Making “Sense” of the Middle of the Pyramid Consumer’s Dining Experience

Abstract

It is assumed that fine-dining creates immersive experiences that could enhance the flavour of a meal or dish by leveraging a combination of multi-sensory stimuli. An exploratory hybrid-study identified multi-sensory dining experience stimuli from scientific literature, namely visual (eyes), haptic (touch), taste, olfactory (smell), auditory (hearing), and design and layout that affect restaurant choice. The purpose of this study was to investigate the important multi-sensory stimuli in the dining experience of middle of the pyramid (MOP) consumers. Data was collected from a convenient sample of 363 respondents representing MOP-consumers who returned an emailed questionnaire or those who completed the same questionnaire while dining at a full-service restaurant in Gauteng Province. The measuring instrument listed multi-sensory dining experience stimuli identified through a literature review. Additional items were generated via personal interviews and comments in dining-related websites that discussed multi-sensory dining. The results suggest that multi-sensory stimuli do contribute to the creation of a comprehensive dining experience. A high premium was placed on tasty and freshly prepared meals; the dining area; pleasant food odours; comfortable and spacious seating; attractive bathrooms; close-by and safe parking; and service staff (pleasant appearance, clean/neatly dressed, a professional attitude, and providing prompt service) that create sociable away-from-home family-orientated experiences. It is concluded that multi-sensory stimulation creates a memorable dining experience, which can create the opportunity to differentiate a restaurant from its closest competitors.

Application of the New Importance–Performance Analysis Method to Explore the Strategies of Rural Outdoor Dining Experiences in Taiwan

“…The importance of creating a unique and memorable experience for customers rather than simply meeting their basic expectations means that restaurants must pay attention to all these elements to create a positive and memorable dining experience for their customers (Namin 2017). The dining experience is influenced by various factors such as food, service, atmosphere, value, and the overall ambience of the restaurant (Kleinhans et al 2016). Some scholars who studied the quality factors of the dining experience, for example, the casual dining experience, indicated that the casual dining experience has four dimensions, namely, food aspects, interaction quality, physical environment, and service outcome (Hussein 2018), and customer satisfaction with the dining experience was positively correlated with the willingness to extend the experience (El-Said et al 2021).…”

Modeling customer satisfaction and revisit intention from online restaurant reviews: an attribute-level analysis

“…Massive literature has been dedicated to understanding the components and consequences of dining experience, due to its crucial role in the restaurant business (Marinkovic et al, 2014). Kleinhans et al (2016) pointed out that dining experience dimensions have changed over the last few years. The initially popular dining experience factors were tangibles, responsiveness, reliability, assurance and empathy.…”

“…, 2014). Kleinhans et al. (2016) pointed out that dining experience dimensions have changed over the last few years.…”