Converging Services Marketing and Tourism Approaches in Satisfaction and Service Quality Research

ABSTRACT

This paper attempts to converge the utilitarian or provider-based concept of service quality and the experiential or customer-based concept of satisfaction. It presents two empirical projects which examined visitor's service quality and satisfaction judgements by alternative methodological approaches. The first is a quantitative study of visitor's assessment of historic houses, illustrating that quality and satisfaction concepts can be successfully combined into a model of the means-end chain type. The second is a qualitative study of visitor's narrative assessment of successive service experiences, highlighting the various functions of service quality aspects during the entire holiday stay. Finally, the authors argue that these kinds of approaches may contribute to the academic debate on satisfaction and service quality constructs, and will equally open up new opportunities for service and destination marketers in tourism.     

Service Quality in Tourism Research

Abstract

This paper reviews the recent development of service quality research. It relates the key issues and approaches to the tourism and hospitality sectors. It identifies the need for further research into the meaning and management of service quality in tourism and hospitality.     

An Assessment of Service Quality in a Nature-Based Tourism Setting

Abstract

Tourism in most states today is a vital economic force. To meet the growing desires of the traveling public who wish to better understand the environment and how to respect it, entrepreneurs in the private and public sectors need to rise. Thus, the purpose of this study was to help nature-based tourism businesses improve the quality of services that they offered and to make new service product recommendations. Three nature-based tourism businesses in the Grand Strand region of South Carolina were studied, using visitor questionnaires. A total sample of 630 useable questionnaires was included in the analysis. The findings of this study showed the importance of including a programming dimension with an experience service such as nature-based tourism. Results suggested that nature-based tourists' expectations of service quality vary between the selected businesses. Further research in this area needs to examine the influence that involvement and loyalty has on service quality gaps.     

A New Tune from an Old Instrument

SUMMARY

The ability to provide high quality customer service and to deliver customer value is critical to attracting customers in the competitive tourism service environment. This research seeks to explore whether the instrument developed by Zeithaml et al. (1990), referred to as SERVQUAL, can be applied to a tourism service business to provide a quantifiable method of measuring service quality. An adaptation of SERVQUAL was applied to a business operating tours through a brewery in Tasmania, Australia. The instrument proved to be adequately internally reliable and provided apparently useful and easily interpretable diagnostic data to the management of the business. It was concluded that SERVQUAL has the potential to be a useful management tool provided care is taken to adapt the instrument to the individual needs of the user while remaining within the underlying theoretical framework. Adaptation and simplification of the complicated instrument provides small tourism businesses with a new way of gaining theory-based diagnostic data that can be self-administered by management on an ongoing basis and is not a burden to the customers.     

Information Technology and Service Standards in MICE Tourism

Abstract

The meetings, incentives, conventions, and exhibitions (MICE) sector of tourism is growing rapidly worldwide and particularly in the Asia Pacific region. One of the important challenges posed by rapid growth of this sector is to maintain service standards in a context of intense competition for this form of tourism. In particular, the development of skills in information technology is regarded as essential to the provision of quality service to tourists. After providing a brief outline of the MICE sector and its major stakeholders, the paper proceeds to highlight the importance of information technology in tourism generally and MICE tourism specifically. It then addresses issues of concern and identifies areas for further research to help the nation's MICE sector achieve competitive advantage.     

Tourism in South America

Summary

This article introduces a collection of eight revised papers that focus on the connection between slavery and tourism. After tracing the history of the former from its origins to the present day, and after providing some examples of related attractions, it confronts a number of dilemmas associated with their juxtaposition. A brief overview of the contributions to the volume is supplied, along with some epistemological and methodological concerns that they raise. Slavery tourism is finally contextualized within a framework of thanatourism, dark tourism and dissonant heritage, a field which in turn poses several questions for further research into this new and exciting phenomenon.     

Service Quality

Abstract

A methodology is suggested based on the assumption that quality is perceived in a given situation when the individual consumer determines the attributes that make up service quality rather than the service provider. Results gained from a two-part study (state tourism and commercial lodging facilities) that use the suggested methodology showed differences in attributes between consumers and the service providers when compared to another state tourism study and a guest comment card from a nationwide lodging franchiser.     

Hospitality,Tourism, and Lifestyle Concepts

ABSTRACT

This article provides an overview of the significance of the lifestyle concept for the management of service quality and customer satisfaction in the hospitality and tourism industry. It discusses aspects of its continuing evolution and outlines the contents of articles relevant to this volume, providing a brief summary of the articles collected. It concludes by identifying a number of opportunities for further research into hospitality and tourism lifestyle concepts.     

The Impact of Cultural Distance on Perceived Service Quality Gaps

Abstract

The data base of previously published research which tested a SERVQUAL-Gap model for tourists' judgments with respect to service quality for seven different quality dimensions and seven different vacation activities in alpine tourism (Weiermair and Fuchs 1999, Fuchs and Weiermair 1998) is used to explore the potential impact of tourists' cultural belonging upon their judgment regarding the overall and partial service quality experience in different settings of tourism activities. Using respondents' characteristics with respect to their country of residence and past vacation experience in alpine skiing the paper attempts to construct a proxy for cultural distance which subsequently is tested for its impact upon service quality judgments of tourists. A bifurcation hypothesis is proposed and used, whereby tourists from very distant cultures either display high tolerance levels for “exotic” or non-familiar service quality, thus yielding high quality judgment scores or alternatively, cultural distance is associated with higher transaction costs of the tourism experience resulting in significantly lower quality judgment scores. The presence of a matrix of 49 separate service quality scores allowed to differentiate the cultural impact hypothesis with respect to different service quality settings. The paper provides some tentative conclusions which have important ramification regarding the question of product development and the management and/or control of service quality for culturally different tourist segments.     

Services Research in Destination Marketing

Abstract

This paper examines the past performance of, and future prospects for, services marketing research into tourism destination marketing and management. While service delivery by individual enterprises is important, the fundamental products of the industry are destination experiences that incorporate commercial tourism services as well as non-commercial activities and interactions. For this reason, the paper focuses on tourism destinations rather than the individual enterprises that deliver services to tourists at destinations. The paper identifies areas that have attracted a concentration of research effort to date. The principal objective of the paper, however, is to identify services research issues deserving greater attention by service researchers in general and tourism researchers in particular.     

Research note sport tourism versus event tourism: Considerations on a necessary distinction and integration

Abstract

Interest in sport-related tourism increased perceptibly around the millennium, however, a comprehensive conceptual framework for a classification of sport (event) tourism is still missing. The predominant focus of sport tourism encompasses event-related touristic endeavors, such as mega sport events; however, an holistic approach to sport tourism suggests the need for further integration of other sub-areas such as nonevent-related components. This research note, therefore, provides a sport tourism perspective and a methodological approach to establishing the sport tourism cube as a necessary tool for the further distinction and integration of sport and event tourism. The research aim is, therefore, to build a foundation for further scientific research in sport tourism.     

The Importance of Cultural Distance in the Perception of Evaluation of Service Quality

ABSTRACT

The paper deals with determinants in the cross-cultural setting of service encounters in tourism. The first part of the paper describes the theoretically expected influence of culture (cultural values) on the perception of expected and received service qualities. Based on a review of the literature cultural values are hypothesized to intervene in the formation of expectations and the perception of received service quality (satisfaction) across specific service quality related choice and/or decision and evaluation processes. Cases in point are particular dimensions of service quality encountered in tourism destinations, events and accommodation settings. The second part of the paper explores the usefulness and also the limitations of alternate cultural constructs found in the literature and used in the analysis of tourist's service quality judgements. Finally in part three the cultural distance is suggested as a useful potential proxy for the influence of cultural values in tourism applications and is discussed alongside other cultural constructs traditionally employed in tourism analyses.     

Thailand's Hotel Industry

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to provide an exploratory examination of tourism on Phuket, a tourist island in the Andaman Sea, concentrating on the level of service provided in hotels. Although still a growth industry, the basic problems of tourism are (1) quality perceptions by the tourists, and (2) managing challenges, the latter based in part on western practice and in part on religion, namely Theravada Buddhism.     

Service Quality,Satisfaction, and Behavioral Intention Among Forest Visitors

Abstract

This study explores the interrelationships between service quality and satisfaction, and their influence on behavioral intention among forest visitors. On-site surveys were conducted in a forest through face-to-face interviews (n = 395). The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The findings suggest that service quality is an antecedent of satisfaction and satisfaction plays a mediating role between service quality and behavioral intention. Further, service quality has a direct effect on behavioral loyalty, implying that the effect of service quality on behavioral intention is as important as that of satisfaction. The results of the study provide important theoretical implications to nature-based tourism managers.     

The role of relationship quality in integrated destination marketing

ABSTRACT

This study illustrates the role of the relationship quality perceived by the international public, which is increasingly discussed in public diplomacy research. It leads to the implications for integrated destination marketing of a host country in targeting the international public, where the host country is considered both as a tourism destination and as a place for business and investment. The study proposes a model illustrating the intervention of relationship quality in the way tourism destination image and country image are associated with tourism and business behavioral intentions. Empirical testing shows that image itself cannot assure that the international public would support the host country. Instead, it establishes the critical role of enhancing relationship quality.     

Predictors of Service Effort

ABSTRACT

Improving service quality will continue to be a vital goal for hospitality and tourism organizations in the new millennium. As service worker performance directly impacts customer's evaluation of quality, further investigation of methods of improving performance are necessary. Service effort is a construct that has received little attention in the literature, but may be a significant factor in linking employee attitudes and customer perceptions of service quality. This exploratory study tested three popular managerial constructs to determine the extent to which they predict service effort. Using data from 331 service workers from two cruise line operations organizations, motivation, organizational commitment and job satisfaction were regressed against service effort. Results indicate that organizational commitment was the greatest predictor of service effort, followed by motivation. One dimension of job satisfaction (satisfaction with company), failed to yield a significant relationship with service effort, while satisfaction with supervisor yielded a slightly negative coefficient. Implications for hospitality and tourism managers and organizations are discussed.     

The Effect of Trust on Quality in the Culturally Diverse Tourism Industry

Abstract

Tourism can be interpreted as a system of different companies, which are often situated in different regional, geographical, political, economic and cultural backgrounds. Because of the tense interaction between customers and employees in tourism firms, understanding of the system plays a significant role to establish a high service quality. Furthermore customers have to offer trust to tourism firms, since the tourism product is characterized by high intangibility before consumption. Additionally trust building is hampered due to the diversity of people in tourism and the different firms in tourism, which have to cooperate. This paper analyzes trust building in tourism and presents strategies to improve trust.