Measuring empathy within hotel employees

Abstract

In today’s economy, tourists not only expect professional services but also seek positive emotional experiences when consuming tourism and leisure services. Thus, in recent years increasing attention has been paid to the role of empathy in the delivery of quality hospitality services; yet scant attention has been paid to actually measuring levels of empathy within employees. To meet this objective, using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, employees’ predisposition to engage in empathic relations in delivery of their services were measured, using Iran as an emerging international tourism destination in the world. Results were vastly different from patterns in available normative empathy values.