Service Quality in Marketing Hotels & Resorts

Strategic Marketing

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................................ 3 SERVICE QUALITY ....................................................................................................................................................... 4 SERVICE QUALITY MODELS.................................................................................................................................... 5 SERVQUAL model .................................................................................................................................................... 5 Total Quality Management (TQM)................................................................................................................... 6 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................................................................. 7 REFERENCE LIST.......................................................................................................................................................... 8

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INTRODUCTION Tourism is one of the fastest growing service industrys in the world. Marketing of tourism services has broadened over the years and has gained much importance inorder for companys to position themselves in this growing and large industry. Tourism offers both goods and services. Operators of the industries have identified that the marketing of the service has become equally important as marketing of the goods offered. Services Marketing is a form of marketing which focuses on selling services. When it comes to marketing a service it can at times be more challenging than marketing a product since a service tends to be an experience that is consumed at the point where it is purchased, and cannot be owned since is quickly perishes. As mentioned, when selling a service the customer experience is extremely important to closing the deal and marketing effectively. The experience has an impact on the perceived value of the service. . Service organizations exist as a function of their customers; service quality then, is the primary survival strategy (Schneider and Chung, 1993, p.124). Carey (2003) note that the service quality is a subject that permeates every component of the tourism industry. Especially in hotel and resort, the service quality is integral for long term survival. Therefore each company should take the service quality as serious management philosophy and have to adopt theories and models to identify gap between expectation and perception. Impoving and maintaing the service quality should be the main task by any service provider inorder to effectively market the company and position themselves among the competitors.

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SERVICE QUALITY Service quality is defined as the degree of excellence intended that meets customer requirements (Wyckoff, 1992). However, Carey (2003) points out the service quality, is the result of a comparison between the expectations of a customer and the actual service they received. Therefore, understanding gap between the expectation and the received service can be a key source of the service quality. According to Fitzsimmons and Fitzsimmons (2001), these expectations are based on several sources, including word of mouth, personal needs, and past experience. Thus, people may have more expectation on the high-rated hotel. Usually, the five-star hotels are more expensive than the lower level so customers may expect to get serviced as much as they pay. In other word, the service quality can be a primary goal for hotels to gain more profits. To put simply, better quality means better profitability and market share and when higher quality and large market share are both present, profitability is nearly guaranteed (Ross, 1993). According to Scheuing and Christopher (1993) the service quality is a powerful force that reshapes attitudes and actions toward creating customer satisfaction and loyalty, and thus, sustainable competitive advantage in an unstable environment of dynamic global competition. Accordingly, the managers who work in hospitality industry need to know not only how to manage the organisation but also how to manage the service quality to provide customer satisfaction continuously.

Strategic Marketing

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SERVICE QUALITY MODELS

Levitt (1972) argues that the theories and concepts of quality and its management have adopted slowly into the service industry from manufacturing. Rather than a paradigm shift taking place, the existing quality theories and models were held in their entirety by parts of the service sector and the paradigm shift occurred when difficulties were occurred in the sector, for example, the use of only qualitative data analysis methods (Williams & Buswell, 2003). There are many service quality theories and concepts have been used such as the Statistical Process Control (SPC), Ten Benchmarks of Total Quality Control, and the 14-step Quality Improvement Programme, However, in following paragraphs will discuss two service quality models which are SERVQUAL and Total Quality Management that is known as TQM.

SERVQUAL model SERVQUAL is a survey instrument that measures service quality. According to Saleh and Ryan (1991), it was initially devised for the assessment of services within the financial sector, and consists of a 22-item, seven-point Likert Scale but not all of the issues were directly applicable to a hotel. However Martin (1986) offers a 40-item scale in the assessment of service within restaurants, and from this a number of questions were picked and adapted for hotel and finally therefore, a 33-item and five-point Likert Scale instrument was developed. There are five dimensions of service quality: reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, and tangibles. In the guest survey, the customer will answer the questions which are based on the five dimensions. Fitzsimmons et al (2001) point out the multiple dimensions of service quality are captured in the SERVQUAL instrument, which is an effective tool for surveying customer satisfaction that is based on the service quality gap model.

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Total Quality Management (TQM) Bardi (2007) states that preparation for adopting TQM is necessary to achieve success goal in hotel. Biech (1994) defined Total Quality Management (TQM) as a customer-focused, quality-centered, fact-based, team-driven, senior-management-led process to achieve an organization s strategic imperative through continuous process improvement. In its simplest form, the TQM is a management philosophy which states that the whole organisation is working for meeting the customer s need and expectation (Williams et al, 2003). The TQM has two major proceedings: customer requirements and expectations determination and these requirements and expectations deliver organising (Ross, 1993). Ross (1993) points out that the measurement of success is customer satisfaction and the only way to achieve the successive customer satisfaction is through continuous improvement by TQM.

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CONCLUSION Service Marketing is of utmost important for hotels and resorts. With only marketing the product, the hotel will not gain its market share. The service quality will be a major component of the future hospitality industry continuously. Therefore hotels need to manage the service quality with various theories and methods. As discussed above, resorts and hotels can apply SERVQUAL and TQM and other methods to identify the service gaps. The quality of the interactive service between hotelier and the guest will be long term and this should be a reason for the improving service quality in hotels . Service quality theories and models is a measurement of customer satisfaction. Thus to improve a hotel or resort s service quality with customer satisfaction, the whole organization should link and think about the service quality together so all of employees and the senior mangers generate continuous improvements. The gap between the expected or percieved service and recieved service should be at its minimal, which in other words means Service Quality should be improved and maintained to effectively market a Hotels and Resorts to the end users.

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REFERENCE LIST Bardi, J. A., (2007). Hotel Front Office Management (4th ed.). New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Biech, E. (1994). TQM for Training. US: McGraw-Hill. Carey, K. L. (2003). Improving service quality in small communities: the Bahamas as a model. Las Vegas: University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Fitzsimmons, J. A., & Fitzsimmons, M. J. (2001). Service Management: operations, strategy, and information technology (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance (1994). Sun, Sea, Sand and Service, 7(4), 18-19. Levitt, T. (1972). Production-line approach to service. Harvard Business Review. In C. Williams, J. Buswell, Service Quality in Leisure and Tourism. London: CABU Publishing. Martin, W. B. (1986). Quality Service, The Restaurant Manager s Bible. US: Brodock Press. Saleh, F., & Ryan, C. (1991). Analysing Service Quality in the Hospitality Industry Using the SERVQUAL Model. The Service Industry Journal, 11(3), 324-345. Schneider, B., & Chung, B. (1993). Creating service climates for service quality. In E. Scheuing, W. Christopher (Eds.), The Service Quality Handbook. New York: American Management Association. Ross, J. E. (1993). Total Quality Management: text, cases, and readings. Florida: St. Lucie Press. Williams, C., & Buswell, J. (2003). Service Quality in Leisure and Tourism. London: CABI Publishing.

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