[photopress:xianarmenmarching.jpg,full,alignright]A hotel offering special services only to its female guests has opened in Xi’an, capital of Shaanxi province, and a major tourism destination in China.
The hotel has female guards, special floors and rooms for female guests only and special food catering to women’s tastes and health needs. Yue Meili, the hotel’s general manager, said they want to provide more special services for women, showing care for and respect to their female guests.
This is, of course, not the first hotel (the Hong Kong Hilton may have had the lead in 1972) to have done this and it is a very sound market idea. According to an October 26, 2006 New York Times article Niki Leodakis, the COO of Kimpton Hotels, said, ‘Women are making 70 percent of travel decisions, for the family, for their own getaways or for people at work.’ Quite so.
Research on the subject released in the 2006 National Travel Monitor by Peter Yesawich, President and CEO of Yesawich, Pepperdine, Brown & Russell, Inc showed statistically significant differences between men and women’s preferences:
Security – Women value extra measures that ensure their safety and security.
Cleanliness – Women care more than men about cleanliness.
Transportation – Women want complimentary shuttle service to and from the airport, and to areas other than the airport.
Simplification – Women care more about express check-in and checkout, and are more interested than men in an interactive system through the guest room television set that provides information about local events.
Business Services – Women want the same business services that men want, but more women want service enabling them to send and receive faxes from their laptops.
Creature Comforts – Women want full-length mirrors, make up mirrors and hair dryers; they want spa services and more diversity of restaurants on the premises.
Ambience – Women value the ambience of small boutique hotels, as well as distinctive hotel décor.
It turns out, in many cases, that what women want is what we all want – to be asked our preferences and then be provided with them. Our picture is not of male hotel guests marching in protest. It is of the amazing statues in Xi’an.
Source: China Daily
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