Hotel Selection Criteria Among Customers with Reference to Bangalore City

Hotel industry is considered to be one of the reputed industry in India. The study is to analyse the attitude of the respondents towards discounting offers and attractive package given by hotels and to find out the impact of Price complexity, discounting offers and attractive package towards selection of hotels. For this purpose a sample of 120 was collected from the respondents were percentage analysis, descriptive statistics, factor analysis, Kruskall wallis test, one way ANOVA and multiple regression were used as tools to analyse the data. The conclusion of the study is that price complexity has higher impact on price complexity than other variables taken for the study. It is also concluded that the quality of service has to be enhanced in future period of time based on packages designed and discounting factors.


Introduction
Particularly in recent years, due to the strong growth of the hospitality industry and hotel market, there is an increased need for management and industry experts to consider how visitors chose hotels to stay in and what decision-making factors prevail. In recent decades, there has been a phenomenal increase in the number of visitors around the world, growing from 525 million in 1995 to 1.2 billion in 2016 in the hospitality industry. As a result of this large growth in visitors, a new push and pull factor has been found that demands commitment from the management of the hotel sector in order to optimize profits and appropriately capture targeted audiences.
Owing to the development of markets, stronger sales and also the steady and relentless economic expansion across the globe, customer purchasing power has shifted in a positive way thus rising visitor visits as well as higher revenues across the hospitality industry.
In the increasingly dynamic world of the hospitality industry, it is important for firms to consider the actions and decision-making of customers in order to achieve a competitive edge. One of the biggest obstacles for visitors in their decision-making process is the selection of lodging.
Choosing the most convenient place to stay can also be a very difficult job. A full model of hotel selection could help encourage hotel owners, general managers and the general tourism industry to decide on more successful indicators of high quality of service for a higher level of satisfaction. (Sohrabi et al., 2012). In addition, firms need to have an in-depth understanding of their visitors' wide-range preferences, allowing them to consider the driving forces, attitude and principles that influence customer perceptions in making purchasing decisions (Niininen et al., 2006). In addition, the psychological, socio-demographic and customer behaviour hypotheses are focused on the exploration of user desires and interests that drive them to select a specific hotel. (Han and Kim, 2010).

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
Hotel industry in one of the growing industry in India and its contribution towards the economy is much higher. As the expectation of customers towards quality of service provided by hotel industry got increased the hotels have to cope up with customer expectations and thus the following factors has been taken as problem towards the study, • What do consumers perceive towards price complexity while selecting star hotels?
• What is the attitude of customers towards discounting offers and attractive package given by hotels?
• Does Price complexity, discounting offers and attractive package provided by the hotels have any impact on their hotel selection?

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
• To evaluate the perception of customers towards price complexity while selecting hotel.
• To analyse the attitude of the respondents towards discounting offers and attractive package given by hotels. • To find out the impact of Price complexity, discounting offers and attractive package towards selection of hotels.

SCOPE OF THE STUDY
Repetition of customers with hotel industry is based on the quality of service provided by them. Their perception and attitude towards quality of service is based on discounting offers and attractive package provided Research Article by them. The main scope of the study is that it will be helpful for the hotels to know the perception and attitude of customers towards hotels and it will also help them to eradicate their barriers which may help them in increasing their service quality in near future. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Type of research: Descriptive research design has been used with the study. Data collection: The study used both primary and secondary data for data collection. Primary data: Primary data was used to collect the data from the customers who are using the service of star hotels in Bangalore city. Sample design : As the population size is large convenience sampling method has been used with the study and a total of 150 customers were targeted with same 120 was considered to be valid and thus the sample size of the study is restricted to 120. Tools used for the study: Percentage analysis, Descriptive statistics, Factor analysis, Kruskall Wallis test, One way anova and Multiple regression.

LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
• The sample size is limited to 120.
• The area of the study is limited to Banglore city. Total 120 There is a relationship between gender (0.036) and price complexity with reference to Intend towards selecting hotels.

ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
There is no relationship between nature of family (0.349) and price complexity with reference to Intend towards selecting hotels.

Comparison between demographic variables and level of acceptance towards price complexity
H01a: There is a significant difference between demo graphic variables and level of acceptance towards price complexity with reference to Intend towards selecting hotels. Dis4 120 3.11 1.121 The consumers agree towards preferring booking with hotels due to interest rates (2.71). Meanwhile, the respondents are neutral towards preferring booking with hotels as it is offering offers lower price than other category hotels (3.0). The respondents disagree towards attractive discounts available on bookings (3.07) and consumers not preferring booking due to getting more discounts while booking with other category hotels (3.11).

Comparison between demographic variables and level of acceptance towards discounting
Ho2: There is no relationship between demo graphic variables and level of acceptance towards discounting with reference to Intend towards selecting hotels.
N Total 120 There is a relationship between gender (0.005) and level of acceptance towards discounting with reference to Intend towards selecting hotels. There is no relationship between nature of family (0.171) and level of acceptance towards discounting with reference to Intend towards selecting hotels.

Comparison between demo graphic variables and level of acceptance towards discounting
Ho2a: There is a significant difference between demo graphic variables and level of acceptance towards discounting with reference to Intend towards selecting hotels. Valid N (listwise) 120 The consumers agree towards preferring booking with star hotels for customized travel options for them (2.77), having preference towards booking star hotels due to wide range of travel packages provided by star hotels (2.87) and also agree towards avoiding star hotels due to lag of attractive package options (2.84). Meanwhile, the consumers disagree towards star hotels providing attractive packages (3.17).

Comparison between demo graphic variables and level of acceptance towards attractive Package
Ho3: There is no relationship between demo graphic variables and level of acceptance towards attractive Package with reference to Intend towards selecting hotels. There is a significant difference between educational qualifications (0.970) and level of acceptance towards attractive Package with reference to Intend towards selecting hotels. Age The respondents from the age group Above 40 years (3.20), and below 20 years of age (3.04) disagree. The respondents from the age group between 21 -30 years (2.85), and between 31-40 years (2.86), agree towards attractive Package with reference to Intend towards selecting hotels.
Impact of Price complexity, discounting offers and attractive package towards selection of hotels.

Research Article
The above tables reveals that the R value for the model framed is at 0.872 which reveals that higher relationship exists between compared variables. It also reveals that price complexity has higher impact on price complexity than other variables.

FINDINGS
• 61.7% of the respondents are from the gender female.
• 49.2% of the respondents are from the age group between 21 -30 years.
• 60% of the respondents are married.
• 43.3% of the respondents completed their under graduation.
• 92.5% of the respondent's belongs to joint family • 33.3% of the respondents earning a annual income of Below Rs.100000. Comparison between demo graphic variables and level of acceptance towards price complexity Male respondents have higher level of acceptance towards price complexity. The respondents from the age group below 20 years, between 31-40 years, and Above 40 years strongly agree. The respondents from the age group between 21 -30 years agree towards price complexity with reference to Intend towards selecting hotels. Comparison between demographic variables and level of acceptance towards discounting Male respondents have higher level of acceptance towards discounting with reference to Intend towards selecting hotels. The respondents who have completed their school level, completed diploma agree, and respondents who have completed their under graduation, completed post-graduation, and completed other qualifications disagree towards discounting with reference to Intend towards selecting hotels.

Comparison between demographic variables and level of acceptance towards attractive Package
The respondents from the age group above 40 years, and below 20 years of age disagree. The respondents from the age group between 21 -30 years, and between 31-40 years, agree towards attractive package with reference to Intend towards selecting hotels. Impact of Price complexity, discounting offers and attractive package towards selection of hotels Price complexity has higher impact on price complexity than other variables.

SUGGESTIONS
Recommendation for hospitality industry and hotel sector definitely involves more investment from management and owners side into educational institution in order to provide more data in regards to selection and decision making process. This will lead industry professionals into making more data driven decision rather than assumption based. Furthermore, more education is needed in hospitality industry to employees as well as management on important factors that bring business to their establishment. Training to be provided to hoteliers in order to establish correlation between back of house data driven decision and front of house execution on those important factors that drive business forward.

CONCLUSION
The study is to analyse the attitude of the respondents towards discounting offers and attractive package given by hotels and to find out the impact of Price complexity, discounting offers and attractive package towards selection of hotels. The conclusion of the study is that price complexity has higher impact on price complexity than other variables taken for the study. It is also concluded that the quality of service has to be enhanced in future period of time based on packages designed and discounting factors.