Hotel image and guests satisfaction as a source of sustainable competitive advantage

In contemporary marketing research, there is a general consensus in marketing and management theory that intangible resources of the organisation can play crucial role in sustainable competitive advantage creation. In this paper, the relationships between four such intangible resources (hotel image, perceived quality, perceived value and hotel guest satisfaction) are empirically researched. Structural model of guest satisfaction was developed and tested on the sample of 1,020 tourists in Slovenia. Results suggest that the direct impact of perceived quality on guest satisfaction is quite weak. However, perceived quality as well as hotel image impact guest satisfaction indirectly through perceived value. The results indicate the importance of perceived value as mediating variable in service perception models which means that marketing practitioners and managers in the hotel industry should focus their efforts mainly on the perceived value of their offerings.