Foreigners important for high satisfaction index

By Park Jae-hyuk

Hotels and duty free shops again swept the first seven slots of the National Customer Satisfaction Index (NCSI) last year, showing that foreign tourists have become the key factor in earning higher scores in the major consumer satisfaction index in Korea.

The Korea Productivity Center (KPC) announced Wednesday that Hotel Shilla stayed at the top spot for two consecutive years scoring 85 in the 2016 NCSI survey of 314 businesses, jointly conducted by the University of Michigan and sponsored by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.

The average score overall for the 314 businesses, including colleges and public institutions, was 74.7 points, up from 74.1 points a year earlier. The state-backed institution started conducting the annual poll in 1998.

Hotels, which had taken the first 11 slots in the 2015 survey, ranked in the top six last year.

Hotel Shilla was ranked the highest, followed by the Hotel Lotte, the Westin Chosun, the InterContinental Hotel, the Grand Hyatt Seoul and the Plaza. Their NCSI scores ranged from 82 to 85.

"In 2015, hotels could satisfy each customer with high quality services amid declining inbound tourists following the outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS)," the KPC said in a press release. "However, the industry's overall satisfaction index decreased last year, after the number of foreign tourists rose again."

The KPC also pointed out that customers had to spend more money than before for the same services because of the stronger won amid the prolonged low exchange rate of the yen.

The major hotels, however, could still rank high, as they offered their own high quality services, including hotel reservations, check-in, room quality, restaurants and amenities, the KPC said.

In the 2016 NCSI, duty free stores showed a big jump as well, thanks to the growing inflow of foreign tourists, who visit for shopping. The Shilla Duty Free ranked seventh and its rival Lotte Duty Free 12th.

"Duty free stores win big in the consumer satisfaction index, through employing hallyu stars for advertisements," the KPC said. "The opening of new stores that received licenses in 2015 also had positive effects on the index."

Among the top 10, Yeungnam University College ranked eighth, followed by JW Marriott Hotel Seoul and Samsung C&T.

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