General Introduction

This dissertation prepared for Taylor’s university Bachelor of International Hospitality

Management (HONS).

1.1Theme of research

The theme of research is on The Effect of Hotel Employees' Interpersonal Trust on Customer's
Loyalty and Repurchase Intention purposes.

1.2 Field of study

This research will be carried out in the field of hospitality, which focuses on ‘the factors of
between employee and guest interpersonal relationship leads to guest loyalty and repurchase
intention’.

1.3 Topic of Research

The topic of research is ‘The Effect of Hotel Employees' Interpersonal Trust on Customer's
Loyalty and Repurchase Intention’.

1.4 Interest and Importance of topic chosen

Resorts are identified as self-contained tourism complexes providing recreation,

accommodations, and social or recreation activities in a single location where people congregate
in large numbers (Jafari, 2000; King & Spearritt, 2001). A resort hotel has come to identify a
facility where vacation experiences can be had and with which guests often associate high-
quality accommodations that provide rest and relaxation (Murphy, 2007). They can cater
primarily to vacationers with longer lengths of stay, are often isolated in their location, and are
highly seasonal (Gee, 1996).

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A lot of service companies try to build a good relationship in keen competition between
customer and resort hotel employee as to make their service quality higher. Recently, more
competition comes because there are lots of new resort hotels that have appeared. Through this,
the resort hotels are tried to provide not only new products but also provide better services to
satisfy the customer demands.

Rather than having one-shot deals in a short-term point of view, the resort hotels are trying to
gain the satisfaction and trust from the customer in long-term point of view for maintaining a
friendly relationship. Especially, most of the guests from resort hotels have purpose which are
taking a rest or seek for entertainment instead of simply staying there. They also want to receive
personalized treatment like a family member and want to have a good rest and fun in the resort
hotel differentially with business hotels. Because of these kinds of characteristics compared with
commercial hotels, the resort hotel should have more personal and friendly relationships with the
customers. They also suffer the difficulty of retaining the customer’s loyalty and thus must get a
trust from the customer. That being said, hotel companies emphasize on relationship
establishments with customers for retaining the customer’s trust. However, most of hotels have
focused on a general approach to simply realize the customer satisfaction or impress them rather
than having an interest about what kind of structure recognized can bring a trust from the
customer. Having a long-term relationship with customer they should provide trust and
satisfaction to the customer more than anything to make the loyal customer.

Despite of widespread recognition about importance about the lack of trust with confidence of
the theoretical formulations especially, an empirical study has not made systematically.
Especially, there is no research on interpersonal trust and there have been awareness of the
importance of the trust relationship between the customers. Even though the relationship is very
important in hotel industry more than anything there are only few studies. Because of spreading a
five-day work week, increasing spare time and the interest of well-being the interest of resort
hotel is increasing however, the studies among them are not shown.

1.5 Research Objectives:

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The main aim of this study is to analyze how the relationship between customer and employee
affect the customer’s royalty and repurchase intention. The research objectives of this research;

1. To understand how the relationship between employee and guests affect the repurchasing of
product and customer loyalty.

2. Identify the essence of trust of build the relationship between employee and customer.

1.6 Research Questions/Hypothesis:

The research question of this research is what deciding factor in building an interpersonal
relationship between employee and guest and whether it leads to guest loyalty and repurchase
intention or not.

Trust H1 Relationship H2 Repurchase H3 Customer loyalty

between intention
employee and
customer

 H1. There are significant / positive factors that trust between employee and guest to
build interpersonal relationship.
Determine the main factors of building the interpersonal relationship between employee
and guest.

 H2. There are significant / positive factors that interpersonal relationship between
employee and guest leads the guest to have repurchase intention
Determine the main essence how the interpersonal relationship between employee and
guest leads the guest to have repurchase intention.

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  H3. There are significant / positive factors that guest repurchase intention leads the
guest to have loyalty
Determine the main essence how repurchase intention leads the guests to have loyalty.

1.7 Research Methodology

This research will be a quantitative base approach with using questionnaires for data collection
and statistical product and service solutions (SPSS) for analyzing.

1.8 Structure Plan of Research

Part1: Theoretical Framework -

This section includes literature review and problematic. Multiple references will be summarized
for better understanding towards the overview of the topic.

Part2: Methods and Findings –

Includes research Methodology, finding and analysis and recommendation.

General Conclusion –

Highlight the strengths, limitation of the studies and recommendation for future research.

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 PART 1

Literature Review and Problematic/Hypothesis

5
Literature Review

1.1 Relationship between employee and customer

The customer’s intention to continue to conduct business with the selling firm may be based on
the customer’s interactions with the salesperson and other employees, the comparative advantage
of the firm’s product/service offering, and/or other loyalty generating activities associated with
the selling firm (Reynolds and Beatty, 1999). Due to these reasons, service marketing regards the
quality of service is a very important role to be decided agreement of service between employee
and customer (Beatty et al. 1996, Booms and Tetreault 1990: Crosby, Evans and Cowles 1990).
Service marketing administrators are also focused to have a stable relationship with customer but
the study about existing relation refers satisfaction, trust, relation immersion and so one.
However, satisfaction has a limitation due to it only measuring the expectation disagreement of
short-term exchange. Moreover Yim, Tse and Chan (2008) said the trust between employee and
customer may not connect customer to have a loyalty of company. In other words, the
relationship between employee and customer has intimate correlation with the relationship
between service company and customer trust (Doney and Cannon, 1997). However, Bendapudi

6
and Leone (2002) see the situation as negative perception the relation embedded due to
customers relying on their emotions and social life on employees. Because of the customers rely
on employees, if employees leave the company the chance of customers leaving the company is
getting higher as well. Therefore, the friendship or social relationship can affect the relation
perception of customer or relation maintenance behavior between employee and customer
(Gremler and Guinner 2000: Guinner, Gremler and Bitner 1998: Price and Arnould 1999).

Companies have been interested in employees’ role to seek long-term relationship. Especially,
having a form and maintenance relationship with customer is an important marketing strategy in
service industry (Gwinner, Gremler and Bitner, 1998). Trust on company and employee affect
the customer to repurchase intention, loyalty and reduce the risk elements of customers in a
positive way. Swan and Oliver (1989) also found out the differences between employees and
companies are about leading variables and result variables of satisfaction, followed by existing
studies, relationships between employees and customers affect the loyalty of customers strongly.

Meanwhile, Price and Arnould (1999) insisted commercial relationship between employee and
customer is important. Gremler and Gwinner (2000) high light the relationship between
employee and customer rapport is a connection personally. However, commercial relationship
and rapport are variable to explain the relation of one to one between employee and customer.

1.2 Customer loyalty

“Continuous attitude for certain trademarks affects in buyer behavior.” was insisted by Copeland
at first. Customer retention has brand, product or customer loyalty that required mature
psychological relationships with the company (Day, 1969) and repurchase intention which means
basic repetition purchase on cognitive, emotional, evaluation and organic which are main causes
of attitude (Jacoby, 1997).

Oliver defined the loyalty of customer as “action loyalty” in which consumers show habit or
routines of repurchase and positive word-of-mouth behavior. Later stages represent higher levels
of consumers’ commitment. The Influence of the hotel firm’s quality of service towards the
product or service provider which demonstrated by decreased brand switching behaviors (Oliver,
1993).

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Many studies mentioned if the customer is satisfied with the product and service they can be a
loyal customer (Fornell, 1992) and satisfaction is the preceding factor and affects the loyalty
(Dick and Basu, 1994, Oliva, Oliver, and McMillan, 1992).

A study of Beatty also studied those who have long-term relationships with customers are close
with the workers and they also have a strong friendships in social perspectives (Beatty, Mayer,
Coleman, Reynolds, and Lee, 1996).

Therefore, satisfaction impacts loyalty. Sheth and Parvatiyar also have studied that there are
trends to reduce a danger according to the choice of product and develop the loyalty through
customer marketer or continuously fellowship with the employee (Sheth and Parvatiyar, 1995).

Therefore, loyalty means a consistency of the customer that continuously purchases a certain
product (Kim Kyung Hoon, Lee Jong Young , Lee Sang Han, 1998), service loyalty means
customer shows an action of purchase or intent to have a positive attitude about the specific
service provider or only a certain supplier is used if they need the same service (Gremler, 1995).

There is consensus that a distinction exists between repeat purchase behaviors, even if derived
from customer satisfaction, and genuine loyalty. Neal (2000) suggests that behavioral loyalty is
more important to an organization as actual purchase behavior is more relevant than attitudinal
intentions. This reflects recognition that behavioral loyalty derives from many sources, including
attitudinal loyalty, as well as other reasons, such as convenience and lack of choice (Neal, 2000;
Oliver, 1999). Oliver (1999) proposes that customer loyalty can be conceptualized in terms of
four loyalty aspects such as cognitive, affective, co-native and behavioral. The former three
aspects sequentially contribute to the realization of behavioral loyalty. Hence, the aspect of
behavioral loyalty has been suggested as the ultimate concern in their conceptual models (Dick
and Basu, 1994; Oliver, 1999). Some studies (e.g., Reichheld & Sasser, 1990: Zeithaml, Berry,
&Parasuraman, 1996) have reported that customer satisfaction is significantly related to loyalty,
whereas others (e.g., Faullant, Matzler, & Fuller, 2008) have stated that the customer satisfaction
does not always translate directly into customer loyalty. As Mittal and Kamakura (2001) showed
in their analysis, repurchase rates may also differ systematically among groups of customers with
the same satisfaction rating.

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For the customer loyalty I would like to use (Reichheld & Sasser, 1990: Zeithaml, Berry, &
Parasurama, 1996) because it is more relevant with my research due to my research is about
relationship between resort hotel employee and customer so that should be small feelings or
emotions will make the loyalty

Behavioral
dimension of
customer loyalty

Customer Purchase
Behavior

Customer satisfaction

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 Customer Trust

Customer Commitment

Customer Loyalty Attitude

Customer Profitability

Attitudinal
dimension
customer loyalty

FIGURE 1

CUSTOMER SATISFACTION AND LOYALTY IN A DIGITAL ENVIRONMENT: AN

EMPIRICAL TEST

Relationship – Salesperson – Owned Selling Firm Latent

Enhancing Loyalty Financial Risk
Activities

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 Customer willingness to pay a
by the Firm price premium
Customer Selling effectiveness
Sales grow to the customer

FIGURE 2

ANTECEDENTS AND EFFECTS OF LOYALTY TO THE SELLING FIRM AND

SALESPERSON-OWNED LOYALTY

1.3Interpersonal trust

Trust is defined belief, action, expectation in various ways but trust means “An attitude that is
willing to trust as expected from other people’s intentions or actions positively.” Or “It is an
expectation that is members are willing to follow the actions of other members which is the other
members will do specific behaviors that is important to those who trust regardless of ability of
control and monitor, they are expecting that they will be given a specific action to them that they
can trust (Mayer, Davis, and Schoorman, 1995). The interpersonal trust also has been defined in
many ways based on many studies and the comparatives. First of all, the trust has been defined
as an personal characteristic in psychological perception, Typically been dealt with in the study
of trust in a personal area for members which is formed by a member of the organization of
interpersonal trust and organizational trust (Zaheer, McEvily and Perrone,1998). Based on the
expectation that is becoming a danger to yourself than that gains a benefit the interpersonal can
create which is employees believe in customers willing to take the risk (Barber,1983).

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Many researchers' views on interpersonal trust are somewhat different, but most of researchers
agreed the act that the basic psychological state. Here are two journals I have found. first, Barder
said there are general function that is guide between moral expectations, actors and the systems
to maintain social order and cognitive, social control function and that was presented about
expression of shared values and maintenance functions by separating and accept the risk by
lowering transaction costs in relation to the social and economic role in the social and
organizational relationships (Day, 1969).

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 Amount of
communication

Quality of
communication
Perceived follow -
through Organizational Employee
openness participation
Perceived trust
worthiness
Output
Trust performance
Task Personal Perceived risk
interdependence communication

Process
Performance
Perceived reward

Trust propensity

Formalization

FIGURE 3

ZOLIN RESEARCH PROGRAM’S THEORETICAL MODEL OF INTERPERSONAL TRUST

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1.4 Repurchase intention

Repurchase intention can be defined the possibility of the customer will use the service provider
continuously in the future (Mackenzie and Lutz, 1989), customer satisfaction shows a general
positive result that not only attitude after the purchase but also repurchase intention and changed
trademark (Oliver, 1980).

Repeat purchase action is affected by previous step’s intention and switched action is affected by
dissatisfaction found out from a suggested cognitive study about the satisfaction and
dissatisfaction that affect continuous purchase action (Labarbera, 1983), as phasing in the theoy
that mismatched in recognition, they have revealed that between the customer satisfaction and
repurchase intention’s relationship affection is weak (Geva and Goldman, 1990).

Thus, in service industry which is intangible, where difference, production and consumption of
non-disjunction and extinction characteristic emphasize maintaining the relationship between the
customer and service provider, in other word, it is hard to evaluate before the customer get the
service and due to the uncertainty of the same quality provided having more difficulty of
evaluating the service than product of categories. To reduce this kind of difficulty the customer
keeps dealing with the employee company that the customer has received a good service.

The findings of past studies regarding the relationship between overall satisfaction and
repurchase behavior are somewhat contradictory.

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 PART 2

Research Methodology / Finding and Analysis

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2.1 Research Methodology

The methodology includes how to the select research design; procedure and instrument as
well as how conduct data analysis. The purpose of this study was the effect of resort employee’s
interpersonal relationship trust on guest loyalty and repurchase intention.

I. Key Research questions

This research will be carried out in the field of hospitality, which focuses on ‘Guest Loyalty’ and
‘Guest Repurchase Intention’. The key research question is ‘Interpersonal Trust between
employee and guest’.

II. Research Design

To find the how the interpersonal relationship between employee and guest affect guest loyalty
and repurchase intention. Based on the questionnaire it is separated in 2 parts which are
‘employees’ guests management skills’ and ‘employees’ working ability’. Throughout these
questionnaires one can find the most important essence what makes help to build the
interpersonal relationship between employee and guests to lead the guests have loyalty and
repurchase intention. Thus, the researcher decided to collect 200 responses for this study. This
research design will be a quantitative method of approach that uses numerical statistics.

III. Sampling Methods

To sampling method of this study is using convenience sampling in the following processing.
Firstly, selection is filtered in choosing Korean students studying in Malaysia. Secondly, the
respondents that are in their 20s were selected to facilitate the extraction of the sample. Third, the
survey was conducted in Google online website.

To verify the hypothesis of this research, the survey is conducted by using online survey method.
It was posted on hospitality web-page on communication site such as Facebook after that
collected valid sample of 212 of responses they were used for analysis of this study.

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 Sample Students

Sample method Convenience sampling method

Survey method Self-survey by online

Sample size 212

Table 1: The structure of questionnaire

IV. Research Procedure

A. Observation
Self-observations on the factors that affect guest loyalty and repurchase intention of
interpersonal trust between employee and guest.
B. Self-involvement
Personal research from secondary data
C. Conduct Questionnaires
The questionnaires were conducted those who visited resort before.
D. Data collection and analysis
Collected 212 online surveys analyzed them statistic system
E. Research finding reporting
Reporting about the result of data analysis

V. Research Instruments

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A. Questionnaires
Questionnaires were used to analyze the hypothesis for this study.
Questionnaire made up with the three parts. Part one is in regards to the demographic
characteristics of the respondents and the other parts are about essence factors of building
the trust relationships between employees and guests.
Detail contents are as follows:
First part of the questionnaire is about the demographic characteristics such as gender,
age, nationality, race, educational level, marital status, occupation and household income
per month (RM). The questions about to know what factors are the most important and
affect the guest to build the trust interpersonal relationship and make the guests have
loyalty and repurchase intention depends on their general demographic characteristic. It
consists of total 8 questions for first part.

Second part is about the essences factors that affect the guest loyalty and repurchase
intention on employee’s trust interpersonal relationship. It consists of total 16questions.

The number
Variable Content of question Measure
 Demographic characteristic-
Respondents’ gender, age,
General nationality, race, educational level, 8 Multiple choice
data marital status, occupation and
household income per month (RM)

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 Essence
factors the
guest to have  Guest management and working Likert
loyalty and ability of employees’ 16 from 1 to 4
repurchase
intention

Table 2: The questionnaire configuration

B. Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS)

To analyze data, using SPSS for analyze and data management_17.0

vi. Statistical Method

To prove the hypotheses relationship in this study, those are used as statistical methods.

1) Frequency of Demographic
2) Guest management of employees’
3) Employee’s working ability
4) Reliability analysis
5) Correlations analysis

vii. Profile of Respondents

Demographic characteristic
Gender Female
Age 20s

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 Nationality Malaysian
Race Chinese
Educational level University/College
Marital Status Single
Occupation Student
Household Income Per Month(RM) ≥ 4,001
Guest management
Ability to manage the guests Agree
Ensuring the guests’ satisfaction Strongly agree
Providing equivalent right to all the guests Strongly agree
Equal treatment towards all the guests Agree
Building an interpersonal relationship with the guests Agree
Retaining the interpersonal relationship with the guests Strongly agree
Understanding the guests’ needs Strongly agree
Sincerity to the guests Strongly agree
Working ability
Problem-solving ability Disagree
Awareness of guests’ needs Agree
Professional knowledge and skills Strongly agree
Giving a reliable information to the guests Strongly agree
Trustworthy between what employees’ words on products or Strongly agree
services
Good communication skills with the guests Strongly agree
Listening the guests’ opinions Strongly agree
Accepting criticism to further improve himself/herself Agree

Table 3: General Profile of Korean student in Malaysia

2.2 Findings and Analysis

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The questionnaire is design into three parts whereby each part will questionnaire on respondents’
demographic background, guest management how the employee manage their guests and
employees’ working abilities.

2.2.1 Part A: Demographic

[Link] Gender

Gender Frequency Percent

Male 100 47.2

Female 112 52.8

Total 212 100

Table 4: Gender Frequency

Gender Male Female

Figure 4: Percentage of gender respondents

The gender of 212 respondents those who visited resort in Malaysia are following as Table 3 and
Figure 4. Based from 212 respondents of the questionnaire, 47.2% of them are males and 52.8%
of them are female. It shows that the numbers of male respondents are more than female

21
respondents. But it can see the gender is not regarded as factor for affecting guest loyalty and
repurchase intention.

[Link] Age

N=212 Frequency Percentage

10s 20 9.4

20s 176 83

30s 16 7.5

Total 212 100

Table 5: Age Frequency

180

160

140

120

100
Age
80

60

40

20

0
10s 20s 30s 40s

Figure 5: Group ages of respondents

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From the data, it is obvious the age groups of 20s are responded than the others group one. Out
of 212 respondents, 20 of them are the age group of 10s, 176 is from the age group of 20s, 16 of
them is from the age group 30s and 0 out from the 212 is from the age group of 40s.

[Link] Nationality

N=212 Frequency Percentage

Malaysian 95 44.8

Non-Malaysian 117 55.2

Total 212 100

Table 6: Nationality Frequency

Nationality

Malaysian
Non-
Malaysian

Figure 6: Nationality of respondents

23
As the Malaysia is the one of the international country there are 117 respondents are non-
Malaysian and 95 respondents are Malaysian.

[Link] Race

N=212 Frequency Percent

Malay 56 26.4

Chinese 44 10.8

Indian 5 2.4

Others 107 50.5

Total 212 100

Table 7: Race Frequency

race

Malay
Chinese
Indian
Others

24
Figure 7: Race of respondents

From the survey, majority of race of respondents are the others which is 50.5%. 2nd highest race
is Malay with 26.4%. 3rd is Chinese with 10.8% and lastly 2.4% are Indian. It showed a low
percentage compared others.

[Link] Educational Level

N=212 Frequency Percentage

High School 7 3.3

University/College 187 88.2

Graduate School 18 8.5

Total 212 100

Table 8: Educational Level Frequency

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 Educational Level

High School
University/College
Grduate School

Figure 8: Educational Level of respondents

Out of 212 respondents, Majority of 88.2% of respondents’ educational level is

university/college follow by 8.5% of respondents’ educational level is graduated school and
3.3% of respondents’ are high school.

From this respond of the people, it clearly shows that majority of the respondents’ educational
level is at least university and college.

[Link] Marital Status

N=212 Frequency Percentage

Single 194 91.5

Married 18 8.5

Total 212 100

Table 9: Marital Status Frequency

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 Marital Status

Single
Married

Figure 9: Marital Status of respondents

The marital status of respondents is following as Figure 9. Based from 212 respondents of the
questionnaire, 91.5%of of them are single and 8.5% of them are married. As can see from the
data clearly, most of the respondents are single.

[Link] Occupation

N=212 Frequency Percentage

Student 183 86.3

Full time job 20 9.4

Part time job 9 4.2

Total 212 100

Table 10: Occupation Frequency

27
 Occupation
200
180
160
140
120 Occupatio
100 n
80
60
40
20
0
Student Full time job Part time job

Figure 10: Occupation Percentage

Out of all respondents, the percentage of respondent occupation is the highest with 86.3%. Full
time job was second with 9.4% and 4.2% of respondents are part time job.

As we can see from this graph, it shows that majority of respondents are students. However,
occupation does not affect the guest loyalty and repurchase intention between trust relationship
between employee and guest.

[Link] Monthly Income (RM)

N=212 Frequency Percentage

≤1,000 48 22.6
1,001 – 2,000 62 29.2
2,001 – 3,000 46 21.7
3,001 – 4,000 22 10.4
≥4,001 34 16.0

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 Total 212 100
Table 11: Monthly Income (RM) Frequency

Monthly Income (RM)

70

60

50
Household Income Per Month
40 (RM)
30

20

10

0
≤1,000 1,001 - 2,000 2,001 - 3,000 3,001 - 4,000 ≥4,001

Figure 11: Monthly Income (RM) of respondents

The household income per month of 212 respondents is following as Figure 11. Based from 212
respondents of the questionnaire, 29.2% of them with the range of RM1,001 – 2,000 household
income follow by 22.6% of them with the range of below RM1,000. 21.7% respondents had
2,001 – 3,000. The ranges of the household income per month of respondents from these two are
similar percentage. 16% respondents had more than RM4,000 and 10.4% respondents are 3,001
– 4,000.

As we can see from the data, it shows that majority of respondents’ household income per month
are not high due to follow by Figure 10, the majority of the occupation of respondents are
students. Therefore, the respondents’ household income may not high. However, in my study this
household income would not affect my factors of this study.

29
2.2.2 Part B: Guest Management

[Link] Building an interpersonal relationship with the guests

N=212 Category Frequency Percent

Strongly disagree 7 3.3

Disagree 18 8.5
Ability to manage the
guest Agree 92 43.4

Strongly Agree 95 44.8

Total 212 100

Table 12: Building an interpersonal relationship with the guests Frequency

Building an interpersonal relationship with the guests

100
90
80
70
Building an interpersonal
60 relationship with the guests
50
40
30
20
10
0
Strognly Disagree Disagree Agree Strognly Agree

Figure 12: Building an interpersonal relationship with the guests

From the data, it is obviously many respondents have considered building an interpersonal
relationship with the guests is very important make guest to have loyalty and repurchase

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intention. Out of 212 respondents 44.8% of them are strongly agree follow by 43.4% of them are
agree. Majority of respondents consider that building an interpersonal relationship with the
guests from these two categories on similar percentage. 18% of them are disagree, 7% of them
are strongly agree. As we can see from the graph, the gap between strongly agree, agree and
disagree, strongly agree are very high.

[Link] Retaining the interpersonal relationship with the guests

N=212 Categories Frequency Percent

Retaining the Strongly Disagree 10 4.7

interpersonal
relationship with the Disagree 17 8.0
Agree 92 43.4
guests Strongly Agree 93 43.9
Table 13: Retaining the interpersonal relationship with the guests Frequency

Retaining the interpersonal relationship with the guests

100
90
80
70
Retaining the interpersonal
60
relationship with the guests
50
40
30
20
10
0
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

31
Figure 13: Retaining the interpersonal relationship with the guests

According to the result, majority of respondents strongly agree with retaining the interpersonal
relationship with the guests affects the guest loyalty and repurchase intention. 43.9% of
respondents are strongly agree and 43.4% of them are agree similarly. On the other hand, 8% and
4.7% of them are disagree and disagree.

[Link] Giving reliable information to the guests

N=212 Categories Frequency Percent

Giving a reliable Strongly Disagree 2 .9

information to the
guests Disagree 10 4.7
Agree 95 44.8
Strongly Agree 105 49.5
Table 14: Giving reliable information to the guests Frequency

Giving reliable information to the guests

120

100

80
Giving reliable information
to the guests
60

40

20

0
Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

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Figure 14: Giving reliable information to the guests

From the survey, out from 212 respondents, majority of 49.5% of them choose strongly agree
with giving reliable information to the guests, similarly, 44.8% of respondents agree, 4.7% of
them disagree and 0.9% respondents strongly disagree.

From the respond of the respondents, it clearly shows that majority of the respondents have
considered giving reliable information to the guests is one of the most important essence the
guests to have loyalty and repurchase intention as well.

2.2.3 The effect of employees’ interpersonal relationship on guest loyalty and repurchase
intention

Standard
Items Item Mean
Deviation
13 Good communication skills with the guests 3.4953 .58817

1 Ability to manage the guests 3.4906 .58000

9 Problem-solving ability 3.4623 .64836

10 Awareness of guests’ needs 3.4575 .63327

8 Sincerity to the guests 3.4481 .64001

12 Giving reliable information to the guests 3.4292 .63072

16 Trustworthy on employee’s words 3.4104 .71310

14 Listening the guests’ opinions 3.4009 .57975

2 Ensuring the guests satisfaction 3.3679 .79483

7 Understanding the guests’ needs 3.3585 .63378

4 Equal treatment towards all the guests 3.3113 .80122

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 15 Accepting criticism to further improve himself/herself 3.3019 .93555

5 Building an interpersonal relationship with the guests 3.2972 .76126

11 Professional knowledge and skills 3.2783 .71735

6 Retaining the interpersonal relationship with the guests 3.2642 .80050

3 Providing equivalent right to all the guests 3.1698 .88668

Table 15: The mean score of items

The objective this research is to identify the effect on hotel employee’s interpersonal relationship
trust on guest loyalty and repurchase intention. As extract the essence of building an
interpersonal relationship between employee and guest was achieved through mean rating of 15
items listed in above table. To find out essence of the factors in relationship between employee
and guest, the 16 items were asked to rate on a four point likert scale: 1= “Strongly Agree” to
4=”Strongly Disagree”.

This table 14 was the highlights of the mean score and the ranking of interpersonal relationship
between employee and guest and it leads guest to have a loyalty and repurchase intention
regarding to the 16 items. The higher the mean scores indicate that the respondents were strongly
agree; while the lower the mean scores shows that the respondents were strongly disagree. The
ranking indicated that most of the items were above the midpoint of the scale. This indicates that
these most of 16 items had agreed with interpersonal relationship trust between employee and
guest affect the guest loyalty and repurchase intention.

‘Good communication skills with the guests’, ‘Ability to manage the guests’, ‘Problem-solving
ability’, ‘Awareness of guests’ needs’, ‘Sincerity to the guests’, ‘Giving reliable information to

34
the guests’ and ‘Trustworthy on employee’s words’ were considered “Strongly agree”. These
items were rated above 3.41. Moreover, we can see from the mean ratings that these items are
main essence to make the guest to have loyalty and repurchase intention to the hotel.

The lower mean scores of several items that rated below average were ‘Listening the guests’
opinions’, ‘Ensuring the guests satisfaction’, ‘Understanding the guests’ needs’, ‘Equal treatment
towards all the guests’, ‘Accepting criticism to further improve himself/herself’, ‘Building an
interpersonal relationship with the guests’, ‘Professional knowledge and skills’, ‘Retaining the
interpersonal relationship with the guests’ and ‘Providing equivalent right to all the guests’.
Their mean ratings ranged from 3.1698 to 3.4009, it is less than 3.41. This is showed that
respondents are considered most of items to have a loyalty to the hotel and repurchase intention.

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2.2.4 Reliability analysis

Table 15 demonstrates that the overall reliability (internal consistency) of the study was found to
be coefficient alpha 0.807, which is deemed acceptable (Churchill, 1979; Nunnally, 1978).
Which suggests that the “measures {were} free from random error and thus reliability
coefficients estimate the amount of systematic variance (Churchill, 1979, P. 4). Reliability
analysis is well known as to test the ‘degree of consistency between measures of the scale’
(Mehrens & Lehman, 1987), when each factor (interpersonal trust variables) such as ‘employee’s
guest management’ and ‘employee’s working ability’ was examined, it was found to be reliable
with coefficients alpha more than 0.70 at aggregate level, cut-off point (Churchill, 1979;
Nunnally, 1978). The high alpha values indicated good internal consistency among the items,
and the high alpha value for the overall scale indicated that convergent validity was met
(Parasuraman, Berry & Zeithaml, 1991).

Variables Items Cronbach’s Alpha N of Items

1
2
3
Dimension 1 4
.687 8
Guest management 5
6
7
8
Dimension 2 9 .700 8
Working ability 10
11
12
13
14
15

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 16
Overall .807 16
Table 16: Reliability analysis of 2 dimensions

2.2.5 Correlation analysis

In the present study correlation analysis was employed since “correlation analysis involves
ensuring the closeness of the relationship between two or more variables; it considers the joint
variation of two measures” (Churchill, 1995, p. 887). In this study, in order to analyze the
correlation of variables was carried out using Pearson’s correlation coefficient. The results are as
follows.

Correlations
N=212 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 Q7 Q8
Pearson Correlation Q1 1.000 .276 .114 .110 .412 .206 .333 .346
Q2 .276 1.000 .339 .136 .104 .240 .196 .180
Q3 .114 .339 1.000 .246 .182 .169 .131 .320
Q4 .110 .136 .246 1.000 .064 .236 .190 .294
Q5 .412 .104 .182 .064 1.000 .205 .257 .250
Q6 .206 .240 .169 .236 .205 1.000 .250 .191
Q7 .333 .196 .131 .190 .257 .250 1.000 .355
Q8 .346 .180 .320 .294 .250 .191 .355 1.000
Sig. (1-tailed) Q1 . .000 .052 .058 .0000 .002 .000 .000
Q2 .000 . .000 .026 .070 .000 .002 .005
Q3 .052 .000 . .000 .005 .008 .031 .000
Q4 .058 .026 .000 . .180 .000 .003 .000
Q5 .000 .070 .005 .180 . .002 .000 .000
Q6 .002 .000 .008 .000 .002 . .000 .003
Q7 .000 .002 .031 .003 .000 .000 . .000
Q8 .000 .005 .000 .000 .000 .003 .000 .
N Q1 212 212 212 212 212 212 212 212
Q2 212 212 212 212 212 212 212 212
Q3 212 212 212 212 212 212 212 212
Q4 212 212 212 212 212 212 212 212
Q5 212 212 212 212 212 212 212 212
Q6 212 212 212 212 212 212 212 212
Q7 212 212 212 212 212 212 212 212

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 Q8 212 212 212 212 212 212 212 212

Table 17: Correlation analysis of 8questions (Dimension 1)

Correlations

N=212 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 Q7 Q8
Pearson Correlation Q1 1.000 .299 .281 .177 .203 .406 .151 .088
Q2 .299 1.000 .251 .280 .247 .321 .180 .306
Q3 .281 .251 1.000 .298 .290 .205 .035 .290
Q4 .177 .280 .298 1.000 .290 .271 .152 .319
Q5 .203 .247 .290 .290 1.000 .295 .140 .289
Q6 .406 .321 .205 .271 .295 1.000 .260 .223
Q7 .151 .180 .035 .152 .140 .260 1.000 .218
Q8 .306 .290 .319 .289 .223 .218 1.000 .218
Sig. (1-tailed) Q1 . .000 .000 .006 .002 .000 .016 .105
Q2 .000 . .000 .000 .000 .000 .005 .000
Q3 .000 .000 .000 . .000 .000 .307 .000
Q4 .006 .000 .000 . .000 .000 .015 .000
Q5 .002 .000 .000 .000 . .000 .023 .000
Q6 .002 .000 .008 .000 .002 . .000 .003
Q7 .000 .000 .002 .000 .000 . .000 .001
Q8 .016 .005 .307 .015 .023 .000 . .001
N Q1 212 212 212 212 212 212 212 212
Q2 212 212 212 212 212 212 212 212
Q3 212 212 212 212 212 212 212 212
Q4 212 212 212 212 212 212 212 212
Q5 212 212 212 212 212 212 212 212
Q6 212 212 212 212 212 212 212 212
Q7 212 212 212 212 212 212 212 212
Q8 212 212 212 212 212 212 212 212

Table 18: Correlations analysis of 8 questions (Dimension 2)

Recommendation

From the finding and analysis, it is obviously shows an interpersonal trust relationship is affected
the guest to have a loyalty and repurchase intention in the future. However, to make the guest

38
have a loyalty and repurchase intention they need to make an interpersonal relationship with the
guests. Therefore, there are 8 essences to build the interpersonal relationship which are ‘good
communication skills’, ‘ability to manage the guest’, ‘problem-solving ability’, sincerity to the
guests’, giving reliability information to the guests’, ‘trustworthy on employee’s words’,
listening the guests opinion’ and ‘ensuring the guests satisfaction’. As the hospitality industry
market is getting bigger and wider the hospitality industry should know how to manage and
maintain their own guests. Today more and more people want to go to resort due to they believe
in the resort there is more personalize service. Thus, to satisfy the guests the resort should
improve the 8 essences above. Having a good communication skill is very important because
through the communication the guests can feel comfortable and it helps the employee to find
what guests’ need faster. The ability to manage the guest means how well they manage their own
guests such as send a message the new products or promotion alert to the guests stimulates the
guests want to visit the resort again. Problem-solving ability is also one of the essence if the
guests are facing a problem the employee should know what they can do and how to solve the
problem for the guests. The other essences there are sincerity to the guests, giving reliability
information, trustworthy on employee’s words, listening the guests’ opinion and ensuring the
guests’ satisfaction. Approach to the guests sincerely and listen what the guests comment on the
products and services then adjust it to action not only finish in listening. Then the guest can feel
the employees are concerning and listening the guest opinion then they will satisfy in future visit.
Giving reliable information also one of the most important factors to make the guest loyal and
have repurchase intention. If the product and service are different what the guests’ heard and
expected it can affect the resort reputation and guests’ satisfaction as well.

General Conclusion

39
Resort management has been a huge part of hospitality industry that the guests relax, enjoy their
holidays and satisfied with more personalize services. Because of those expectations the number
of people visit the resort has been increased. Resort has been providing the good facilities the
guests’ to rest, enjoy sports and play while they are staying. It is also called holiday resort. The
resort creates the guests to enjoy their staying, leisure, sports and shopping at the same time and
some of the areas are built only for holiday resort. Therefore, the number of the guest who wants
to enjoy the leisure time is rapidly increasing to release the stress from the work and ordinary life
style. As more and more guests are visiting the resort their expectation to the resort should be
high due to the guests make time to spend their leisure time and relax in the resort. Therefore,
through the empirical analysis, this paper examined the effect of the resort employees’
interpersonal relationship trust on guest loyalty and repurchase intention as well as the essence to
build the interpersonal relationship between employee and guest.

The result of the descriptive statistic of general character showed that gender distribution was
47.2% of male and 52.8% of female. Briefly, the highest percentages of the results are 83% of
respondents are from the age group of 20s, 55.2% respondents’ races are Non-Malaysian, 50.5%
of respondents’ nationalities are other which can be Korean, Maldives and Indonesian. 88.2% of
respondents’ education level is university/college, 91.5% of respondents’ marital status is single,
86.3% of respondents are students and RM 1,001 ~ RM 2,000 is the highest percentage with
29.2% of respondents’ monthly income.

There are a lot of ways to build an interpersonal relationship between employee and guest.
Therefore, the respondents were asked to choose which factors are affected them to build the
trust relationship and rapport with the employee, the channel to build the relationship, how it can
be maintained and what factors are they think the most important. The result indicated 44.8% of
respondents strongly agreed with the ability to manage the guests. 49.5% of respondents are
strongly agreed with giving reliable information to the guests then to make the guests have
loyalty and repurchase intention 43.9% of respondents are agreed with retaining the interpersonal

40
relationship with the guests. Lastly, 44.8% of respondents are strongly agreed with building an
interpersonal relationship is important to lead the guest have a loyalty and repurchase intention.

The purpose of this study was to explore whether the items used have positive relationship with
building the relationship between employee and guest and what essences affect the guests to
have loyalty and repurchase intention. And by using the 16 items in this study, the researcher
has determined the employee’s ability of manage the guests which are ‘ability to manage the
guests’, ‘Ensuring the guests satisfaction’, ‘providing an equivalent right to all the guests’, ‘an
equal treatment towards all the guests’, ‘building an interpersonal relationship with the guests’,
‘Retaining the interpersonal relationship with the guests’, ‘understanding the guests’ needs’,
‘sincerity to the guests’, ‘problem-solving ability’, ‘awareness of guests’ needs’, ‘professional
knowledge and skills’, ‘giving a reliable information to the guests’, ‘good communication skills
with the guests’, ‘listening the guests’ opinions’, ‘accepting criticism to further improve
himself/herself’, and ‘trustworthy on employee’s words’. By using the mean score, the items
which were derived from the 2 dimensions were used such as having a good communication
skill, ability to manage the guests, problem solving ability, awareness of the guests’ needs,
sincerity to the guests, giving reliable information to the guests and trustworthy on employees’
words were rated to be the most of the items used in this study had actually impact to the
respondents’ lead to have a loyalty, repurchase intention and main essences to build the
interpersonal relationship with the employees. The mean ranking showed all of the items used in
this study had actually affected the respondents to have loyalty and repurchase intention.

And then, the 16 items were divided into 2 dimensions such as ‘employees’ ability to manage the
guests’ with 8 items, ‘employees’ working ability’ with 8 items. After analyzing the data with
the reliability test, all of 2 dimensions were found to be reliable with coefficients alpha more
than 0.69 at aggregate level.

41
Hypothesis 1- 4 is to find out positive relationship between the effects of resort employees’
interpersonal relationship trust on guest loyalty and repurchase intention. When analyzing these
2 dimensions with guest management and working ability by multiple regressions, 2 dimensions
which are mentioned above that showed a positive relationship.

In conclusion, from all the results of the analysis provide a good and positive implication to lead
the guest loyalty and repurchase intention due to the interpersonal relationship between
employee and guest. Base on the analysis the main essence of build the rapport between
employee and guest is having a good communication skill and ability to manage the guest and it
leads to guest have loyalty and repurchase intention as well.

42
Limitation and future research

This study faced few limitations so it should be carried out additional research to overcome for
these limitations.

First, the topic of this study there was not selected resort for the respondents to identify and
answer more specifically. However, in the terms of hospitality industry, these questionnaires are
too wide to link the interpersonal trust relationship with the guest loyalty and repurchase
intention. Therefore, need to survey more specifically like choosing few of resorts like to analyze
to find out a diversity of essences and factors.

Second, people who have not been visited any resorts before do not know how to answer all
those questionnaires. Thus they could not give an answer on that questionnaire yet, so it was
limited in this study.

For the future research, the researcher is recommended to add in more related items to the survey
in order to research the next level which is more precise and more applicable for the
interpersonal relationship, guest loyalty and repurchase intention. As different people have
different factors lead them to have a loyalty then repurchase more than ‘having a good
communication skill’,’ ability to manage the guests’, ‘problem-solving ability’, ‘awareness of
guests’ needs’. Therefore, implementation of this study to the guest loyalty and repurchase
intention might yield different results, which might be beneficial to the hospitality industry.

43
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 Contents Page Number

General Introduction 21

Part 1 (Theoretical framework)

1.1 Relationship between employee and guest 25

1.2 Customer loyalty 26

1.3 Interpersonal trust 29

1.4 Repurchase intention 31

Part 2 (Method and findings)

2.1 Research methodology 34

2.2 Findings and Analysis 38

2.3 Recommendation 54

47
General Conclusion 55

Bibliography 58

List of Tables X

List of Diagrams X

Annexes X

Table of Contents X

48