Cross-national analysis of hotel customers’ attitudes toward complaining and their complaining behaviours

Complaint handling can have a significant effect on customer retention rates and word-of-mouth recommendations. Given their vital role, the majority of previous studies have focused on effective recovery strategies. However, to date only a little research has been carried out to examine whether consumer complaining attitudes and behaviours differ across nations. This study employed the concept of nationality to explore similarities and differences in complaining attitudes and behaviours of hotel customers from Turkey, the Netherlands, Britain and Israel. The research instrument involved a scenario and it was administered to 420 respondents. Results have shown that there are more differences than similarities in complaining behaviours of hotel customers from these countries. A moderate relationship between customers’ attitudes to the act of complaining and their complaining behaviours was found. Managerial implications of the study are discussed.