The Market Metrix Hospitality Index for the second quarter of this year found Ritz-Carlton ranked highest in customer satisfaction among hotels, and JetBlue among airlines. Somehow, this fails to shock me. Guest satisfaction overall is still declining, though, as is hotel guest loyalty.
The study also found that guests' experience with the hotel staff is key to retaining/gaining loyalty: "Hotel guests who report having a problem with a hotel staff member are 43 percentage points less likely to return to that hotel than guests who did not experience a problem."
It doesn't say if the reason why women business travelers have more problems than men, but I'd hazard a guess that this also is related to how women are treated by staff, as opposed to their male counterparts, especially since the most likely to report a problem are 40-something females traveling for business. As someone who falls into this demographic, I have noticed that men tend to get better treatment than women—or is it just that women expect more, and so are more easily disappointed when the service doesn't measure up?