The Influence of Customer Service and Customer Satisfaction on Tourists’ Frequency of Visitation to Hotels in the Western Kenya Tourism Circuit

ABSTRACT Travel and tourism is the largest, fastest growing sector and important part of the world economy today. It is the world's number one employer and in Kenya it represents more than 10% of gross domestic product. Western Kenya is an area of great geographical, agricultural, cultural and natural diversity, offering the tourists just as much, if not more, than many of Kenya’s better known tourist destinations. Despite the attractions and hospitality facilities in the western tourist circuit, the frequency of visitation is relatively low. This prompted the study to look into customer service provision and customer satisfaction as factors that could influence the frequency of tourist visitation. The objectives of the study were: to identify the types of customer services provided to tourists visiting hotels in the western tourist circuit; to assess level of customer satisfaction with the services provided in the western tourist circuit; to assess tourist frequency of visitation to hotels in western tourist circuit in relation to customer service and customer satisfaction; and to establish the influence of customer service provision and of customer satisfaction on frequency of tourists’ visitation to hotels in the western tourist circuit. The study adopted a cross-section research design to collect and analyze quantitative data. The study population consisted of hotel guests who visited the selected hotels for a period of two weeks in which the study was done. The study adopted a multi-stage sampling consisting of cluster and simple random sampling to select 601 guests from the infinite population. The 601 guests were surveyed using self-administered questionnaires. The collected data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation matrix and multiple regression analysis in SPSS. The results indicate that customers seek for variety of hospitality services which are categorize as accommodation services, food and beverage services, health related services, recreational services, business related services and parking services. The results also show that customers were generally satisfied with all these services with ‘food and beverage services’ being ranked high (M = 4.77, SD = .69). The study also indicated that majority of the guests visited hotels in Western Tourist Circuit. It’s also evident from the results that customer satisfaction service elements explained 62.0% of the variance (R2 = .62, F (11,315) = 11.40, p = .00), with ‘Customer satisfaction with staff proficiency’ being the most critical influencer of frequency of visitation (β = .23, t = 4.66, p = .00). The findings generally suggest that hoteliers should consider not only customer service provisions in attempt to enhance frequency of visitation but focus more on how to best satisfy their customers to trigger higher rate of visitation to the hotels.