Abstract:

Getting customers and retaining them is always the greatest objective of any hotel management aiming to meet the trinity of investment objective which are to preserve capital, enhance its value and to earn net cash profit on the capital invested. One impactful way of achieving that objective is provision and sustenance of state of the earth facilities, complementing the building fabric. Assessing the operational effectiveness of such facilities has always been problematic in that opinions of the technicians or engineers are sought and such opinions are rooted in intuition (subjective and speculative, though cheaper) instead of reliance on standard tests laid down by established institutions (objective and scientific, though expensive and laborious). One sure way of achieving good result is seeking the perception of the hotel users (the customers) on the operational effectiveness of the facilities they are enjoying. This research seeks to establish the operational effectiveness of hotel facilities in South-Western Nigeria via customers’ perception. The research is executed in order to explore alternative way of measuring performance of hotel facilities. In order to achieve the aim, data were collected from hotels’ customers in addition to physical assessment of hotel facilities and system operations. Stratified sampling technique was used in selecting the samples while sample size determination formula suggested by Kothari (1978) was used to determine the sample size. Data analysis was executed using descriptive statistics, Spearman Correlation analysis and relative importance index. It was found that there is disparity between the assessment of the technicians or engineers and the customers who are using and paying for the facilities. It was also found that Engineers focus on operational sturdiness of facilities as main yardstick for measuring performance of facilities while users focus on quantity, quality as well as operational sturdiness of the facilities. It recommended that three parameters (Quantity, Quality and Operational Sturdiness) should come into being for performance measurement of facilities while researchers must explore further the linkages between the three variables.