accommodation. Based on the above, the research questions of this study are the following: Is room furnishing an important factor influencing the choice of hotel accommodation in Greece and how is it related to the demographic characteristics of tourists? What are the factors that influence the choice of accommodation in terms of the characteristics of the furniture of Greek hotels by tourists? What is the degree of importance of a hotel's furniture being of Greek manufacture and how is this view related to the demographic characteristics of tourists? How is the degree of tourists’ satisfaction with the decoration of the hotel room related to the region and category of accommodation?

3 Methodology

In this research, a specially structured questionnaire was used, initially distributed to a sample of 20 tourists in tourist places, to record possible shortcomings or suggest adding questions. The total number of survey participants was also 340 tourists in hotel accommodation in various tourist areas in Greece (see Table 1). The period of the survey was July–September 2019, and for the smooth conduct of the survey the questionnaire was translated into four languages other than Greek, namely French, English, Serbian and Italian. This convenience sampling method was chosen for the convenience of the researchers, due to the limited time and cost of conducting the research [7]. The sampling process was conducted by asking people who were most conveniently available to participate in the research. The selection of the location of hotels and respondents is completely subjective as there was access by the researchers to specific hotels. However, the results and conclusions of this research cannot be generalized as the sampling method used has limitations [7]. The demographic characteristics of the respondents are presented in Table 2. Moreover, through the SPSS reliability statistical test, it was shown that the sample is reliable, since the Cronbach's reliability coefficient of all the questions of the questionnaire is equal to 0.890 > 0.7. The statistical program SPSS version 26 was used to process the questions. First, the descriptive characteristics of the respondents were analyzed, followed by statistical analysis using the correlation analysis method and the test of means.

Table 1 Characteristics of hotels
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Table 2 Demographic characteristics of participants
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4 Results

A 79.1% of the survey participants claimed that the furnishing of the hotel room is an important to very important factor in their choice of hotel accommodation. The X2 statistical test indicated that there is a statistically significant correlation between the influence of room furnishing on the choice of hotel accommodation and (a) age (X2 = 79. 054, a < 0.001), i.e. younger age groups put more emphasis on this factor (see Table 3), (b) income (X2 = 39.657, a < 0.001), i.e. guests with higher income seek better hotel room decoration, (c) with the nationality of tourists (X2 = 234.184, a < 0.001), i.e.: Greeks, Germans, Italians, British, Russians and Serbs are more interested in the decoration of their accommodation. It is worth noting that 70.6% of the participating tourists had visited the accommodation they stayed in for the first time, while 20.6% for the 2nd, 4.1% for the 3rd, 2.1% for the 4th, 2.7% for the 5th + time.

Table 3 Influence of room furnishings on the choice of hotel accommodation (%)
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Regarding the main material of construction of furniture in a hotel room, 84.1% of the respondents claimed to prefer wood, 7.4% metal, 3.2% leather, 2.4% prefer a combination of materials, 2.1% glass and 0.9% plastic. Survey participants were asked to define the importance of the characteristics of a hotel's furniture that influence the final choice of hotel for accommodation using the Likert scale (5 = very important to 1 = not at all important). They claimed that the final choice of hotel for accommodation is mainly influenced by the integration of modern technology in furniture (4.0, ± 1.3), modern design (3.7, ± 1.2), ecological furniture (3.7, ± 1.2), bright and dark colors (3.5, ± 1.2) and high quality of construction (3. 5, ± 1.3), followed by the reference of the furniture to Greek culture (3.5, ± 1.4), the certification of the final manufacture (3.4, ± 1.3), composite wood products, solid wood (3.3, ± 1.3 respectively), classic design (3.2, ± 1.1), certified raw materials (3.2, ± 1.4) and brand name (3.2, ± 1.2). It is worth noting that 82.7% of the participants in the survey claimed that they would like the furniture of the hotel they chose to contain elements that refer to Greek culture and Greek culture. Also, 75.3% of the participating tourists claim that it is of great to very great importance for them that hotel furniture is of Greek manufacture, while 14.4% claim to be moderately influenced by the origin of hotel furniture, 6.8% a little and 3.5% indifferent, respectively (see Table 4). The X2 statistical test showed that there is a statistically significant correlation between this opinion and (a) age (X2 = 79.054, a < 0.001, with df = 20), (b) income (X2 = 39.657, a < 0.001, with df = 16), and (c) their educational level (X2 = 57. 123, a < 0.001, with df = 24). 83.3% of the participants are confident to very confident that the choice of Greek furniture by hoteliers will have a positive impact on the increase of the clientele of Greek hotels.

Table 4 Importance of Greek origin of hotel furniture (%)
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Investigating the degree of satisfaction of the survey participants by the decoration of the room in the hotel they chose, 58.8% of the participants say they are satisfied. The mean degree of satisfaction of the participants with the decoration of the room in the hotel, on a scale of 1–10 with a perfect score of 10, was 7.59 with a standard deviation of 1.805 (N = 340). The X2 statistical test indicated that there is a statistically significant correlation between the level of satisfaction with the hotel room decoration and (a) the area where the room is located (X2 = 141.720, a < 0.001, df = 63) (see Table 5). The areas rated with higher scores (greater than 8 with a perfect score of 10) are: Pieria (90.0%), Folegandros (89.2), Halkidiki (87.3%) and Rethymno (84.6%). Relatively lower scoring regions are: Paros (42.9%), Paxos (49.1%), and Mytilene (57.1%) and (b) the number of stars of these units (X2 = 72.048, a < 0.01). The highest degree of satisfaction is obtained from 4* hotels and the lowest from 1* hotels. There is considerable room for improvement in decoration by 5* hotels, as the expectations of the people who choose them are higher, naturally relating them to the price they pay.

Table 5 Testing X2 correlations between regions and satisfaction with hotel room decoration
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5 Discussion and Conclusion

The present research revealed very interesting results that can be highlighted regarding the satisfaction of tourists with hotel furniture equipment in hotels in Greece, highlighting the importance of quality [13].

Regarding the furniture in hotel accommodation, it seems that there is a strong trend of preference for wood as the basic material of furniture with characteristics that create a positive impression on tourists, for example, the integration of new technology in furniture, modern design of furniture, etc. Thus, it is identified what the expectations of tourists are, and they associate them with quality [8].

Tourists of all nationalities were positive regarding the sourcing of hotel furniture from Greek companies and presenting elements that refer to the Greek element and Greek culture, while arguing that the incorporation of the Greek timber industry in hotel decoration will substantially help hoteliers, increasing the reputation for supporting the Greek industry and creating a complete “Greek experience”. This could act as a trigger for interested hotel entrepreneurs to understand the needs of their customers [5] in order to develop and implement the appropriate marketing strategy for the sustainability of the elements that formulate their hotel unit, including furniture, by highlighting for example the Greek origin of the furniture materials, the Greek timber industries they have collaborated with and by sharing the vision of their business. This way they can also differentiate themselves from the competition [6]. Tourists are generally satisfied with the accommodation and furnishing of hotel accommodation, but they vary according to the region and the category of these accommodations. Finally, it is noted that the results of the present survey could be particularly useful to entrepreneurs in the wood and furniture sector, to recognize the necessity of sustainability in wood products offered to consumers and especially in the tourism sector, the necessity of providing quality wood raw materials and the preservation of the Greek origin of furniture.

The limitations of the research are firstly the sample size and method which, although very satisfactory for the completion of the present research, compared to the tourist flows arriving in Greece, is relatively small and shows limitations for generalization and greater representativeness. On the other hand, the seasonality of the survey may be a limitation, since it could be conducted during the winter months, in order to investigate their views on wood products in hotel accommodation, not only in coastal areas where mass tourism and leisure tourism is mainly developed, but also in other areas of the mainland, in order to highlight the opinions of alternative tourists regarding the furniture of hotel accommodation.