[Quality and Customer Satisfaction in Hotel and Hospitality industry]

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Abstract

The hospitality industry and hotels in particular, have witnessed increasing competition for high Service Quality and customer satisfaction. Hotel organisations therefore need to understand with as much precision as possible what the guests want from the service experience. Doing so allows them to minimise wasted resources. Being precise becomes difficult, however, because of the heterogeneity of customers. The purpose of this research is to conduct a critical study of the hotel and hospitality industry and explore the concept of service quality and customer satisfaction in the hospitality industry.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction1

Background of the research1

Problem Statement2

Aims and Objectives2

Significance2

Theoretical Frame work3

Limitations and Suggestion for Future Research4

Ethical Concern4

Informed Consent5

Confidentiality6

Key word used6

Chapter 2: Literature Review7

Hospitality7

Customer's Perceptions of Quality8

Hospitality Quality10

Determinants of Service Quality13

Chapter 3: Methodology15

Research Design15

Outline of the overall strategy16

Research Instrument used16

Sample17

Data Collection Method17

Data Analysis17

Underlying assumption18

Explanation of the rationale for your proposed methods18

Possible alternative to your proposed methods18

Any difficulties and uncertainties19

Limitations and Suggestion for Future Research19

Chapter 4: Anticipated Result20

Chapter 5: Conclusion22

References24

Appendices28

Questionnaire regarding the Hotel's service quality attributes28

Chapter 1: Introduction

Background of the research

Hospitality organisations are in the relatively unique position of attempting to bridge two worlds - the domestic and the commercial as they deliver on the service promise. While numerous writers have convincingly argued that the delivery of service is different from the production of goods, we argue that the delivery of hotel services is qualitatively different from the delivery of other types of services and that this will influence the way that service is managed, delivered and perceived by the customer. This paper will focus on issues of quality in the hotel sector identifying gaps and highlighting new directions. The term hospitality is a broad one and the point that many encounters have elements of a typical hospitality encounter (Heskett, 2009, 118-129).

This research will focus on those areas of the hospitality industry that involve a voluntary purchase of accommodation, food, or beverage for the purposes of convenience or pleasure. Typically in these situations the employee becomes a host and the customer his guest. In the extended encounters that are part of many hospitality experiences, employees are required to repeatedly affirm this hospitable relationship among themselves and their customers. For their part, the hospitality guests are in a setting that is somewhat similar to a familiar domestic setting but they have less control over the arrangements than they would in a domestic setting. The employee-customer dyad is of course mediated by the manager who must balance the need to create the warmth of a domestic hospitality setting with the need to maximise the cold hard cash extracted from individual guests and from the operation (Chapman, 2006, 78-88).

Problem Statement

Building on the available conceptual and empirical base, we focus on the following research Question and this from a long-term perspective (McAlexander et al., 2002, pp: 38-54). The latter implies that we consistently check what trends can be observed over time:

To explore the concept of service quality and customer satisfaction in the hospitality ...