Politeness in hotel service encounter interactions in Spain: The receptionist’s point of view

Abstract

Customer satisfaction in hotels has been measured by considering different aspects of the client’s experience, one of these being interaction with hotel staff. The receptionist is probably the most important member of staff in this context, since this person is the first that the customer meets upon arrival and the one consulted when having a problem or doubt. In this paper, receptionists’ views regarding what they consider to be appropriate verbal and non-verbal behaviour in reception desk service encounters in Spain are analysed. The results show that a) the participants have very specific expectations regarding what constitutes appropriate receptionist behaviour and b) there appears to be a general preference for deference politeness strategies and a focus on the transactional part of the interaction.