Ivo J. Steffens Msc.

'ni Hao Hotels' the Way to Win Chinese Hearts and Minds: a Comparison of the Perceived Fit of International Hotel Companies in China and the United Kingdom and Their Internationalization Strategies Ivo J. Steffens Msc.

International Hotel Companies (IHCs) are perceived as the most global industry in the service sector. It is universally recognized that the choice firms have to make is how global or how local they need to be, or to put it in another way, which elements of their service, products and operations can be globalized and which elements need to be local. In general different hotel brands are based on western markets and exported abroad to target a guest with perceived homogeneous needs. For IHCs, this is an important element. However, those standards are based on the western market and the question comes to mind to which degree the western hospitality concepts are applicable in a country with a different culture, such as China. This has led to the author's question whether the internationalization strategies employed by IHCs are sufficiently aligning their global approach with the hotels' local environment? Or do IHCs need a Chinese brand, such as 'Ni Hao Hotels', to win the hearts and minds of the Chinese hotel guests?