Consumer�s Complaint Behavior between Indonesian and Non-Indonesian in the Hotel

Complaint management is an essential element of hotel business success. Handling customer complaints effectively could result in future referral or loyalty behavior. Therefore, understanding the customer�s complaint behavior will help the hotel operator to create a strategy for maintaining their customer.
This paper divides guest�s complaint behavior into four categories. They are voice responses, private responses that consist of negative word-of-mouth and exit, third-party responses, and taking no action (inertia). These behaviors are related to Hofstede�s culture dimension that consists of 6 dimensions. The authors examined the complaint behavior of Indonesian and non-Indonesian, in this case, Asian and Western, and evaluated the significant differences between those three groups of guests. Five-scale Likert questionnaires were distributed to 100 Indonesian, 75 Asian, and 75 Western. Then the data was analyzed using One-Way ANOVA. The find�ings showed that Indonesian and Western guests tend to have voice responses complaint behavior, they complaint directly to the hotel. Whereas Asian guests were more likely to have negative word-of-mouth behavior,
they will share their bad experience to family and friends. In addition, there is a significant difference for voice, word-of-mouth, and inertia, while there is no significant difference for exit and third-party complaint behavior. The difference in voice responses behavior could be seen in Indonesian and Asian customers, while
the difference in word-of-mouth and inertia behavior were shown between Indonesian and Asian, also Asian and Western group of customers. This study provides new insight about cross culture complaint behavior.