The purpose of this study was to identify the selecting behaviors of the customers regarding the menu, which is one of the most important sales tools, and play a part in increasing the sales of food and beverage of a hotel enterprise as well as in satisfying the customers values. Menu has been regarded as one of the ultimate methods to seek logical management of a tourist hotel enterprise and to achieve the enterprise goal by pursuing an appropriate marketing strategy for each target market through segmenting the market in terms of the influential factors on menu selection and the importance of menu features in order to establish a logical market segmentation strategy for the customers to western restaurants in deluxe hotels in Gyeongju area.
Findings from the literature study and the empirical study are as follows.
First of all, in terms of the demographic characteristics of the respondents, there were more of men than women, more people in twenties, thirties, and forties and others, and more married people than singles. It is also found that most of the customers are professionals, businessmen, self-employed, or people in sales or hospitality industry. Their educational backgrounds are found to be more than college education and their income levels are found to appear high.
Second, regarding the source of information, which is a characteristic related with the use of the respondents, 'introduction by a family member / friend / relative', 'hotel/travel magazines', 'previous experience,' and/or 'PC communication / internet' are found to occupy the most. The most common purpose of use was identified as dining out. Most of the respondents appear to use western restaurants with 'a spouse/boy/girl friend(s),' friends) and associate(s)' and family and relatives.' Most frequently, 2~3 people in each party use the restaurants in the evening of Saturdays 2~3 times a month.
Third, six factors have been deduced as the influential factors on the menu selection by doing the factor analysis from the influential factors on the menu selection and the importance characteristics of the menu features based upon the prior studies. The first menu-selecting influential factor is identified as 'the internal features of the hotel" which is the highest in the variance explanation, which suggests that the internal features of the hotel, comprising the atmosphere, image, and service of the hotel and the restaurant(s), have the strongest influence on the menu-selecting behaviors. And the other factors include 'the external features of the hotel,' 'the advertisement factor,' 'the environmental factor,' 'the circumstantial factor,' and 'the system/religious factor.'
Four factors have been deduced as the importance factors of the menu features. 'The external factor', highest in the variance explanation, is found to be the first importance factor of the menu features, which suggests that the external factor of the menu, comprising the appearance of food, the order of the names of foods on the menu, the denomination of the menu, the decoration or design of the menu, the length of a meal time, the smell of foods, the nutrition or diet of foods, and so on, is what customers think most highly of in the menu features. The other factors include 'the features of the menu itself,' 'value-orientation,' and 'time and seasonal factor.'
Fourth, the analysis of the differences between the menu-selecting influential factors of the customers to the western restaurants, and major demographic and ordinary features shows statistically significant differences depending on the frequented restaurants, the day of the week to dine out, the gender, the educational backgrounds, the income level, and the marital status.
Fifth, the internal features of the hotel and the system/religious factors in terms of the willingness to visit again, and the internal features of the hotel and the circumstantial factor are found to be statistically significant at the level of a=5% in the results of the analysis on what influence the menu-selecting influential factor has on the willingness to visit again and the degree of general satisfaction. The coefficient values of these variables are found to show positive signs, which suggests that all these menu-selecting influential factors have the positive influence on the customers to the western restaurants of the deluxe hotels in Gyeongju area.
Sixth, the time and seasonal factor is found to be statistically significant at the level of a=5% regarding the willingness to visit again in the results of the analysis on what influence the importance factor of the menu-selecting features has on the willingness to visit again and the degree of general satisfaction. The coefficient values of these variables are found to show positive signs, which suggests that all these menu-selecting influential factors have the positive influence on the customers to the western restaurants of the deluxe hotels in Gyeongju area. Therefore, it its required to devise some methods of enhancing the above-mentioned points in the future in order to enhance the willingness to visit again and the degree of general satisfaction on the customers to the western restaurants of the deluxe hotels in Gyeongju area.