Striking the Right Balance: How Sanctions for Customer Misbehavior and Consequences of Customer Misbehavior for Other Guests Affect Fairness Perceptions and Hotel Rebooking Intentions
(A2025-125887)

AUTHORS

Daniel Maar, Paris School of Business; Demba DIOUF, Paris School of Business; Ekaterina BESSON, PARIS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

ABSTRACT

Customer misbehavior represents a challenge for the tourism sector. Considering that inappropriate sanctions—whether overly lenient or strict—can negatively impact customers’ perceptions, more knowledge is needed on how hospitality providers should sanction customer misbehavior. Relying on an experimental design with 284 participants, this study analyzes how a hotel’s sanction to a customer misbehavior incident and its impact on other guests influence fairness perceptions and rebooking intentions. Findings demonstrate that moderate sanctions tend not to perform worse than severe sanctions and are often more effective than no sanction in enhancing fairness perceptions and rebooking intentions. Additionally, perceived fairness and rebooking intentions are lower (higher) when the incident’s impact on other guests is high (low). In case of a high impact on other guests, stricter sanctions are more effective. Perceived fairness mediates the severity of the hotel’s sanction and the severity of the incident’s impact for other guests on rebooking intentions.