To be effective, hospitality requires the guest to feel that the ‘host’ is being hospitable through feelings of generosity, a desire to please and a genuine regard for the guest as an indivudual (Lashley & Morrison: 2000). The degree of customer satisfaction or ‘customer value creation’ is mainly determined by the way interaction between employees and guests take place (Bell & Menguc: 2002)(Bitner, Booms & Mohr: 1994). Like Ford and Heaton (2000) argue: “Even if the meal, plane ride, or hotel room are the best of your life, a rude or careless service person can wreck your guest’s experience in a moment. If that happens. All of the organization’s other effort and expenditures are waster.�

The basic idea mentioned above is a basis for the hypothesis that in orde to ‘facilitate’ memorable and meaningful experiences for their guests, the added value for the individual employee has to memorable and meaningful too, otherwise inspiring an real interaction is not possible.

As part of my Innovative Hospitality Masters I am currently working on my Master Thesis.
For this purpose I have investigated literature regarding guest/employee interaction and which resulted in a theoretical model I developed. To add a practical dimension to my thesis I am going to do some case studies in the hospitaliy field, by interviewing guests and employees. At the end of september I am going to present my findings at Escuela Superior de Hostelería y Tursimo Sant Ignasi-Sarriá / Universitat Ramon Llull in Barcelona, Spain.