Visual Identity and Experience Dimensions in the International Luxury Hotel Industry

Product and service parity in terms of physical facilities are widespread in the international luxury hotel industry. Visual identity and a focus on customer experiences present a new opportunity for differentiation. Presenting five empirical studies, the present research focuses on the following key issues of visual identity and experience in an international context. First, what are the impressions that customers form and the perceptual dimensions that they use when they perceive and evaluate the wide variety of visual output of hotel? Second, do these customer impressions predict attitudes and likelihood of staying in a hotel? Third, are there cross-cultural differences in perceptual dimensions, attitudes and likelihood of staying between Western and East-Asian cultures? Managerial recommendations are presented with respect to overall visual identity positioning and the consistency issue examined in this research. It is suggested that managers use identity and experiential dimensions for identifying market opportunities, for product differentiation and for repositioning existing brands.