fewer problems during their stay. Satisfying guests, as well as creating highly committedguests, helps drive the bottom line and generate repeat business and positiveword of mouth.Guest commitment by brandIn the J.D. Power and Associates 2011 North America HotelGuest Satisfaction Study, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts created the highestpercentage of committed guests of all the brands officially ranked in thestudy, with 42% of respondents reflecting high levels of commitment. Four Seasonswas followed by JW Marriott Hotels & Resorts and The Ritz-Carlton, each at36%. While levels of commitment were higher on average as one goes up segmentscales, it is important to note that Hampton Inn & Suites and Drury Inn& Suites in the midscale, limited-service segment had higher scores thanmany brands at higher chain scales. Likewise, in the airline industry, it isthe so called low-cost carriers such as JetBlue Airways and SouthwestAirlines that scored highest in satisfaction and commitment. What are you doing to earn commitment?Asyou begin to analyze whether your hotel and brand drive guest commitment,consider the following: Do guests stay with you out of a sense of inertia, or is it because you havetruly earned their business? What are you doing to earn guests business and love? What products and services in your own life have won your commitment versusthose which are exchangeable commodities?Equally important, how are you performing relative to othersin the market? Your own guest-tracking data can provide some direction, butwithout a competitive market context, its difficult to determine whether youare gaining ground or falling behind. You might not know, but your guests andthose of your competitors certainly do. They dont care how you are doing yearover year relative to your own performance. They care about what you do to wintheir hearts, minds and wallets versus the competition, which is right acrossthe street, down the road and, in the digitally enabled world of review sitesand social media, just a click away. In short, allow me to end this weeks article with the samequestion I posed at the beginning: How committed are guests to your brand?Stuart Greif is VP and general manager of the global traveland hospitality practice for J.D. Power and Associates. Headquartered inWestlake Village, California, J.D. Power and Associates is a global marketinginformation services company operating in key business sectors including marketresearch, forecasting, performance improvement, training, Web intelligence and customersatisfaction. The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarilyreflect the opinions of HotelNewsNow.com or its parent company, Smith TravelResearch and its affiliated companies. Columnists published on this site aregiven the freedom to express views that may be controversial, but our goal isto provoke thought and constructive discussion within our reader community.Please feel free to comment or contact an editor with any questions orconcerns.No advertising or other promotional use can be made of theinformation in this release without the express prior written consent of J.D. Power and Associates..TAGS: J.D. Power andAssociates, Stuart Greif,Associates NorthAmerica Hotel Guest Satisfaction Study, commitment,guests,satisfaction,experience,brand image,personal style