A New Look at the Antecedents and Consequences of Relationship Quality in the Hotel Service Environment

David L. Jones Brenda Mak Janet Sim

ABSTRACT. As economic conditions improve, hotels are investing in new ways to improve service quality and perceived value that hopefully will lead to better customer satisfaction and loyalty. This study took a new look, with newly developed scales, at the antecedents and consequences of relationship quality in the hotel service environment to shed new light on the factors hotels have to deal with to achieve their objective of satisfied and loyal customers. Using a structural equation model, it was determined that the tangible and intangible factors of perceived value, timeliness, and hotel facilities are antecedents of hotel quality. Hotel quality, subsequently, is a determinant of both customer satisfaction and loyalty. However, consistent with previous research, customer satisfaction is not a guarantee of customer loyalty. doi:10.1300/J396v28n03_02 [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: <docdelivery@haworthpress.com> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com> 2007 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]

KEYWORDS. Service quality, hotels, customer satisfaction, loyalty, perceived value, SEM
David L. Jones (E-mail: djones@sfsu.edu) is Assistant Professor, Janet Sim (E-mail: jsim@sfsu.edu) is Professor and Department Chair, Department of Hospitality Management, and Brenda Mak (E-mail: bmak@sfsu.edu) is Associate Professor, Department of Information Systems, all at College of Business, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway, San Francisco, CA 94132. Services Marketing Quarterly, Vol. 28(3) 2007 Available online at http://smq.haworthpress.com 2007 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1300/J396v28n03_02

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INTRODUCTION The 9/11 events followed by the Iraqi war, the SARS epidemic, and the weakened economy have greatly challenged the hospitality industry. However, as the economy improves, a long-term and mutually beneficial relationship between the customer and the hotel is becoming increasingly important. Companies with satisfied customers enjoy higher marginsand consequently greater profitsthan do businesses that fail to retain and satisfy their customers (Barsky & Nash, 2003). This fact has led hotels to invest in new ways to improve service quality and the perceived value that hopefully will lead to better customer satisfaction and loyalty, and thus a better relationship quality with each customer. These investments should result in improved market share during this period of slow growth and intense competition by creating a strong relationship quality with their customers (Bowen & Shoemaker, 1998; Shoemaker & Bowen, 2003). Guest relationships have been viewed as the key assets of organizations (Gruen, Summers, & Acito, 2000). The quality of customer relationship is especially important for hotels, because a positive relationship can result in customers higher commitment to a hotel. As that relationship quality increases, it is likely to have a significant positive influence on hotel guests behavior, demonstrated through increased repeat guests and word of mouth (Kim, Han, & Lee, 2001). High relationship quality means that customers can rely on sellers integrity (i.e., the hotel and its employees) and can be confident of sellers future performance because their past performance has been consistently satisfactory. Choi and Chu (2001) reported that travelers overall satisfaction levels and their likelihood of returning to the same hotels are highly and positively correlated. Customer satisfaction acts as a reinforcement that leads to the prolonged maintenance of brand attitudes and intentions to use the brand again (Cronin & Taylor, 1992). What we want to confirm in this study are the antecedents and consequences of relationship quality with hotel service. Those antecedents and consequences include the attitudes toward the service quality and perceived value being delivered by a hotel, the perceived satisfaction with the hotel, and the loyalty of the customer to the hotel. While previous studies have attempted to address this same issue in the hotel service environment, it has also been suggested that the antecedents of customer loyalty will change over time (Shoemaker & Bowen, 2003). Therefore, hotels must constantly update their knowledge of customer attitudes toward service quality and value. There is an important need to

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understand the changing needs and lifestyles of customers (i.e., antecedents) in order to tailor hotel services with a view to increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty leading to a better relationship quality (Min, Min, & Chung, 2002). This study will attempt to take a new look at the antecedents and consequences of relationship quality.

LITERATURE REVIEW The growing interest in improving the quality of service delivered and perceived value has led to numerous attempts to measure the antecedents and consequences of relationship quality. This literature review will begin with the factors affecting customers attitude toward service quality and value that lead to their satisfaction and loyalty, then it will address how their satisfaction and loyalty relate to each other and ultimately to relationship quality. Customers Perception of Service Quality Customer perceptions of service quality and value have been determined to be a factor of a number of variables. These variables are made up of the expectations and perceptions of both the tangible and intangible aspects of service. In the hotel scenario, that means the people and the physical evidence or facilities (Ziethaml & Bitner, 2003). Previous research has determined that both affect the overall satisfaction with hotel service. Gundersen, Heide, and Olsson (1996) found that intangible aspects of service provided in hotel reception and food and beverage departments had greater weight than tangible aspects such as physical appearance and comfort in overall customer satisfaction. In particular, the importance of the tangible aspects of the housekeeping department and the intangible aspects of the reception were most critical. The following are the factors of service quality and value focused on in this study that previous research has found to have direct or indirect effects on customer satisfaction and/or customer loyalty. Hotel Image/Facilities. The image of a hotel is often formulated based on its tangible aspects represented by its facilities. Image, in turn, affects the perceptions of goods and services offered (Zeithaml & Bitner, 2003), and thus it affects buying behavior. Hotel design and amenities have been shown to be primary drivers of loyalty (Skoglan & Siguaw, 2004). A hotels image has also been found to have a significant

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correlation with the satisfaction with a hotel and its departments, as well as with customer preference and customer loyalty (Mazanec, 1995; Kandampully & Suhartanto, 2000). Other studies also found location, attitude, and facilities as important factors in customer loyalty (Ostrowsky, OBrien, & Gordon, 1993). These studies highlight the importance of image based on the hotels facilities on customer satisfaction to improve customer loyalty. Timeliness/Employees. The intangible aspect of evaluating service quality has to do with the people involvement of the service delivery. People in the hotel business are the employees who act as the boundary spanners with the customer that represent the service quality being delivered (Zeithaml & Bitner, 2003). The hotel employee performance cues have been found to influence perceived service quality, value, and word-of-mouth intentions, as well as customer loyalty (Hartline & Jones, 1996, Gould-Williams, 1999). One key variable of the employees performance that has been found to affect the hotel customers attitude about service in hotels is the timeliness of the delivery of the service. Qualitative research by Petrillose and Brewer (2000), using focus groups, determined that excellent experience was a factor when employees were courteous, friendly, and helpful. A satisfied employee can also lead to a guest being satisfied with the service and guests are happier when employees respond to their needs (Spinelli & Canavos, 2000). In one study, timeliness was actually used as a measure of customer satisfaction with hotel service people, but it was not found to influence repeat purchase and customer loyalty (Skoglan & Sigauw, 2004). Perceived Value. Perceived value has been defined as the consumers overall assessment of the utility of a service based on the perceptions of what is received and what is given (Ziethaml & Bitner, 2003, p. 491). It has been found to influence not only pre-purchase, but also customer satisfaction, and intention to recommend and return. (Dodds, Monroe, & Grewal, 1991; Parasuraman & Grewal, 2000; Al-Sabbahy, Ekinci, & Riley, 2004). However, the construct has been operationalized as being multidimensional. Al-Sabbahy, Ekinci, and Riley (2004) defined it as having two dimensions: acquisition value and transaction value. The focus in this study is on the transaction value that represents the difference between the consumers internal reference price and the price offered by the hotel.

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Effect of Attitudes Toward Service Quality and Perceived Value on Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty As noted previously, there have been many attempts at defining the antecedents of customer satisfaction and loyalty with mixed results. In fact, the relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty was found to be non-linear (Bowen & Chen, 2001). It was found that, when satisfaction reaches a certain level, loyalty increases dramatically; at the same time, when satisfaction declined to a certain level, loyalty dropped equally dramatically (Bowen & Chen, 2001, p. 215). Customer Satisfaction. Customer satisfaction has been defined as, the customers evaluation of a product or service in terms of whether that product or service has met their needs and expectations (Zeithaml & Bitner, 2003, p. 87). It is a post-consumption evaluative judgment (Gundersen, Heide, & Olsson, 1996). Previous studies of customer satisfaction in the hospitality industry have used the common dimensions of satisfaction: service quality, product quality, price, and location. As noted above, overall satisfaction is a factor of the perception of both the tangible and intangible aspects of the service. Perceived service quality and value are considered components of customer satisfaction (Zeithaml & Bitner, 2003). Customer satisfaction is also a factor of employee satisfaction (Spinelli & Canaovs, 2000). As noted above, the employee is part of the people element of service quality. If staff members believe that management cares about customer satisfaction, the guests also feel the same way. If the employees feel that the needs of the guests are being met, then their guests feel happy and satisfied. Guests are happier if they receive treatment from the employees who genuinely care to respond to their needs. Customer Loyalty. Industry executives continue to emphasize customer loyalty as a key to sustaining long-term business success (Nozar, 1999). Numerous industry practitioners have studied the benefits of customer retention and creating brand loyalty. Loyalty, however, is a complex construct that has been defined as a composite of both behavioral (repeat intention and recommendation) and attitudinal (attitude about hotel) factors (Bowen & Chen, 2001). Back and Parks (2003) defined behavioral brand loyalty as a customers overt behavior toward a specific brand in terms of repeat purchasing patterns. Specifically, a repeat purchasing pattern can be determined as actual purchase frequency, the proportions of occasions in which a specific brand is purchased as compared with the total number of purchased brands and/or the actual amount of purchase. Dick and

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Basu (1994) argued that this behavioral approach neglects the importance of the customers decision-making process, which does not differentiate brand loyalty from simple decision-making process. Numerous researchers have examined the attitudinal aspect of brand loyalty (Bowen & Shoemaker, 1998; Iwasaki & Havitz, 1998). Attitudinal brand loyalty focuses not only on transactional strategies, such as frequent guest programs and gifts for repeat customers, but also on attitudinal variables, such as commitment and trust. Attitudinal studies have described brand loyalty not only as the outcome of repeat purchase behavior, but also as the consequence of multidimensional attitudes toward a specific brand (Back & Parks, 2003). In the tourism and hospitality industry, many of the initiatives taken by companies to foster loyalty have generally revolved around schemes to reward loyalty such as frequent flyer programs and hotel reward points (Bowen & Shoemaker, 1998). Unfortunately, it has generally been acknowledged that true customer loyalty cannot be attained solely by rewarding buyers with such monetary-based rewards (Dowling & Uncles, 1997; Duboff & Sherer, 1997; Duffy, 1998). True customer loyalty and commitment is earned more through the development of non-monetary strategies that focuses on the personalization of customer services, individual recognition of the customer, and the formation of a level of trust and commitment between the service provider and its customers (Shoemaker & Lewis, 1999). Guest commitment was very similar to the concept of brand loyalty in the Kim, Han, and Lees (2001) study. Guest commitment was used as an intervening variable that has a time-dimensional effect on repeat purchase and word of mouth. Commitment was also found to be an outcome of relationship quality (Moorman, Zaltman, & Deshpande, 1992). A guests trust and satisfaction with a hotel influence his or her commitment to a relationship with the hotel. Loyal customers are the principal driver of profits as they continue to stay at a brands properties. It has been found that brand-loyal customers also reduce marketing costs associated with attracting new customers (Kotler, Bowen, & Makens, 1998). In addition, these customers say positive things about a company to others (Tepeci, 1999) and frequently pay premium prices (Bowen & Shoemaker, 1998). Tideswell and Fredline (2004) confirmed that price strategies or transactional tactics are not likely to be the key requirements for continued loyalty of guests. Rather, they are most likely to favor strategies that recognize them as special guests, such as providing in-room amenities or special beverages, etc. shown from their past visits preference lists.

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Guests who fit into the extremely loyal cluster have such a high level of attitudinal attachment with the hotel to which they are loyal to, that many are prepared to change the timing of their visit to ensure they are able to stay at their preferred property. They are also not as sensitive on pricing issues and are willing to pay more to stay in their favorite property rather than go elsewhere in favor of cheaper room rate. Attitudinally, the effects of revenue management systems on loyalty need to be considered too (Shoemaker & Bowen, 2003). METHODOLOGY Sample A survey was conducted among hotel customers in the San Francisco Bay Area. Approximately 85% of the respondents stayed at 4-star hotels, while the remaining respondents stayed at 5-star hotels and 3-star hotels. A total of 139 usable questionnaires were obtained. Out of the 139 respondents, only about 71% stated their gender: 40% were female, and 31% were male. About 61% were between the ages of 26 and 45; 14% were under 25; 20% were older than 46; and 5% did not state their age. More than two-thirds (70%) of the respondents were employed, with most of them working in hotels or restaurants (26%), some work in high-tech (13%), retailing (12%), education (11%), health care (10%) and government (7%). About three-quarters had completed bachelor degrees or above. Less than half (46%) of the respondents had education in the area of business or science and engineering. Measurement/Scales Recognizing that past research in this area of evaluating customer satisfaction and its relationship to loyalty has had mixed results, it was determined that new scales needed to be developed to test the constructs in this study. The items chosen were determined from both adaptations of previous research and professional expertise. As the results will show, this method proved to be satisfactory based on the construct reliabilities. The survey instrument was developed with reference to sample questionnaires in the literature as well as consultations with hotel management industry experts. A pretest of the questionnaire was then conducted among students and practitioners of the hospitality industry. The

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result was used to refine the instrument. A Likert scale of six points was used to measure respondent perceptions. Table 1 displays the items used in the questionnaire. Validity and Reliability The items for each variable were checked for construct validity and reliability. Construct validity refers to whether all the items for the observable variable represent one single construct. As shown in Table 2, the result of the factor analysis showed that the variables had high construct validity, with all the items representing one factor accounting for about at least 59% of variance. Reliability refers to the degree of stability of the scale (Jackson, Chow, & Leitch, 1997). Reliability of the construct is demonstrated by checking the Cronbach alpha for the items for each variable. The items all had high reliability coefficients, and their reliability coefficient ranged from 0.88 to 0.97. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS The survey data were analyzed with LISREL confirmatory factor analysis, a tool designed for the analysis of covariance structure model (Long, 1983; Joeskog & Sobom, 1989). LISREL captures the simultaneous interaction among the antecedents and consequences of the latent variables. The final model is given in Figure 1. As indicated, a customers attitude toward service quality and perceived value, Hotel Quality is made up of three significant indicators, Perceived value, Facilities, and Timeliness. Hotel Quality is significantly related to Loyalty, with one unit of Hotel Quality leading to 1.91 unit increase of Loyalty. Hotel Quality is significantly related to Satisfaction, with one unit of Hotel Quality leading to 1.38 unit increase of Satisfaction. The adequacy of the model in Figure 1 is assessed using various measures (Jackson, Chow, & Leitch, 1997; Rai & Patnayakuni, 1996). In using structural equation models for testing, the null hypothesis is set up as a priori not to be rejected. The chi-square statistic tests whether the observed data fit the hypothesis of the proposed model, and a smaller chi-square value indicates a better fit. Hence, when the chi-square values are statistically insignificant, the hypothesized model would have a pattern close to the observed data. However, for small sample sizes that might have slightly departed from normality, the chi-squares are not

Jones, Mak, and Sim TABLE 1. Items Within the Questionnaire

Variable Perceived Value to Price Item Value01 Value02 Value03 Value04 Value05 Value06 Value07 Facilities Fac01 Fac02 Fac03 Fac04 Fac05 Fac06 Fac07 Fac08 Timeliness Time01 Time02 Time03 Time04 Time05 Time06 Time07 Time08 Time09 Loyalty Loyalty01 Loyalty02 Loyalty03 Loyalty04 Loyalty05 Loyalty06 Question I have a huge saving from staying at this hotel I really appreciate the free breakfasts included in this hotel stay This hotel has the best value for great services

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I got the best room rate than any of the other hotels in the area This is a first-class hotel at the best rate possible I value the discount rate/room upgrades at this hotel I value the hotel rewards program at this hotel This hotel has great facilities This hotel has good recreational and leisure facilities This hotel offers an array of awesome amenities This hotel offers convenient computer and Internet connections at a reasonable price for individual rooms This hotel offers fine banquet facilities This hotel has an appropriate restaurant to suit my needs This hotel has a high quality conference and meeting rooms available This hotel has a great gymnasium/fitness center I do not have to stand in line long for room registration at this hotel The concierge desk at this hotel gives me prompt service My room service requests at this hotel are met in a timely manner The employees at this hotel answer my questions readily without delay Room reservation process at this hotel is fast and simple Service here is prompt and instantaneous The employees here never delay a simple request of mine The employees here never gab on the phone about personal matters while making the customers wait The employees here respond to customers immediately I would love to come back to this hotel I am loyal to this hotel I am really dedicated to this hotel I identify myself with this hotel I will tell all my friends and relatives to come to this hotel I will not go to any other hotel but this one

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SERVICES MARKETING QUARTERLY TABLE 1 (continued)

Variable

Item Loyalty07 Loyalty08

Question My loyalty is deeply rooted in this hotel My values and those of this hotel are very similar I am really glad that I stayed here Everything seems so great at this hotel The hotel meets all of my needs and more I am totally satisfied with this hotel I am so contented with everything here I am so pleased with the employees and everything at this hotel This hotel gives me the highest guest satisfaction among all hotels of this type

Satisfaction

Satis01 Satis02 Satis03 Satis04 Satis05 Satis06 Satis07

good indicators of a fine model fit. The chi-square per degrees of freedom should be used instead. A ratio between one and two indicates an excellent fit (Ahire, Golhar, & Waller, 1996; Jackson, Chow, & Leitch, 1997). The ratio of the model in Figure 1 is 1.405 (chi-square = 5.62 with four degrees of freedom), indicating an excellent fit. Other measures of fit include the goodness of fit index (GFI) and normed fit index (NFI) (Bentler & Bonett, 1990). Both the GFI and NFI are always between zero and one, with one indicating a perfect fit, while any value above 0.9 suggests a good fit. The model has a GFI of 0.98 and a NFI of 0.99. This shows a good fit. The adjusted goodness of fit (AGFI) is 0.94. This again shows a good fit. Similarly, the non-normed fit index (NNFI) and the comparative fit index (CFI) are two additional measures ranging from 0 to 1, where values close to or greater than 0.9 represent a reasonable model fit. The NNFI and CFI for the model are 0.99 and 1.00 respectively. Finally, the root mean squared residual (RMSR) shows the proportion of the variance not explained by the model. In general, a root mean squared residual of 0.05 or below indicates a good model fit. The model has a RMSR of 0.054. Overall, the GFI, AGFI, NFI, NNFI, CFI, and RMSR all indicate that the model has a good fit. Figure 1 summarizes the maximum likelihood parameter estimates and t-values for the model constructs. The model parameter x11 for Perceived Value is set to unity to define the unit of measurement for the latent variable Hotel Quality. As indicated, x21 (t = 7.04) is 1.09

Jones, Mak, and Sim TABLE 2. Reliability and Validity of the Items in the Model
Variable Perceived Value to Price Item Value01 Value02 Value03 Value04 Value05 Value06 Value07 Corrected Item Total Correlation 0.65 0.62 0.73 0.68 0.71 0.75 0.56 Alpha = 0.88 Facilities Fac01 Fac02 Fac03 Fac04 Fac05 Fac06 Fac07 Fac08 0.68 0.66 0.70 0.74 0.83 0.81 0.86 0.76 Alpha = 0.93 Timeliness Time01 Time02 Time03 Time04 Time05 Time06 Time07 Time08 Time09 0.58 0.71 0.73 0.78 0.67 0.73 0.81 0.56 0.81 Alpha = 0.92 Loyalty Loyalty01 Loyalty02 Loyalty03 Loyalty04 Loyalty05 Loyalty06 0.72 0.86 0.89 0.90 0.81 0.82 Factor Loading 0.75 0.71 0.83 0.79 0.81 0.83 0.66 1 factor 59% of variance 0.76 0.74 0.78 0.81 0.87 0.85 0.89 0.82 1 factor 67% of variance 0.66 0.78 0.79 0.84 0.75 0.80 0.87 0.64 0.85 1 factor 61% of variance 0.78 0.90 0.92 0.93 0.86 0.86

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SERVICES MARKETING QUARTERLY TABLE 2 (continued)

Variable

Item Loyalty07 Loyalty08

Corrected Item Total Correlation 0.83 0.83 Alpha = 0.96

Factor Loading 0.87 0.87 1 factor 77% of variance 0.92 0.93 0.94 0.95 0.93 0.93 0.91 1 factor 87% of variance

Satisfaction

Satis01 Satis02 Satis03 Satis04 Satis05 Satis06 Satis07

0.89 0.91 0.92 0.93 0.91 0.90 0.88 Alpha = 0.97

and is significant at the 0.05 level, and x31 (t = 6.00) is 0.64 and is significant at the 0.05 level. This suggests that Facilities and Timeliness are observable measures of the latent variable Hotel Quality. Since x21 and x31 are positive, this shows that the better are the hotel facilities and the timelier are the employees as perceived by customers, the more positive is the perceived relationship quality of the hotel. Since x21 is more than unity, this suggests that Facilities is a more important indicator than Perceived Value in measuring Hotel Quality. Since x31 is less than unity, this suggests that Timeliness is a less important indicator than Perceived value in measuring Hotel Quality. The model parameter for Perceived Loyalty is set to unity to define the unit of measurement for the latent variable Loyalty, and the model parameter for Perceived Satisfaction is set to unity to define the unit of measurement for the latent variable Satisfaction. The effect of Hotel Quality on Loyalty, 11 is 1.91 (t = 3.13) and is significant at the 0.05 level. This shows that higher perceived relationship quality would lead to higher loyalty, with one unit increase in the level of perceived Hotel Quality leading to 1.91 units increase in Loyalty levels of the customer. The effect of Hotel Quality on Satisfaction, 12 is 1.38 (t = 7.08) and is significant at the 0.05 level. This shows that higher perceived relationship quality would lead to higher satisfaction, with one unit increase in the level of perceived Hotel Quality leading to

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FIGURE 1. Model of the Antecedents and Consequences of Relationship Quality

Perceived value Perceived Loyalty

1.00 1.00
x21 = 1.09 (t = 7.04) 11 = 1.91 (t = 3.13)

Facilities

Hotel Quality

Loyalty

Timeliness

x31 = 0.64 (t = 6.00)

12 = 1.38 (t = 7.08)

12 = 0.08 (t = 0.24)

Satisfaction

1.00

Perceived Satisfaction

Goodness of Fit Measures:

Chi-square Degree of freedom (df) Chi-square/df Goodness of fit (GFI) Adjusted Goodness of fit (AGFI) Normed Fit Index (NFI) Comparative Fit Index (CFI) Non-Normed Fit Index (NNFI) Root Mean Square Error 5.62 4 1.405 0.98 0.94 0.99 1.00 0.99 0.054

1.38 units increase in Satisfaction levels of the customer. The effect of satisfaction on loyalty is insignificant. This indicates increasing relationship quality would lead to an increase in satisfaction as well as in loyalty, but these two consequences, loyalty and satisfaction, have no direct relationships with one another. DISCUSSION, IMPLICATIONS, AND FUTURE RESEARCH If the name of the game in the hotel business is getting repeat visits from existing customers, then creating a positive attitude toward service quality with perceived value in the customers mind is a key to having satisfied customers and developing loyal customers that will come back. As we found in this study, delivering service quality that results in satisfied and loyal customers is a factor of both the tangible and intangible aspects of the service delivery. It is not enough to have a magnificent facility with all of the marble, glass, and brass, although that is a factor.

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The employee and the ability of that employee to deliver the expected service in a timely manner is also a critical element of the customers attitude leading to his/her satisfaction with the hotels service and his/her loyalty to the hotel. More specifically it was determined that prompt or timely service from all departments beginning with the initial reservation and continuing through the check-out process was a key element of the customers attitude about the hotel that led to customer satisfaction and establishing customer loyalty. This reinforces the need for hotel managers to be certain that timeliness is a part of the employee training efforts and that the technology used for the employees delivery of service is most efficient. Additionally, it seems that the variety of facilities offered by the hotel including recreational and leisure facilities, banquet facilities, restaurants, meeting rooms, and other amenities has a significant effect on the customers attitude about the hotel, whether he/she used all of the facilities or not. This would provide support for a hotel to consider offering a wide variety of facilities to guests in order to assure the customers satisfaction and loyalty. Perhaps even a limited-service hotel requires facilities to be present in close proximity. We also determined that the perceived value of the services based on the transaction value offered has an effect on the customers attitude. In other words, the customer must believe that the level of service is appropriate to the rate paid for the service, else a positive attitude will not occur. The implication is that pricing should be considered as more than just what the market will bear or what the competition is offering. This could mean that an overzealous revenue manager could affect the customer attitude to the point of ultimately reducing satisfaction with the hotel stay and the customers loyalty to the hotel, a critical issue as business begins to recover from a slow economic period, which would have disastrous effects. Also, interestingly, but not inconsistent with previous research, customer satisfaction is not a guarantee of customer loyalty (Bowen & Chen, 2001). As identified by other researchers, a certain level of satisfaction may have to be present before it leads to loyalty (Bowen & Chen, 2001). Loyalty is also a composite of both behavioral and attitudinal factors that were both incorporated in the measure of loyalty in this study. Perhaps, the behavioral factor alone might have shown a positive and significant relationship between satisfaction and loyalty. One limitation of this study was that we chose to modify and develop new scales for the measurement of constructs that had been previously defined in other related research. This was done to develop better and

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more comprehensive measures of each construct; however, the method may not have captured all of the variables involved with measuring service quality. As noted earlier, the measurement of the antecedents and consequences of the relationship quality the hotel maintains with its customers is a moving target. As the hotel business rebounds from the recent downturn and moves forward, these variables need to be constantly evaluated and re-evaluated to be certain the hotel industry is indeed delivering the service quality and providing the best value to the customer. Anything less will result in the loss of customers, revenues, and impede future growth. REFERENCES
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doi:10.1300/J396v28n03_02