Chapter 2: Service Characteristics of Hospitality and

Tourism Marketing
1. The service culture focuses on serving and satisfying customers.
2. Creation of a service culture has to start with top management and flow
down.
Characteristics of Services Marketing
3.

4. Unlike physical products, services cannot be seen, tasted, felt, heard, or

smelled before they are purchased. In the hospitality and travel industry,
many of the products sold are intangible experiences.
5. Tangibles, such as the condition of the grounds and the overall cleanliness of
an establishment, provide signals as to the quality of the intangible service.
6. In most hospitality services, both the service provider and the customer must
be present for the transaction to occur.
7. Managers must manage customers so they do not create dissatisfaction for
others.
8. Another implication of inseparability is that customers and employees must
understand the service delivery system because they are coproducing the

service.
9. Customer coproduction means organizations must select, hire, and train
customers.
10.The benefits of a guest becoming an employee because of coproduction
include increased value, customization, and reduced waiting time.
11.Services are highly variable. Their quality depends on who provides them and
when they are provided.
12.Several causes of service variability include simultaneous production and
consumption, fluctuating demand, and the skill of the service provider.
13.Variability, or lack of consistency in the product, is a major cause of customer
disappointment in the hospitality industry.
14.Three steps hospitality firms can take to reduce variability and create
consistency:
a. Invest in good hiring and training procedures.
b. Standardize the service performance process throughout the
organization.
c. Monitor customer satisfaction.
15.Revenue lost from not selling hotel rooms or filling restaurant seats is gone
forever. Therefore, it can be said that services are perishable.
Management Strategies for Service Businesses
16.The service-profit chain connects service firm profits with employee and
customer satisfaction. It consists of five links:
a. Healthy service profits and growth
b. Satisfied and loyal customers
c. Greater service value
d. Satisfied and productive service employees
e. Internal service quality
17.Internal marketing means that the service firm must effectively train and
motivate its customer-contact employees and all the supporting service
people to work as a team to provide customer satisfaction.
18.Interactive marketing means that perceived service quality depends heavily
on the quality of the buyer-seller interaction during the service encounter.
19.Service companies face the task of increasing three major marketing areas:
their competitive differentiation, service quality, and productivity.

20.Service companies can differentiate their service delivery in three ways:

through people, physical environment, and process.
21.Customer retention is perhaps the best measure of quality, as it is dependent
on how consistently a service firm delivers value
22.Good service recovery can win more customer purchasing and loyalty than if
things had gone well in the first place.
23.Customer complaints are one of the most available yet underutilized sources
of customer and market information.
24.Service marketers should take steps to provide their prospective customers
with evidence that will help tangibilize the service. Promotional material,
employees appearance, and the service firms physical environment all help
tangibilize service.
25.A service organization should review every piece of tangible evidence to
make sure that each delivers the desired organization image the way a
person or group views an organization to target customers.
26.In a well-run hospitality organization, there are two customers: paying
customers and employees.
27.Customers who buy hospitality products experience some anxiety because
they cannot experience the product beforehand. One way of combating
concern is to offer familiarization trips, which allow meeting planners and
travel agents to experience the service in a low-risk situation.
28.Managers can use the following techniques to manage capacity:
a. Involve the customer in the service delivery system
b. Cross-train employees
c. Use part-time employees
d. Rent or share extra facilities and equipment
e. Schedule downtime during periods of low demand
f. Change the service-delivery system
29.Managers can use the following techniques to manage demand:
a. Use price to create or reduce demand
b. Use reservations allow guests to request a specific time or room type
c. Overbook take more requests than you have space available
d. Revenue management establish different rate fences
e. Use queuing customers are helped on a first-come, first served
basis
f. Shift demand
g. Create promotional events Buy-one-get-one free or Children eat
free are examples