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Introduction
Applying art as the basis for service design creates a competitive advantage for hotels (Heide et al., 2007; Strannegård and Strannegård, 2012) through art’s ability to exhibit the value of the local culture it embodies. Hotels can use local cultural features, art resources and other unique characteristics as the focus of an innovative service design (Lee, 2011; McCleary et al., 2008). The culture-oriented artistic activities developed by hotels can attract customer attention, offering customers pleasant artistic and cultural experiences (Aoyama, 2009; Gruber et al., 2015; Peña de la et al., 2016). In the hotel literature, previous research has also demonstrated that personalized (Gilmore and Pine, 2002; Tussyadiah, 2014) and life-stylized (Cheng et al., 2016; Pizam, 2015) artistic services can enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty. Thus, art can be regarded as not only a cornerstone for innovative service design, but also a key element to attaining sustainable competitive advantage.
Few studies in the hospitality field have applied art as the basis for service process design (Ottenbacher and Harrington, 2007; Sengupta and Dev, 2011; Song et al., 2009). In the service innovation field, the ambidexterity perspective (McDermott and Prajogo, 2012; Tang, 2014) and the Plan-Do-Check-Action (PDCA) cycle (Bernardo, 2014), are two theories used to investigate innovative service development. Continual improvement of existing service flaws leads to high-quality and stable services (Cheng et al., 2016; Martĺnez-Ros and Orfila-Sintes, 2009), whereas new artistic services bring customers sensory stimulation and are mentally enriching (Akoğlan Kozak and Acar Gürel, 2015; Strannegård and Strannegård, 2012). These two types of services, however, are formed using different resources, developed through different decision-making methods and supported by different systems (Auh and Menguc, 2005). Therefore, to provide customers with high-quality and stable services and to allow art and culture to enrich their travel experiences and expand their horizons, hotels must simultaneously achieve two conflicting goals: the development of novel services and the improvement of current services. Tang (2014) indicated that ambidextrous hotels doing both can satisfy customers while maintaining a competitive advantage. Nevertheless, to date, few studies have examined the process of designing successful ambidextrous hotels. In addition, the PDCA cycle is an innovative management tool that illustrates service development steps (Bernardo, 2014; María del Mar Alonso-Almeida and...