Purpose

The main purpose of this research is to understand if customers from countries with alleged similar culture expect services dimensions equally and to understand the level of proximity among those countries.

Design/methodology/approach

Quantitative methodology was used to test the level of proximity in customers' expectations about a service among different countries with alleged similar cultural patterns and if these customers share similar expectations about a set of service dimensions. This transnational research regarded the hotel service and data were collected from ten Latin countries: Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Romania, Brazil, Mexico, Uruguay, Bolivia and Chile. About 1262 customers answered a questionnaire about their expectations about service dimensions of the hotel service.

Findings

Findings show that Latin customers' expectations about services are not equal and that there is a low level of proximity or similarity of customers' expectations about service among Latin countries.

Research limitations/implications

Research was applied in one group of Latin countries that revealed a low level of proximity of customer's expectations about the hotel service. Further attempts should be made to expand research to additional Latin countries in order to allow understanding if the proximity level rises, decreases or maintains.

Originality/value

The major contribution was to use a cross-cultural approach to understand the level of proximity between the Latin countries in terms of customer's expectations about service dimensions, as these countries are frequently clustered into one group and customer's expectations are presumed to also be similar.

中文翻译：

---

拉丁国家之间在客户对酒店服务期望方面的接近程度

目的

本研究的主要目的是了解来自所谓具有相似文化的国家的客户是否期望相同的服务维度，并了解这些国家之间的接近程度。

设计/方法/方法

定量方法用于测试客户对具有相似文化模式的不同国家的服务期望的接近程度，以及这些客户是否对一组服务维度有相似的期望。这项跨国研究涉及酒店服务，数据来自十个拉丁国家：葡萄牙、西班牙、法国、意大利、罗马尼亚、巴西、墨西哥、乌拉圭、玻利维亚和智利。约 1262 名顾客回答了关于他们对酒店服务的服务维度的期望的问卷。

发现

调查结果表明，拉丁美洲客户对服务的期望并不相同，而且拉丁美洲国家之间客户对服务的期望的接近度或相似度较低。

研究限制/影响

在一组拉丁国家进行的研究表明，客户对酒店服务的期望与预期的接近程度较低。应进一步尝试将研究扩展到其他拉丁国家，以便了解邻近水平是否上升、下降或保持。

原创性/价值

主要贡献是使用跨文化方法来了解拉丁国家之间在客户对服务维度的期望方面的接近程度，因为这些国家经常聚集成一个组，并且客户的期望也被假定为相似。