Customer Profitability Analysis; Luxury Hotel Industry
The Luxury hotel chain Ritz-Carlton introduced a system called "Mystique" that collects information about its customers from employees and staff at the hotel. The information is used to personalize the services provided to each guest. For example, a bottle of the guest's favorite type of wine would be placed in the room without the guest having to request it. Similarly, the type of fruit a guest prefers will be waiting in the room on arrival. The information is available throughout the Ritz system so that when the guest checks into any Ritz-Carlton hotel, the special treatment is available. Other hotel chains such as Marriott, Hilton, and Hyatt have similar programs.
2. Do you see a role for activity-based accounting for these firms,as it relates to their information gathering and customer service?
3. What ethical issues, if any, do you see in the information-gathering system?