I will organize the 39 hospitality service characteristics into five categories that capture the unique
aspects of tourism, hospitality, and leisure services. The (1) Core Service Properties category includes
foundational traits that distinguish services from physical goods, such as their intangible, inseparable,
variable, and perishable nature, emphasizing the experiential value and lack of ownership transfer. (2)
Service Quality and Delivery focuses on the challenges of maintaining consistent quality, highlighting
the critical role of human elements in creating the service experience. (3) Marketing and Positioning
Challenges addresses the difficulties in promoting intangible services, stressing the importance of image,
emotional appeal, word-of-mouth, and complex pricing and distribution strategies. (4) Consumer
Behavior and Risk centers on how consumers perceive services, noting the high risks (e.g., health,
financial) and emotional drivers that foster brand loyalty and complicate provider switching. Finally, (5)
Operational and Structural Dependencies covers external and operational factors, including reliance on
supply chains, seasonal demand fluctuations, and the need for partnerships and tangible elements to
enhance the service experience.
Categorized Groups of Hospitality Service Characteristics
1. Core Service Properties
1. Intangibility
2. Inseparability of production and consumption
3. Heterogeneity
4. Perishability
5. (No Transfer of) ownership (after purchase)
6. Purchase benefits (of the experience)
2. Service Quality and Delivery
7. Product
8. (Need for) consistency in service
9. Difficult quality control
10. No warranties or guarantees
11. People based and personality intensive
12. Service providers are product
13. Consumers are products
14. Customer cocreation of the product
15. Process emphasis
16. Customer service emphasis
3. Marketing and Positioning Challenges
17. Difficult to position and market
18. Greater emphasis on image
19. Easy imitation
20. Promotion
21. WOM importance
22. Off-peak promotion
23. (Prone to) Misleading advertising
24. Difficult to (set) price
25. Complex distribution channels
4. Consumer Behavior and Risk
26. Perceived purchase risk is high
27. Brand loyalty (peculiar)
28. Short exposure to service
29. Demand
30. Emotional appeal
5. Operational and Structural Dependencies
31. Supply dependent
32. Complementary sector dependent
33. Dispersed control and responsibility
34. Difficult cost determination
35. Physical evidence
36. Importance of programming and packaging
37. Importance of partnership and cooperation
38. Importance of relationships between customers and providers
39. International tourism imports and exports are difficult to analyze
