Celiac disease customers' experiences of hotel breakfast
Välikangas, Jane (2015)
Välikangas, Jane
Haaga-Helia ammattikorkeakoulu
2015
All rights reserved
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2015111216328
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2015111216328
Tiivistelmä
Aim for this bachelor thesis is to collect the experiences of celiac disease customers’ about hotel breakfast in Helsinki and Tampere. The idea was to collect the thoughts of customers and what would they recommend to improve with the gluten-free products and with the quali-ty of service in the hotel breakfast. The study was made as a survey in spring 2015 and the total number of respondents was 62.
Celiac disease is a sickness where protein in wheat, rye and barley causes an autoimmune disorder and damages the villa in small intestine, which means that the gluten will not be absorbed. The only cure for celiac disease is a life through gluten-free diet. Celiac disease is very common in Finland but still some of the reasons causing it are unknown.
Breakfast is one of the most important services offered by hotel. The quality of service is extremely important nowadays as the competition between different companies is huge. How the hotels treat their customers and how good they make people with celiac disease feel is important. Celiac disease customers use a lot of social media and there is a word-of-mouth going around the internet if the hotel has a good or bad gluten-free breakfast.
The main goal for this study was to research whether the celiac customers are satisfied with the breakfast that the hotels have to offer. The focus is in Helsinki and in Tampere. Helsinki is the capital of Finland and Tampere has the head office of Finnish Youth Coeliac Association, and they are organizing a lot of events which means there are customers for hotels. The hypothesis with this thesis was that there is not a lot of information for celiac customers about the gluten-free breakfast and products are not as good as they could be. The labelling is a huge problem as most of the customers have to ask from the staff if the product is gluten-free or not. The hypothesis came straight from the author’s own experience and it was also what brought interest for this thesis.
In recent years gluten has become a fad, but there is still a lot more that could be researched. All food trends are big trends now and people are aware of what they eat and even people without celiac disease make decisions to eat gluten-free products.
According to the results hotels have a lot to improve when it comes to gluten-free breakfast. When comparing to decade ago there have been a lot of things that have been improved, such as, the awareness of the disease among the staff. Even though things have gone better, the customers think that the gluten-free breakfast has been same all these years. The products have gone better but still the hotels do not make an effort to bring these products to the hotel breakfast. Celiac customers do not feel that the level of service is the same for them as for regular customer.
Celiac disease is a sickness where protein in wheat, rye and barley causes an autoimmune disorder and damages the villa in small intestine, which means that the gluten will not be absorbed. The only cure for celiac disease is a life through gluten-free diet. Celiac disease is very common in Finland but still some of the reasons causing it are unknown.
Breakfast is one of the most important services offered by hotel. The quality of service is extremely important nowadays as the competition between different companies is huge. How the hotels treat their customers and how good they make people with celiac disease feel is important. Celiac disease customers use a lot of social media and there is a word-of-mouth going around the internet if the hotel has a good or bad gluten-free breakfast.
The main goal for this study was to research whether the celiac customers are satisfied with the breakfast that the hotels have to offer. The focus is in Helsinki and in Tampere. Helsinki is the capital of Finland and Tampere has the head office of Finnish Youth Coeliac Association, and they are organizing a lot of events which means there are customers for hotels. The hypothesis with this thesis was that there is not a lot of information for celiac customers about the gluten-free breakfast and products are not as good as they could be. The labelling is a huge problem as most of the customers have to ask from the staff if the product is gluten-free or not. The hypothesis came straight from the author’s own experience and it was also what brought interest for this thesis.
In recent years gluten has become a fad, but there is still a lot more that could be researched. All food trends are big trends now and people are aware of what they eat and even people without celiac disease make decisions to eat gluten-free products.
According to the results hotels have a lot to improve when it comes to gluten-free breakfast. When comparing to decade ago there have been a lot of things that have been improved, such as, the awareness of the disease among the staff. Even though things have gone better, the customers think that the gluten-free breakfast has been same all these years. The products have gone better but still the hotels do not make an effort to bring these products to the hotel breakfast. Celiac customers do not feel that the level of service is the same for them as for regular customer.