Customer responsiveness strategies for serviced apartment development in Vientiane Capital, Lao People's Democratic Republic (LPDR)

Abstract

This research aimed (1) to study customer preference and profile of serviced apartment in Lao PDR; (2) to study the value creation performance of serviced apartment developers and (3) to compare the demographic factors with that of value creation factors. The target population of this survey research was the group of people who were using serviced apartment in Vientiane Capital only. The total number of population was 400 people and the Yamane's formula was used as sampling technique to draw 200 customers of serviced apartment, but the data collected from 107 questionnaires survey. The data was analyzed by using F-Test which calculated important parameters of frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation and significance value. The result shown the following (1) the customer profile were mainly Asian, well educated with a medium to high income. The major of customers preferred the standard type with appropriate price level for rental per month being USD 200 to USD 300, excluding utilities. If including utilities, it should be between USD 300 to USD 1000 per month and preferred duration of contract was between four to six months. Factors affecting rental choice are location, price, safety and service respectively; (2) the overall performance of serviced apartment relating to value creation factors analysis indicated the level of moderate performance. When taken into consideration of the elements of value creation it revealed that the quality was high value creation followed by customer responsiveness, efficiency and innovation which were moderate level respectively, and (3) there were no differences of opinion between demographic factors (sex, region, length of stay, status, education, career, family size and income) towards value creation factors, with the exception of age factor which was shown significance value of 0.002.