Question 2

As the president of the San Diego Tourism Authority, providing

customers with the highest level of satisfaction is the goal. Satisfaction is
defined as expectations fulfilled by experiences. Tourism companies serve
the purpose of creating a pleasant and enjoyable experience for the tourists
while exposing the beauties of that specified region. Regardless of whether
customers expectations were matched, it still possible to make the
customers satisfied and I believe that I am able to achieve this by reflecting
our visitors values.
Satisfaction is described as a psychological outcome from an experience. In
contrast, service qualities are considered to be attributes of a service. Although
these are two differing concepts, providing high quality service to consumers can
provide a great experience for tourists. Essentially, when a tourist enjoys the
experience of good customer service, they will reach a high level of satisfaction.
Furthermore, service quality has the potential to influence customer satisfaction.
Evaluating customer satisfaction overall is difficult to determine. Therefore, it is best
to evaluate the quality of service to achieve optimal customer satisfaction by
looking through the eyes of consumers. To do this one must look to the SERVQUAL
model of service quality (Parasuraman et al., 1985). There are five gaps that
analyze the service quality between perceptions and expectations (Parasuraman et
al., 1985). This criterion is based on tangibles, reliability, responsiveness,
assurance, and empathy. It is best to evaluate a companys customer service
according to these characteristics (Parasuraman et al., 1985).
When measuring satisfaction, there are two approaches. These two
approaches are overall satisfaction and satisfaction with dimensions. I choose to
follow the satisfaction with dimensions approach. It seems that measuring according
to overall satisfaction isnt the viable option because it is hard to know the
psychological characteristics. It is easy to determine or get an idea of a customers
satisfaction through physical expressions and body language; however, it is difficult
to know what they are truly thinking and feeling. The second approach is taking the
two dimensions of satisfaction (instrumental and expressive) and applying it to
identify individual components. Using the second technique prevents the spillover effect.
International tourist complaints shouldnt be taking into consideration when
assessing vacation satisfaction because the individual components are different
than any other occasion based on the larger number of tourists and differing
cultures. Tending to tourists during their vacation tends to be more challenging
because of their higher expectations and the difficulty of having hosts meet them.
The outcome of disconfirmed expectations is more likely to occur.