A Comparative Move Analysis of Customer Complaint Responses between Thai Hotel Staff and EFL Students
Keywords:
move analysis, complaint responses, English for specific purposes, hospitality industryAbstract
The hotel industry plays a crucial role in driving Thailand's economy, with the tourism image closely linked to guests' comments and reviews on online platforms. This study aimed to 1) explore the move analysis in customer complaint responses produced by Thai hotel staff and Thai English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students, and 2) compare the similarities and differences in the moves and steps used in complaint responses between Thai hotel staff and EFL students. The sample consisted of 35 authentic negative review responses from five-star Thai hotels on TripAdvisor and 35 constructed responses from EFL students. The research instruments consisted of online data collection guidelines and complaint simulation tasks. Data were analyzed using the move analysis framework by Panseeta and Watson Todd (2014) as an analytical checklist, along with the Chi-square test. The results revealed that 1) hotel staff and students used common move structures in Opening, Dealing with complaints, and Closing, but students showed inconsistencies in specific steps such as greetings and proposing solutions; and 2) Thai hotel staff demonstrated significantly greater accuracy in using professional standard steps, particularly expressing gratitude and apologizing, compared to the students. The data indicates a gap in pragmatic competence. Therefore, the findings can be applied as guidelines for developing English language teaching curricula for the hotel and hospitality industry to align with authentic working contexts.
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