10:11 a.m., June 21, 2010----A paper presented by representatives of the University of Delaware Department of Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Management was judged best paper in the student track at the 39th Western Decision Sciences Institute annual meeting held in April in Lake Tahoe.

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The paper “Gap Analysis of In-Room Technology Amenities in Hotels” was presented by HRIM graduate student Ekaterina Berezina and Cihan Cobanoglu, associate professor in the department.

The study was designed to examine the importance and satisfaction of in-room technology amenities in hotels by guests, and the objective of the paper was to identify the gaps between importance and performance of in-room technology amenities, if any, as perceived by hotel guests.

A total of 534 randomly selected people participated in the study and gap analysis showed significant results for 15 out of the 19 in-room technology amenity variables, suggesting that there was a gap between importance and performance of those amenities.

A positive gap demonstrates guests' satisfaction being higher than expectations; however, negative gap shows that the expectations exceeded the performance of the technology amenities.

The findings of the paper can be used by hoteliers to keep up a good work with the items that have a positive gap. Amenities with the negative gap require more attention and should be improved to satisfy guests' needs in a highly competitive lodging market.

The Western Decision Sciences Institute is a regional division of the Decision Sciences Institute. It serves its interdisciplinary academic and business members primarily through the organization of an annual conference and the publication of the Journal of Business and Management. The conference and journal allow academicians and business professionals from all over the world to share information and research with respect to all aspects of education, business, and organizational decisions.