Hospitality and pet well-being in friendly hotels as a competitive advantage

Abstract

The contemporary world has increasingly valued well-being, physical and mental health and how certain experiences can contribute to this. In this sense, hotel chains have invested in the pet friendly experience to create a competitive advantage in the face of new customer profiles, who value hospitality and personalization of service. Despite this being an expanding market, hospitality as a competitive differentiator through pet friendliness must be connected to providing customers with experiences that exceed their expectations. It is in this sense that this research aims to analyze whether hotel chains that support pet friendly operate, in this service segment, based on the principles of hospitality. This is a descriptive, qualitative research, carried out by reviewing the literature. The theoretical support was developed based on Guidara (2023), in addition to consulting studies published in the digital repositories Scientific Electronic Library Online – Scielo, Google Scholar and PubVet that bring the perspective of pet-friendly hospitality and its impacts on the hotel sector. With the research it was possible to understand that the concept of irrational hospitality is related to transcending traditional customer service, providing more than expected. It is considered that for the hotel industry, pet-friendly hospitality, following Guidara's (2023) theoretical approach, becomes a competitive advantage, generating a sense of belonging through memorable experiences. However, it was noted that large hotel chains, when offering pet friendly experiences, do not pay attention to the principles of hospitality, missing the opportunity for customer loyalty and competitive advantage.