Journal of Business on Hospitality and Tourism PISSN 2527-9092

Vol 07 No 01, 2021: 171-179 EISSN 2527-6921

https://dx.doi.org/10.22334/jbhost.v7i1

Submitted 8th May 2021

Accepted 30th June 2021

INVESTIGATING THE IMPACT OF SENSORY

EXPERIENCE ON BUDGET HOTEL ROOMS TO
MAXIMIZE GUESTS SATISFACTION
Reiza Miftah Wirakusuma1, , Anak Agung Anom Samudra2, Ni Kadek Sumartini3
Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Indonesia1,
Institut Pariwisata dan Bisnis Internasional, Indonesia2,3
[email protected]

ABSTRACT

This study aims to investigate the sensory experience from guests who have stayed at a
budget hotel in Bandung, West Java Province. Although only offers low prices, simple
facilities, and less spacious room, yet a budget hotel has been able to maximize comfort
and satisfaction for their guests. Subsequently, the number of budget hotels increase
significantly in the past few decades and create different themes for hospitality industry.
These themes create unique experience and they are felt by five senses of guests during
their visits. The experience is divided into visual, tactile, gustatory, auditory, and olfactory.
The method used in this research is a qualitative descriptive analysis from 145
questionnaires which were collected on the field. The results showed that the sensory
experience had a dominant impact on guest satisfaction in staying at a budget hotel,
especially in tactile and visual.

Keywords: Sensory Experience; Guests Satisfaction; Budget Hotel

INTRODUCTION
Within decades, the development of tourism and hospitality industry in
Bandung, West Java Province is rising significantly, as a result, economic growth
is much influenced number of hotels, both classified and non classified to cater the
rising of domestic tourists. The city of Bandung has been known as a tourist city
since the Dutch colonial era (Nurwulandari & Kurniawan, 2020) and currently the
development of Bandung tourism is very rapid. Many factors influence such as ease
of access between Bandung and Jakarta as the capital of the country, in parallel of
the development of infrastructure, and the emergence of low-cost airlines.
According to data from Jawa Barat Province in Figures in 2020, it can be
seen at table 1. The number of hotels in the city of Bandung was accounted for 336
units with various hotel classifications. The data shows that the tourism industry is
developing well. It is because accommodation is one of the important sectors of
tourism. This figure also shows the increasingly fierce competition in the hotel
business in Bandung.

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Table 1. Number of Accommodations, Available Rooms and Beds in Classified

and Non Classified Hotel in Bandung Municipality, 2012-2019
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
Classified Hotel
Total of 93 99 109 124 147 - 180 195
Accommo-
dation
Total 9.254 9.882 10.913 12.712 14.726 - 14.996 19.060
Rooms

Non Classified Hotel and Other Accommodation

Total of
Accommo- 208 229 231 240 238 - 239 227
dation
Total
Rooms 5.131 5.488 5.828 6.532 6.486 - 7.027 5.729

Source: Jawa Barat Province in Figures, 2020

Responding to the increasing demand for tourists also affects the growth of
budget hotels. Budget hotels come as cheap accommodation options for tourists.
Budget hotels have grown a lot in the city of Bandung, accompanied by the needs
of tourists who want cheap accommodation. The features that are generally
accepted from budget hotels are limited services, simple rooms, standard
accommodation, low cost, low construction and operating costs, and less than 150
rooms (Mohsin & Lengler, 2015). In this research, we follow the definition
(Xuejing & Huamin, 2009) that budget hotels provide simple and comfortable
accommodation at low prices. Budget hotels are arguably hotels with minimal
facilities but that does not mean there are no such facilities, tourists can request or
can also choose packages facilities that could be provided by the hotel management.
This is because the prices offered by hotels are very minimal below the prices of
other conventional hotels. Even buildings or hotel buildings tend not to be too
expensive in investment, some parts do not use heavy materials or materials such
as rooms insulated with lightweight materials such as gypsum or GRC and even
plywood. But by not reducing the beauty of the hotel. Budget hotels are also
identical to budget hotels, hotels that are affordable and fit the needs of someone
who only needs a bed without other facilities.
Kotler (2000) states that “Satisfaction is a feeling of pleasure or
disappointment someone who appears after comparing the performance (results) of
the product thought to the expected performance”. According to (Aryani, Dwi,
2011), Consumer satisfaction is a situation that is shown by consumers when they
realize that their needs and desires are as expected and well fulfilled. Meanwhile,
according to Bakhtiar et al, (2010), consumer satisfaction is a positive feeling of
consumers associated with service products during use or after using services or
products.
Customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction with the product or service will
affect the next pattern of behavior. If the consumer is satisfied, then he will show
the magnitude of the possibility to return to buy products or enjoy the same service.
Based on the above meanings, it can be concluded that customer satisfaction is an

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emotional assessment of the use of a product or service where the expectations and
needs of consumers are met each other.
In the development of the tourism industry, hotels are needed by tourists as
lodging services to rest in a tourist destination. Of the various hotels located in a
tourist destination, each hotel has a different rating from the tourists who visit, the
tourists can judge it from the Sensory Experience that has been felt by visitors at
each hotel. Sensory experience is an attempt to create experiences related to human
sensory. This is not only related to human sensory, but the atmosphere and can
affect human psychology. In sensory experience, the five aspects of human sensory
become the main target in the visiting experience. In addition to the services
provided by tourists, they also feel the comfort of their body sensors.
Wickens (2004) found that 83% of humans use visuals to receive messages.
Therefore, businesses will focus on the general feeling of this performance, and
invest considerable resources. The human visual sense is the most advanced and
prominent is the intellect (Sachari, 2007). Of the five human senses, the sense of
sight is then also the meaning that has been focused on mostly by salesmen
(Agapito, 2020). Therefore, color can have an important role in the success of
marketing stimuli, such as the colors used in advertisements or the colors used for
package design (Mylonas & MacDonald, 2017). The sense of smell is the most
direct, and smell can significantly affect one’s evaluation and other people
(Wulandari, 2014).
Sensory experience or experience by using various senses such as seeing,
feeling, hearing, smelling, and touching, contributes to form a unique relationship
between the perceptions of tourists and their goals (Agapito et al., 2012). Tourism
forms a unique bond between tourists and tourism products through sensory
experience. Connecting the human senses of seeing (visual), kissing (smell),
hearing (hearing), tasting (gustatory), and touching (tactile) (Budhi Danudara ,
2016) . Thus, the sensory is closely related to the experience of tourists in traveling.
Also, sensory experience, customer satisfaction, and loyalty are related to a high
level of cause and effect relationships. This effort was made to explore the
relationship between sensory experience, customer satisfaction and customer
loyalty for customers (Guzel, 2016).
Kotler (2000) introducing the term “atmosphere” the impact of environmental
sensory stimuli, such as sight, sound, smell, and touch, on the intention of consumer
behavior. Besides, little research has been carried out to determine the importance
of sensory aspects and the role of multisensory in the world tourism experience,
even though it has attracted the interest of tourism geographers (Rahman et al.,
2015).
Sensory experience relates to the nature of observation, which promotes
awareness of one or more of the five senses, through observation, using your senses
to understand the world around you: visual, taste, smell, touch, hearing (Guzel &
Dortyol 2016). Moreover, color can have an important role in the success of
marketing stimuli, such as the colors used in advertisements or the colors used for
package design (Mylonas & MacDonald, 2017). Not only vision or eyes but the
sense of smell is the most direct, and smell can significantly influence a person’s
evaluation of things and others (Hudspeth & Logothetis, 2000). Therefore, the
sensory experience can be defined as an important aspect in the experience of
tourists or visitors.
Previous studies of sensory experience in Airbnb resulted that social
interaction between guests and host is essential because it generates positive

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reviews (Sthapit & Jiménez-Barreto, 2018). Other research pointed out that
experiential marketing was crucial from affective, affective, sensory attributes to
choose desired hotel (Kim & Perdue, 2013). Another recent bibliometric studies
stated that there was a connection between tourism experience and places
attachment (Kastenholz et al., 2020), furthermore the research indicated that in the
future the topic will be related to sustainability and technology (Agapito, 2020).
Sensory spatial experiences are also proven to have connectivity with positive direct
and indirect impacts on behavioral intention (Dai & Zheng, 2021). Nowadays, these
behaviors either positive or negative are reflected on online review and rating from
marketplace and online travel agent (Mehraliyev et al., 2020). Nearly similar
research has been conducted on Resort sensory experience based on online review
which has result in point out the sight experience was the utmost important
(Rahman et al., 2021).
However, studies on guests’ hotel sensory experience topics are still very
limited, predominantly on budget hotel. Therefore, this study can be considered as
a positive contribution to the topic. For this particular reason, this study aims to
investigate guests’ sensory experience during their visits to budget hotel in
Bandung.

METHODOLOGY
This study, proposed to analyze and reveal the effect of sensory experience on
budget hotel guest satisfaction. In gathering, revealing various problems of the
objectives that were made, this research was conducted with an analytical
descriptive study approach. According to (Sugiyono, 2010) that descriptive
qualitative research is a research method based on the philosophy of post
positivism, which is usually used to examine natural objective conditions where
the researcher acts as a key instrument. Meanwhile (Bogdan & Biklen, S. (1992),
2009) defines the descriptive method as a method that describes an objective
situation or event based on facts that appear or should be followed by an attempt to
draw general conclusions based on historical facts.
The research methods that is included in determining the location of budget
hotels in Bandung, especially in national or local chain hotel. The sample hotels are
Posters Hotel, Concordia, Amaris, Zodiak Hotel, Vio Hotel, Ibis Budget, and
Favehotel. Next, the questionnaires were distributed in a google form to tourists
who had stayed at a budget hotel. The questionnaire contains questions that are
useful for analyzing indicators that affect the sensory experience of guests in
staying at a budget hotel. The data we obtained were then analyzed using descriptive
analysis methods.

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Fig.1 Conceptual Framework

Conceptual Framework in this study as can be seen on Figure 1, points out

unique experience that felt by five senses of guests during their visits. The
experience is divided into visual, tactile, gustatory, auditory, and olfactory towards
their activity at budget hotel. Afterwards, the guests were asked whether they have
reached comfort and satisfaction or they only get disappointment. Finally, the guests
were asked if they put positive or negative review for the hotel.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

As can be seen on table 2, the profile of 145 respondents are divided into
gender, age, education level, area of origin, travel companion and visiting frequency
to budget hotel in Bandung. Female respondances were 61% and majority were
between 18 to 40 of age group. Most respondents were graduated from university
and reside from area of Jakarta. They visited the budget hotel with their family with
frequency of first timer.

Table 2. Profile of Respondents (N=145)

Category Indicator %
Gender Male 39%
Female 61%
Age 18-23 23%
24-30 29%
31-40 37%
41-50 5%
51-60 5%
Above 60 1%
Education Level Highschool 21%
Graduate 65%
Postgraduate 14%
Area of origin Jakarta 32%
Tangerang 27%
Depok 16%

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Bekasi 13%
Bogor 10%
Others 2%
Travel Companion Free Individual Travelers 29%
Friends 15%
Family 40%
Group 16%
Visiting Frequency First time 68%
2-5 times 30%
Above 5 times 2%

Table 3. shows the results of 145 questionnaires were distributed to tourists.

They filled out a questionnaire containing indicators of satisfaction of budget hotel
guests based on sensory experience.

Table 3. questionnaire influence of sensory experience on budget hotel guest

satisfaction
Dimensions Indicators Measurement
Mean Std.
Deviation
Tactile Experience Smooth and comfort of the 4.25 .884
linen
The mattress is comfortable to 3.94 .775
support quality sleep
Visual Experience Room color theme influences 4.15 .808
comfort when staying
overnight
Room Design and layout is 4.20 .851
outstanding
Splendid view outside the 3.95 .804
hotel
Olfactory Experience Room has clean fragrances 4.09 .845

No foul smell from the 4.19 .778

bathroom
Gustative Experience Room service meals or 3.78 .977
breakfast are tasty
Hotel served local delicacies 4.05 .855

Auditory Experience Noise from outside the hotel 3.15 .791

is isolated
In room voice is unable to 3.57 .794
hear from outside
Staying Satisfaction Feeling satisfied and pleased 4.23 .798
overall
Note: Sensory experience is measured by 5 point scale ranging from 1=Strongly Disagree,
2=Disagree, 3=Neutral, 4=Agree, 5=Strongly Agree

Data shows that sensory experience is a dominant part of guest satisfaction

factors in staying at a budget hotel. In table 3, the majority of respondents agreed

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that the indicators mentioned influenced guest satisfaction during their stay. Among
the points above, the most dominant is an indicator that says that smooth linen,
room odor and room design affects the comfort of staying above 4.00 of the most
data compared to other indicators. However, soundproof from exterior and interior
room were considered to be improved.
As can be seen in figure 2, this study explains that the sensory experience
felt by guests when in a budget hotel affects customer satisfaction. Moreover, the
sensory that they feel makes comfortable by budget class hotels. Today's budget
hotels still provide maximum service even with simple facilities, because the
comfort of guests is an important part of every hotel. Therefore, budget hotels can
optimize 3 dimensions of the sensory experience indicator to provide guests
comfort.
Afterwards, whenever the modest service from budget hotel meets guests
expectations, the sensory experience dimensions are typically adjustable according
to hotel’s policy. Therefore, to maximize guests comfort from their visits, hotel
management needs to explore their service from particular dimensions.

Fig.2 Result From Dimensions of Sensory Experience

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, dimensions of sensory experience in budget hotel are

dominant in tactile, visual and olfactory. However, auditory and gustative activity
are less sensed by the guests and eventually creates dissatisfaction. These
dimensions are tend to be adjustable with management strategy to win the
competition. Ultimately budget hotel management has two options, firstly
improving the tactile, visual and olfactory services. Secondly, enhancing auditory
and gustative service and upholding the rests sensory experience dimensions. If this
trend continues in the near future, budget hotel will have big opportunity to compete
with classified hotels. Thus, the number of positive review will increase
significantly.

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