Introduction
The hotel and hospitality sector is more of a service industry than a product market. Services are activities or series of activities that are more or less intangible but affect the success of a company. Service provision involves critical interactions between consumers and employees in companies that operate within the industry (Arulkumar 2015). Quality is as important in the service industry as it is in the manufacturing sector because customers desire to receive value for their money. While various tools to assess quality in the manufacturing industry are available, such as continuous quality improvement, few tools have been developed for use in the service industry. However, managers in the service industry, such as hotels can use the service delivery process to assess quality in their interactions with customers (Kumra, 2008). Each contact is an opportunity to either satisfy or dissatisfy a client. Customer satisfaction is critical for the future success of companies in the hotel and hospitality industry because they fully depend on their ability to attract and retain these important stakeholders. Service level is considered unacceptable when customer expectations are not met.
Since the beginning of the 1980s, research has proven that improved quality of service influences customer decisions positively. Therefore, when companies provide high-quality services, they promote customer trust and loyalty, as well as chances of a lasting relationship with the company or brand. Quality service is the basis for the positive performance of service companies such as hotels (Arulkumar 2015). Therefore, as Kumra (2008) demonstrates, companies in the hotel and hospitality industry should strive to build customer loyalty and satisfaction to achieve their business objectives such as remaining profitable. Service quality in the hotel and hospitality industry receive more attention from researchers and practitioners because quality has a positive effect on the financial performance of businesses within the industry (Debasish & Dey 2015). Managers should work on improving customer satisfaction to promote retention and a continuous flow of revenue for the business. Eventually, improvement of quality is an important determinant of organisational success in the contemporary competitive business environment. Therefore, marketers in hotels and hospitality industries should carefully consider the quality of their services.
Quality customer experience is a common concept in the hotel industry, especially in the modern competitive business environment. According to Rauch, Collins, Nale, and Barr (2015), the concept is useful to individuals and organisations involved in research, planning, marketing, policy, management, and service delivery in the hotel and hospitality industry. Within the service industry, the concept of quality is mostly assumed instead of being adequately defined to have a clear meaning for researchers and practitioners (Blešić et al. 2014). Furthermore, many marketers and managers within the service industry mostly take the quality concept for granted. Whenever the term is used, businesses managers believe that they are serving the needs of their customers as required. As a result, companies operating within the sector fail to consider the important concept and the main source of their competitive advantage. However, managers value positive customer experiences because they believe that they are the basis for their business success (Madar, 2014). Therefore, quality is assumed under the marketing activities that strive to improve customer experience and satisfaction.
The success of companies operating within the hotel and hospitality industry in the current highly competitive market depends on the ability to deliver quality service, which aims at achieving customer delight. According to Madar (2014), marketers and managers within the industry should envision, initiate, plan, deliver, monitor, and sustain quality to remain productive and competitive. Debasish and Dey (2015) add that quality issues and major staff problems can be easily resolved using the straightforward “People and Quality” strategy. The approach suggests putting the needs of the customers at the core of all business processes, including human resource management. Besides, it includes receiving feedback and suggestions from employees, developing a philosophy, benchmarking and reviewing, and training and development of employees to improve their ability to meet customer needs (Garg & Dhar, 2014). While managers in international hotel and hospitality business believe that they provide quality, it is critical to establish the level of such quality in their services from the perspective of customers.
The Research Problem and why it is Important to this Business
Quality in the service industry is more complicated to understand and evaluate, unlike in product markets where businesses deal with tangible goods. While some researchers consider services as a class of products, they have unique traits that make them different. Services are diverse from products and different aspects relating to the way they are marketed, sold, and bought (Debasish & Dey 2015). In addition, services are intangible, heterogeneous, and inseparable (Saleem & Raja, 2014). The unique traits of services make it difficult to effectively comprehend consumer perceptions and expectations regarding their level of quality. Besides, Kasiri, Cheng, Sambasivan, and Sidin (2017) suggest that services are associated with human behaviours, which are highly subjective. Humans provide and receive services. Therefore, different individuals at diverse times, in different situations, and geographical areas provide diverse services to a broad client base. For example, unlike a product such as mobile phones which can be the same in two different countries as long as the same company produces them, services differ even when offered by two employees from the same company.
Quality in the service industry is further complicated by perceptions, even when external conditions are similar. People have their standards of measuring the quality of service that differ. Therefore, consistency is a major concern for businesses operating in the service industry, such as the hotel and hospitality sector. Besides, services are provided as whole processes. According to Sarjono (2014), during the service encounter, people create and produce a service while it is received and consumed at the same time. Therefore, providing quality services to customers can be a complicated issue for service companies, especially given that quality depends on objective customer perception. At the same time, customers’ reactions to services play an important role in quality management for hotel companies (Kasiri, Cheng, Sambasivan, & Sidin, 2017). Given the characteristics of services, evaluation of quality is a problem. Regardless of such complexity, businesses should enhance quality standards in their services because the profitability depends on it.
While the quality of service is important for local hotels, it is even more critical for international business that is operating in a highly competitive business environment. Many hotels are opening up and operating in different parts of the world (Kasiri, Cheng, Sambasivan, & Sidin 2017). At the same time, such hotels attract an international customer base, which makes quality a very important element. However, they face major challenges in providing quality services because consumer perception and expectations determine the level of service quality. Thus, international hotels should ensure that they operate effectively to meet customer expectations so that they can perceive quality in their services (Kasiri, Cheng, Sambasivan, & Sidin, 2017). Besides, they should empower their employees to serve their customers professionally because quality relates to consumer expectation and perception. Hotels should recruit, train, and develop an international workforce to serve the needs of the global clientele. In essence, the demands for quality services for international hotels are greater than those of local hotels.
What Really Works
When it comes to improving the quality of services and products, companies use various techniques and tools. However, it is important to determine “what really works” to implement effective methods as well as manage and improve quality. Understanding the nature of business matters in improving the quality of services in international companies. Businesses in international hotel and hospitality industry should collect primary data to appreciate their customers’ needs, reveal what they prefer, and understand how they can improve their service to achieve quality objectives (Nohria, Joyce & Roberson 2003). Given the fact that customers determine the quality of services in the hotel and hospitality industry, what works is a proper understanding of the customer. Therefore, marketers and managers in international hotels should perform effective market research to collect information about the customer and implement courses of action that work.
What really works for international hotels is building business and quality improvement strategies on a strong knowledge of their target customers. While international hotels and other businesses in the service industry might have superior capabilities, they cannot succeed without understanding their customers (Nohria, Joyce & Roberson 2003). Besides, they should share their knowledge with employees, customers, and shareholders to create value for all the stakeholder groups. Market research enables companies to refine the strategy in reaction to the market and customer expectations. Customer feel valued where their views are considered in creating a quality management strategy. Therefore, managers in international hotels should develop behaviour or continued market research to include customers in their quality improvement efforts.
Literature Review
Service experience is critical for the success of all businesses, whether in the service or manufacturing sector. While it is clear to define and assess the quality of products, similar principles are not applicable in the service industry (Kasiri, Cheng, Sambasivan, & Sidin 2017). According to Dabestani, Shahin, Saljoughian, and Shirouyehzad (2016), the challenge in determining the quality of services emanates from the aspect that the quality of services is a subjective variable. The authors suggest that service quality or experience is a subjective feeling or personal reaction that customers have upon using or consuming a service. Therefore, it is agreeable that service quality or experience is an important factor in the evaluation of the consumer relating to a service. It determines the level of satisfaction upon receiving the service (Debasish & Dey 2015). Therefore, it is an experiential phenomenon in the service industry that is critical to the success of companies in the sector. Service quality is critical in the performance of businesses in highly competitive global markets. Therefore, while quality is critical for local companies in the hotel and hospitality industry, it is even more important for international hotels because of the need to be highly competitive.
Companies within the sector have, in recent years, been convinced about the strategic advantage of quality. Consequently, various leading companies globally have created and implemented quality-measurement programs to relate the attributes of their services and products to the evaluations of quality by their real and potential customers (Kasiri, Cheng, Sambasivan, & Sidin 2017). Companies within the service industry have designed programs such as surveys to collect information from their customers geared at creating quality services aligned with customers’ expectations. The feedback loop enables marketers and managers within the industry to continually improve their services to meet expectations. Therefore, from such a perspective, Debasish and Dey (2015) argued that quality means the conformance to specifications and the ability to meet the expectations of customers. Dabestani, Shahin, Saljoughian, and Shirouyehzad (2016) add that the effort to have successful quality management for the business is the most effective way to achieve consumer commitment through functional consumer-brand relationships. Therefore, companies in the service industry strive to work with customers to receive relevant feedback and improve the quality of their services.
Employees play an important role in attempts to create quality services that meet customer expectations and achieve a high level of consumer satisfaction. Arulkumar (2015) supports the idea by suggesting that companies can only achieve their quality objectives by empowering their staff to underpin service quality dimensions. The approach may include reliability (the ability to achieve quality objectives such as service dependably and accurately); tangibles (appearance of personnel, physical facilities, equipment); reliability (ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately); responsiveness (the inclination to support customers and deliver timely services); assurance (awareness and consideration of employees and their capability to relay trust and confidence); and understanding (the personalized attention given to clients). Quality in the service industry has proven to be one of the most important conditions that determine the level of competitiveness. Quality of services helps companies to create a positive brand image that is communicated to customers globally (Kasiri, Cheng, Sambasivan, & Sidin, 2017). It is the only way for businesses to survive a highly competitive global business environment.
Research reveals that the idea of quality service management in the service industry has permeated the hotel and hospitality industry. Arulkumar (2015) posits that the businesses within the industry rely completely on the nature of their relationship with their customers to become productive and competitive. Various theories have developed since the 1980s to measure the quality of service within the hotel and hospitality industry. One of such tools is the SERVQUAL (1988), which is based on an expectation/performance disconfirmation model. Notably, the tool emanates from gap theory (Debasish & Dey 2015). From the perspective, quality is defined as “the degree and direction of a discrepancy between customers’ service perceptions and expectations” (Dabestani, Shahin, Saljoughian, & Shirouyehzad 2016, p. 161). Although the model has been extensively discussed in the research, Arulkumar (2015) suggests that it fails to capture effective and holistic factors that relate to “service experience” and perceptions of quality by customers. For instance, while service quality is objective, experience quality is subjective.
Thus, to address the gaps involved in using the SERVQUAL model, researchers propose the use of customer effective responses to determine the level of satisfaction with the services that a company provides (Arulkumar, 2015). The quality experience evaluation provides a more holistic view of quality instead of an attribute-based model because of the subjective nature of service consumption. The focus of evaluation when using the model is on the self (internal) instead of (external). Furthermore, it has a more generalised scope that enables the collection of adequate data from consumers. Experience quality is considered as customer affective responses based on the value of the services they receive. It is also based on service transactions, including contact with employees (Dabestani, Shahin, Saljoughian, & Shirouyehzad 2016). Companies in the hotel industry should strive to maintain quality from the perspective of the customer because the consumer is the main determinant of success. Therefore, quality management should consider general service quality, depending on customer expectations and experience.
Notably, in the globally competitive markets, international hotels should drive competitive advantage and value from their effectiveness in satisfying the needs of their customers. The hotel and hospitality environment has become highly competitive with more international companies entering the business. Therefore, they are forced to implement effective quality measures and standards to overcome the competition (Dabestani, Shahin, Saljoughian, & Shirouyehzad 2016). Regardless of the competitiveness, marketers, and managers of the international hotel rarely implement effective models to evaluate the quality of their services using customer’s perceptions. They focus on internal measures of quality, such as recruiting skilled employees and investing in training and development, believing that the approach will promote the quality of their services to customers. They neglect the most important source of information about the quality of services and the feelings of customers. Therefore, the current study will fill the gap by collecting information from customers about the quality of services at Novotel Sydney.
Methodology
The research will investigate customer perceptions regarding the quality of services offered at Novotel Sydney, an international hotel located in Sydney, Australia. The data collected will support various areas of service quality, such as customer experiences and their perceptions of quality at the hotel (Blešić et al. 2014). The research allows comparing other similar studies, including data collected by marketers at the hotel to establish the perceptions of quality of services by customers and the reviews the management used to improve the quality of their services. It will also compare the data with similar studies across the world informed by the increasing competitiveness in the hotel and hospitality industry. The study aims to examine common expectations of customers of quality, their level of satisfaction with current services, and factors they consider important in service quality experience during their stay at the international hotel. Analysis of the results will inform feasible suggestions and recommendations to companies in the hotel and hospitality industry in Australia and internationally.
The study will take the form of a survey that will be completed by guests at the hotel. The researcher will receive consent from the hotel review board to perform the study and collect data from customers. A questionnaire will be structured for the study with the help of the management of the hotel. Notably, this step is important to ensure compliance with the hotel guidelines on research to ethically collect data from its customers (Madar 2014). Individual items in the questionnaire will be selected and customised based on previous research on customer experience and quality of services. The questionnaire will have three parts. The first part will contain demographic information, including age, gender, nature of the trip (business or leisure), and country of origin. The initial section will collect information relating to various aspects of the front office, room service and in-house café-restaurant, pool area and gymnasium centre. The second section of the questionnaire will provide an evaluation of the quality performance of the hotel from the guests’ perspective.
The structured questionnaire will use a Likert Scale of 1 to 5. Number 1 will be the lowest significance or unacceptable level of service, 3 will represent no opinions, and 5 the highest significance of an acceptable level of service offered by the hotel (Madar 2014). Notably, the researcher will draw a sample of hotel customers to complete the study. The data collection process will take five working days, Monday to Friday, and will collect data from customers who will have stayed at the hotel for the past three days. The researcher will assume that such guests have adequate interaction with the hotel and its staff and are justified to offer an opinion regarding their perception of the level of quality. The researcher hopes to collect data from 100 guests of Novotel Sydney. The sample is considered adequate in collecting reliable and valid data from the hotel. Participants will fill in the questionnaire during the time they check in and when they are checking out to compare their quality expectations and experience. Data for the analysis will be obtained from the questionnaire based on the SERVQUAL model. The respondents will be selected through a non-probability convenience sampling method. The method is appropriate for the sample because the researcher focuses on identifying the guests at the hotel who have stayed for at least three days.
Likely Data that will be Obtained and Analyzed
The researcher will use structured questionnaires to collect three categories of data. Hotel guests aged 18 years and above will provide the demographic information, including their age, gender, the reason for their stay at the hotel (business or leisure), and country of origin. The demographic data is the first category that will be analysed. The second category of the data involves the perceptions of the customer about quality and experience during their stay in the hotel. The data will be analysed through statistical analysis, examining the quality of service perception and customer expectations based on five dimensions (tangible, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and understanding). In addition, the queries from the questionnaire based on perceptions and expectations will be analysed. The data will be presented in tables and graphs for readability and ease of understanding (Madar 2014). The final group of data will be on hotel characteristics as given by the surveyed customers. The data will reveal the need for improvement in other aspects that are not directly related to the way the hotel employees serve customers but still affect the quality of the services.
The researcher expects to analyse 100 completed questionnaires using the statistical data analysis method. Since the researcher will spend time at the hotel and use a convenient sample, a 100% response rate is expected. The SERVQUAL approach will be used to calculate service quality gaps through the difference between customers’ expectations and customers’ perceptions at the end of their time at the hotel. The researcher will use a paired t-test to establish the differences in levels of perception and expectations. The test is appropriate to achieve the objective because it is used in comparing and giving the t-value of before-and-after data. The whole set of data will be analysed using SPSS 20.0 for windows. The data will provide significant findings regarding the quality of service at the hotel and lead to recommendations and suggestions on how to improve quality to increase customer satisfaction.
Likely Findings and their Importance
The aim of investigating customer perceptions regarding the quality of services offered at Novotel Sydney is to recommend improvement that would bring competitiveness in the highly competitive global hotel and hospitality market. Therefore, the course of action for the hotel and others in the market will depend on the outcome of the study. The expected results will reveal whether the measurement instrument (SERVQUAL questionnaire) is psychometrically sound. Therefore, the tool will be used in practice by managers to collect information from their customers to establish their level of quality (Kasiri, Cheng, Sambasivan, & Sidin 2017). Hence, the management should use the tool regularly to achieve continuous improvement in the quality of their services. The proposed conceptual framework is effective in supporting research to fill the current gaps in market research and literature.
Likely Findings and their Importance
The study aimed at establishing the perceptions of customers regarding the quality of services in international hotels. The expected results will reveal that differences exist between the particular and general elements of significance and real experience of customers in international hotels. The study findings might also show significant differences between customer expectations and the experience in such hotels (Kasiri, Cheng, Sambasivan, & Sidin 2017). For such companies, quality management is critical to ensure the success of businesses in serving their customers. Results from the study are important in informing effective quality management in international hotels. It is vital for businesses to initiate specific efforts to bridge the gap between customer expectations and experience.
Estimated Cost in Terms of Time and Finances
The proposed project will be conducted for two months. Hence, the period will run from the planning stage to the data collection phase and analysis stage to the presentation of findings. The initial month will entail planning the study, seeking ethical approval from the hotel, and working with its marketing team to construct the questionnaire. The second month will involve collecting and analysing data as well as reporting the findings. The following table shows the actual timeline for the study:
Date | Task |
1st-5th June | Topic identification and approval |
6th-10th June | A preliminary review of the literature |
11th-15th June | Identification of the international hotel for the study |
16th-25th June | Questionnaire construction |
26th -30th June | Pilot test for the questionnaire |
1st-15 July | Data collection and analysis |
16th-31st July | Reporting and presentation |
The total cost of the study will be around $10,000, which will cover all the expenses and costs of the research project. Most of the budget will incur charges related to travelling, hotel, and research assistance. The money will also pay for equipment and resources to support planning, data collection and analysis, and reporting. The table below shows a detailed budget for the study project:
Item | Cost |
Salaries and wages for research assistants | $4000 |
Travelling cost | $3000 |
Equipment | $2000 |
Materials and supplies | $1000 |
Contingency | $1000 |
Total | $11,000 |
Reference List
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