Effect of Housekeeping Service Qualities on Guest Satisfaction in Star-Rated Hotels in Nairobi City County, Kenya

Abstract

The major contributors to guest patronage in a hospitality organization are the standards of cleanliness and quality of services offered. In Kenya, despite the knowledge, set rules and guidelines of housekeeping practice, hotels have been faced with complaints from guests ranging from room cleanliness and maintenance to the quality of services offered. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of housekeeping service qualities on guest satisfaction in star-rated hotels. A cross sectional survey design was adopted for the study. The target population for the was 1298 participants comprising of 1033 hotel guests, 21 executive housekeepers and 244 guestroom attendants. Stratified random sampling techniques was used to select 149 GRAs and 221 hotel guests. Whereas purposive sampling was used to select 21 executive housekeepers to participate in the study. Questionnaires, interviews and observation checklists were used to collect both quantitative and qualitative data. Regression and Thematic analysis were used to analyze quantitative and qualitative data respectively. Regression analysis was used to measure the relationship between housekeeping service quality and guest satisfaction and the findings revealed that R=0.323 which indicated there existed a weak but positive relationship of housekeeping quality services and guest satisfaction. Based on these findings, the study concluded that quality of housekeeping services in star-rated hotels has a direct relationship with management decision making in that a unit change in decision making process directly influences the quality of service delivery. The study recommends there is need for hotels in Nairobi City County to benchmark with other hotels to be able to offer consistent housekeeping quality services. In addition, there is need for hotels to continually develop marketing strategies to meet the today’s guest demands. This can be done by hotels introducing guest cards in the guestrooms and ask guests to identify the housekeeping quality services they would like to experience in their rooms.