Architectural Innovations are Competitive Advantage for Hotels in Tourism Industry?: What Customers, Managers and Employees Think about it?

This study aims to find an answer for the question that is whether architectural innovations are supplying an advantage for hotels in tourism sector. So, the study focuses on measuring and comparing the perceptions of tourists, managers and employees about architectural design advantage of tourism hotels. And Granada, a five-stars and 12-months servicing hotel in Alanya destination, was selected as a research hotel because of its interesting and modern architectural design. Also, satisfaction level of tourists and employees from Granada's ship design and decorative (interior) design was examined in the study. At the end of the survey completed in December 2012, a total of 297 completed questionnaires were returned, 200 (20.3 percent response rate) from 771 customers (tourists) staying at the hotel, and 97 (32.3 percent response rate) from 300 hotel staffs. Research results indicate that customers, employees and managers believe that architectural innovations are advantage in competition for hotels in tourism industry. According to the research results, both customers and staffs are very satisfied from Granada's ship (external) and decorative (interior) design. Furthermore, T-Test results do show that there are statistical differences between the evaluations of hotel staffs and customers with some research items.