• Service Innovation at the Yoho Kids Hotel

Abstract

Hotel business is highly competitive in Taiwan, particularly in the resort area like Kenting National Park. Improving service quality and building unique features are major ways to attract customers. Yoho Kids Hotel, the first children-centered hotel, designed for children was launched in Kenting in June 2008. The hotel allows children to have high autonomy when they stay in there for vacation. After more than four years of operation, Yoho Kids Hotel has become a stable profit-earning business unit in the Yoho Group. This case shows how the innovative idea was created and why the hotel management team decided to make such an innovation, what difficulties they had experienced in the process, and the roles of information technologies in the new business model for meeting customer needs. In this case, president Tseng converted the location weakness due to distance from the main resort area of the Kenting National Park into its advantage associated with the nearby intertidal zone and the Aquarium. This advantage, along with the social trend of having fewer kids and the rising importance of kids in each family, has cultivated the idea of children-centered vacation model and re-position the hotel to combine education and family vacation. Based on this new strategic position, 34 different themes were developed for hotel rooms. All complementary services and facilities were carefully planned and designed. RFID and touch-screen technologies were used to support new service processes in order to provide a new vacation experience.

Keywords: Service Innovation, Hotel management, Service Strategy, Service Design