Towards an attempt to synthesise approaches to customer value in tourism and the hotel industry: a summary study

Abstract

Customer value has long been an interesting area of research for researchers in marketing, but also in tourism and the hotel industry. This interest has led to a diversity of conceptualisations, resulting in an academic wealth that is widely recognised and appreciated.

Given that no study has carried out a synthesis of approaches to customer value in tourism and the hotel industry, our study is an attempt to highlight the different approaches to customer value on the basis of a narrative literature review, based on around fifty articles from the Scopus database. The criterion chosen for classifying the approaches was the conceptualisation of customer value, which is understood differently by researchers.

Our results identified five approaches that conceptualise customer value differently in the tourism and hospitality literature. Some approaches are simplistic, while others are rich, in-depth and even complex. However, they all agree on the multidimensional nature of the structure of customer value. The results of this study are of crucial importance. It has enabled us to demonstrate the relevance of a holistic approach (fifth approach) in the first instance, and to assist managers in designing a value proposition made up of six values sought by customers in the second instance. Nevertheless, a systematic review is more methodical and could provide different results, and a qualitative study is essential to explore the values sought in the Moroccan context.

Keywords : value, perceived value, customer value, tourism and hotels.

Classification JEL : M31

Paper type : Theoretical Research