International Journal of Hospitality Management 51 (2015) 138146

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

International Journal of Hospitality Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhosman

Do ISO 9001-certied hotels get a higher customer rating than

non-certied ones?

Inaki
Heras-Saizarbitoria a, , German Arana a,1 , Olivier Boiral b,2
a
b

Department of Management, University of the Basque Country UPV-EHU, Spain

Department of Management, Universit Laval, Canada

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 1 February 2015
Received in revised form 14 June 2015
Accepted 18 August 2015
Keywords:
ISO 9001
Business performance
Customer satisfaction
Empirical research
Hotel industry

a b s t r a c t
This article analyzes whether customers of hotels that are certied for quality management are more
satised than the customers of non-certied hotels of similar category and location. An empirical study
was carried out with a total sample of 186,769 guest ratings of 828 Spanish and Italian hotels. The ndings
show that quality certied hotels do not receive a statistically signicantly better evaluation or rating
from their customers. Indeed, the statistical analysis carried out conrms that certied hotels have a statistically signicantly lower rating in terms of value for money than non-certied hotels. The implications
for managers, customers and other stakeholders are discussed. The article also discusses the potential
dangers in inferring directly that quality certication in the hospitality industry leads to superior customer satisfaction as is frequently suggested in both the practitioner and the scholarly literature in the
eld.
2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Third party certication schemes are attracting more and more
interest in the hospitality industry. Acquiring this type of certication is often discussed in the hospitality literature as an additional
marketing or public relations tool to attract customers (BenavidesChicn and Ortega, 2014; Geerts, 2014). In the hospitality industry,
ISO 9001 is the main global standard for quality management, a
certiable standard that has been strongly promoted in all types of
industry and all over the world (Alonso-Almeida et al., 2013; Cao
and Prakash, 2011; Heras-Saizarbitoria and Boiral, 2013).
In the scholarly literature there is a plethora of research articles that analyze the comparative impact of the ISO 9001 standard
on the improvement of the business and operational performance
of certied companies compared with those that are not certied (for a recent review see Heras-Saizarbitoria and Boiral, 2013).
This is also the case for some works that focus on the hospitality

Corresponding author at: E.U.E. Empresariales, University of the Basque Country

1, 20018 San Sebastian, Spain.

UPV-EHU, Plaza Onati
E-mail addresses: iheras@ehu.es (I. Heras-Saizarbitoria), g.arana@ehu.es
(G. Arana), Olivier.Boiral@mng.ulaval.ca (O. Boiral).
1
Address: E.U. Politcnica, University of the Basque Country UPV-EHU, Plaza
Europa 1, 20018 San Sebastian, Spain.
2
Address: Dpartement de Management, Facult des Sciences de
ladministration, Universit Laval, Pavillon Palasis-Prince, 2325, rue de la Terrasse,
Local 1638, Qubec, Qubec G1V 0A6, Canada.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2015.08.006
0278-4319/ 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

industry, as the specialized literature of the eld has concentrated

on whether quality certication has an impact on performance
using factual data, perceptual data and a combination of both
(e.g. Tar et al., 2009; Ingram and Daskalakis, 1999; AlonsoAlmeida et al., 2012). Nevertheless, despite the fact that the ISO
9001 standard to implement and certicate Quality Management
Systems (QMSs) has been adopted by more than one million
organizations across the world (International Organization for
Standardization, 2013), the way it is perceived by end consumers
or customers of services remains largely unexplored. Surprisingly,
there is a lack of research that analyzes the comparative impact of
this standard in improving the customers level of satisfaction with
certied companies. There is a particular lack of empirical studies based on the evaluations or ratings of customers of certied
companies in comparison with non-certied companies.
Recent studies underline the fact that customers on-line evaluations or ratings play a key role in the hospitality industry (Xie
et al., 2014). More specically, on-line hotel reviews are claimed to
provide comparative and benchmarking insights about customer
satisfaction (Mauri and Minazzi, 2013; Zhou et al., 2014). Nevertheless, as far as we know, this source of information has not yet been
used to analyze whether customers of ISO 9001 certied hotels are
more satised than the customers of non-certied hotels.
Taking into account this gap in the literature, the present study
aims to make a contribution to the specic case of organizations
belonging to the hotel industry. In order to do that, this study analyzes whether customers of ISO 9001 certied Spanish and Italian

I. Heras-Saizarbitoria et al. / International Journal of Hospitality Management 51 (2015) 138146

hotels are more satised than the customers of comparable noncertied hotels of similar category and location. We focus on the
Spanish and Italian hotel industry for three reasons. First, the hotel
industry is one of the sectors of service activity that has generated
most interest in ISO 9001 certication (Tar et al., 2010; AlonsoAlmeida et al., 2012; Tar et al., 2012; Psomas, 2013). Second, ISO
9001 certied hotels use certication to try to reassure consumers
about the quality of the services they offer (Perrigot, 2006). Third,
Spain and Italy are two of the most important countries in the world
in terms of both the relative importance of their hotel industry
(Cortes-Jimenez and Pulina, 2010; Seetaram et al., 2013) and their
certication intensity for ISO 9001 (Marimon et al., 2010).
The remainder of this paper is arranged as follows. Following
this introduction, the paper presents the theoretical framework and
research hypotheses. The next section describes the methodology
adopted. The results of the quantitative eldwork carried out are
then summarized. The paper concludes with a summary discussion, the contributions of the study and the implications for further
research.

2. Literature review and research hypotheses

In their recent integrative review, Heras-Saizarbitoria and Boiral
(2013) proposed a framework built up of the main approaches to
the academic study of quality certication. From the general perspective of decentralized institutions and signaling models, quality
certication has been claimed to reduce information asymmetries
in markets, as certication signals superior performance (e.g. King
et al., 2005; Potoski and Prakash, 2009). From this perspective, the
value of ISO 9001 in signaling the superior level of service quality of
a certied organization has been extensively examined in both the
scholarly (e.g. Rusjan and Alic, 2010; Cao and Prakash, 2011; Han
et al., 2012) and the practitioner (e.g. Calvert, 2012; Tricker, 2013)
literature.
From a more technical perspective frequently connected to
Operation Management and Quality Management a great deal
of research has focused on measuring the impact and benets of
certication, such as ISO 9001, for quality management (Benner
and Veloso, 2008 and Sampaio et al., 2009; Heras-Saizarbitoria
and Boiral, 2013). These studies generally use quantitative surveys, which have played a dominant role in the literature on ISO
9001. For example, the benets of ISO 9001 implementation have
been widely surveyed. Through such surveys, ISO 9001 adoption
has been associated with superior productivity and effectiveness
(Douglas and Glen, 2000; Jang and Lin, 2008), customer satisfaction (Moatazed-Keivani et al., 1999; Gonzlez-Torre et al., 2001),
employee motivation (Kunnanatt, 2007; Santos and Escanciano,
2002), and a range of other outcomes.
Nevertheless, the benets of ISO 9001 certication have been
questioned by the critical literature on this standard. This critical literature has highlighted the cost and bureaucracy associated
with certication, the lack of internalization of the standard, its failure to improve quality management substantially and its use as a
sort of organizational qualication, primarily intended to improve
corporate image rather than to improve internal effectiveness
(Heras-Saizarbitoria and Boiral, 2014; Kumar and Balakrishnan,
2011; Boiral, 2003, 2012a, 2012b; Christmann and Taylor, 2006).
Although this critical literature has been supported by various
quantitative and qualitative studies, the vast majority of research in
this area remains quite optimistic about the positive impact of ISO
9001. In a systematic review on ISO 9001 and organizational effectiveness based on 111 empirical papers, Boiral (2012a) showed that
more than 80% of studies found signicant benets. Nevertheless,
this systematic review also highlighted important biases shared by
most mainstream studies. Those studies remain essentially focused

139

on self-reporting measurements on conventional indicators and

tend to overlook criteria of ineffectiveness, such as the supercial
integration of the standard, the lack of internalization and the costs
of certication.
Generally speaking, most surveys of the impact of ISO 9001
are based on the perceptions of managers who are supposed to
have taken part in the implementation process of this standard.
Although perceptual measures are often used in the empirical
management literature and are considered to satisfy reliability
and validity requirements (Ketokivi and Schroeder, 2004), the
results of these surveys tend to be inuenced by the self-reporting
and social desirability bias related to the position of respondents
(Heras et al., 2002; Heras-Saizarbitoria and Boiral, 2013; Arnold
and Feldman, 1981). Moreover, reverse causality bias could be a
problem, since the outcomes of the adoption of ISO 9001 may
inuence the perception of its drivers (Heras-Saizarbitoria et al.,
2011).
In order to overcome this type of bias, some studies have tried to
shed light on the impact of ISO 9001 on performance based on what
the authors describe as more objective data about the companies,
taken from existing records such as commercial databases containing economic and nancial information (Hversj, 2000; Heras
et al., 2002; Dick et al., 2008; Wayhan and Balderson, 2007; Corbett
et al., 2005; Benner and Veloso, 2008; Martnez-Costa et al., 2008).
The results of these studies are mixed, but in a majority of studies
a signicant positive relationship is found between the adoption
of ISO 9001 and a companys performance. Nevertheless, although
these variables have the advantage of avoiding respondent bias,
it is also clear that many other concerns have to be taken into
account, such as the need to control for unobserved heterogeneity
and the inuence of treatment-effects compared with selectioneffects and reverse-causality bias, as better performing companies
generally have more resources to implement this type of standard
(Heras-Saizarbitoria et al., 2011).
As emphasized by Heras-Saizarbitoria and Boiral (2013), further
critical and rigorous empirical studies are necessary in order to analyze the real perceptions of the various stakeholders (consumers,
managers, suppliers, intermediary clients, workers, public administrations, etc.) regarding the adoption of ISO 9001 and its effects. As
previously stated, there is a lack of work that sheds light on the comparative impact of ISO 9001 in improving the level of satisfaction of
nal customers of certied companies, especially and specically
a lack of empirical studies based on the evaluations or ratings of
the nal customers of certied and non-certied companies. And
this kind of study is especially important in the service sector as
the way ISO 9001 is perceived by nal consumers or customers of
services remains largely unexplored.
In the hotel industry the adoption of certication for Quality
Management practices have been extensively studied (for recent
reviews see Tar et al., 2010; Wang et al., 2012). Nevertheless, as
shown in Table 1, the empirical work that analyzes the impact of
ISO 9001 in the hotel industry has not been prolic.
As shown in this Table 1, overall the results are mixed, but, as in
the general literature on ISO 9001, a majority of studies nds a signicant positive relationship between the adoption of the standard
and the companys performance (e.g. the hotels image, customer
satisfaction). In these cases the surveys were also carried out based
on the perceptions of managers who are presumed to have taken
part in the implementation process of ISO 9001. In such cases the
aforementioned biases may be directly relevant. An alternative, to
avoid these biases, could be to use customer ratings that report the
quality of service received by nal customers at hotels. Generally
speaking, although the impact of on-line user reviews and ratings
in the hotel industry is increasingly emphasized in the scholarly literature (Chaves et al., 2012; Browning et al., 2013), those
reviews and ratings have not been used to evaluate whether ISO

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I. Heras-Saizarbitoria et al. / International Journal of Hospitality Management 51 (2015) 138146

Table 1
Impact of ISO 9001 in the hotel industry: a review of empirical works.
Authors

Country

Sample of hotels

Main ndings

Alonso-Almeida & Rodrguez-Antn (2011)

Spain

403

Alonso-Almeida et al. (2012)

Spain

162

Claver et al. (2006)

Spain

Ingram and Daskalakis (1999)

Greece

10

Minazzi (2006)
Nava Carballido and Rivas-Tovar (2008)

Italy
Mexico

1
96

Nield and Kozak (1999)

UK

114

Rubio-Andrada et al. (2011)

Spain

111

Tar et al. (2009)

Spain

303

Tar et al. (2010)

Spain

301

Tar et al. (2014)

Spain

33

Customer satisfaction is not increased with the implementation of

management standards such as ISO 9001
Both internal and external motivations to implement the ISO 9001
standard improve operations, services and satisfaction of hotel staff.
The adoption of quality systems such as ISO 9001 increases customer
satisfaction
The relevance of ISO 9001 to improving quality and increasing
managers awareness of the needs of their guests is questioned.
ISO 9001 increases customer satisfaction with the hotel.
The performance of an organization improves when it implements a
program of ISO 9001:2000
Certied hotels reported limited marketing or human-resource
benets. There was no indication of direct nancial gain, and no
indication that guests actively sought out ISO 9000-certied hotels.
Quality certicates have a positive impact on the statement of results
for analyzed hotels, both small- and medium-sized.
Quality certied hotels develop the key factors better and have better
performance.
QMS may improve the hotels image and have an impact on customer
satisfaction and service quality.
Internal motivations to adopt the ISO 9001 standards lead to higher
internal benets and customer satisfaction.

Source: Developed by the authors.

9001 certied hotels attain higher guest ratings than non-certied

hotels.
The issue of customer reviews and ratings links to a rich literature on customer satisfaction with hotel and hospitality services
(for a recent review see Li et al., 2013). Kozak (2000) emphasizes
that one of the main approaches to assessing customer satisfaction in the hotel industry is based on direct, post-consumption
appraisal. From this perspective the expectations of the customer before they consume the service are not taken into account
and the evaluation is entirely focused on how customers rate
specic aspects of the accommodation. Based on this approach
over the years especially since on-line booking and rating
services have developed diverse research studies have been conducted to measure the factors that inuence the satisfaction of
guests.
In this eld the specialized literature stresses that customers use
a variety of attributes both physical and service characteristics
to judge the quality of the service that they receive during their
stay in a hotel (Callan, 1996; Wilkins et al., 2007; Dong et al., 2014).
In his seminal work, Callan (1996) identied 166 hotel attributes
under the headings of: (1) location, (2) image, (3) price/value, (4)
competence, (5) access, (6) security, (7) Additional services, (8)
tangibles-bedroom, (9) tangibles-other, (10) leisure facilities and
(11) service provider. More recent works have produced evidence
of the relevance and the priority of very diverse attributes and qualities such as the service provided by staff (Deng, 2008; Choi and Chu,
2001; Chaves et al., 2012), the cleanliness of the rooms (Weaver
and Oh, 1993; Lockyer, 2003; Shanahan and Hyman, 2007; Chaves
et al., 2012; Li et al., 2013), the comfort and facilities (Choi and Chu,
2001; Shanka and Taylor, 2004; Zhou et al., 2014) and value for
money (Magnini et al., 2011; Ramanathan and Ramanathan, 2011;
Li et al., 2013; Dong et al., 2014).
In the practitioner eld of the hotel industry the ratings by customers are frequently captured in terms of a rather narrow set
of attributes or factors. We have found in the most popular websites for booking and rating hotels and other accommodation by
guests (Ali, 2014), the most frequently used attributes to evaluate
customer ratings are general customer satisfaction with the service,
cleanliness of the hotel, comfort of the hotel, value for money and
the quality of the service provided by the personnel or the staff of
the hotel. These aspects are usually evaluated with a Likert type
scale for each factor.

Taking into account the general scholarly literature on the

impact of ISO 9001 on customer satisfaction and on other aspects of
business performance, a set of hypotheses can be posited regarding
the factors that are rated by the nal customers of the hotels in the
above mentioned websites.
Regarding the general perception of customer satisfaction, as
underlined by Wilkins et al. (2007), it has to be considered that
service quality components are translated into the day-to-day
operations of the hotel. In this vein, both the practitioner literature
(e.g. Vavra, 2002; Self and Roche, 2007) and the scholarly literature (e.g. Dale et al., 2013; Psomas et al., 2013; Ismyrlis et al., 2014)
emphasize that ISO 9001 may play a relevant role in increasing
the ability of hotels to satisfy their customers. Similarly, previous
research on the adoption of ISO 9001 in the hotel industry, based
on the perceptions of managers (e.g. Claver et al., 2006; Minazzi,
2006; Tar et al., 2010), provides evidence that ISO 9001 certied
hotels tend to have a superior performance in terms of customer
satisfaction. Drawing on this literature, the following hypothesis is
posited:
Hypothesis 1. ISO 9001 certied hotels receive higher customer
ratings than non-ISO 9001 certied hotels regarding the factor of
general customer satisfaction.
In relation to the characteristics and qualities of services
provided by hotels, the specialized literature emphasizes the
importance of the quality of service provided y the hotel staff.
Very specic aspects, such as the responsibility and empathy of
the staff, their courtesy and friendliness (Deng, 2008), their efciency and politeness (Choi and Chu, 2001) and their friendliness
and helpfulness (Chaves et al., 2012) have been identied in previous studies. The general literature on the impact of ISO 9001 also
conrms the impact of the adoption of the standard for quality management on the better denition of responsibilities and obligations,
and increased staff motivation (Augustyn and Pheby, 2000; Magd
and Curry, 2003; Sampaio et al., 2009). In the hotel industry, Tar
et al. (2010) provide evidence of a positive impact on the quality
of service provided by the hotel employees. Consistent with this
literature, we hypothesize the following:
Hypothesis 2. ISO 9001 certied hotels receive higher customer
ratings than non-ISO 9001 certied hotels regarding the factor of
the degree of satisfaction with the staff of the hotel.

I. Heras-Saizarbitoria et al. / International Journal of Hospitality Management 51 (2015) 138146

With regard to physical attributes or qualities of the hotel, several factors, such as the cleanliness of the facilities, the comfort of
the hotel and satisfaction with the facilities of the hotel, have been
examined in the empirical literature as some of the most relevant
attributes for general customer satisfaction (Chaves et al., 2012; Li
et al., 2013). Lockyer (2003) emphasized that cleanliness is one of
the most important factors affecting the selection of accommodation and is one of the main components of customer satisfactions
as well. For example, in studies carried out with American business travelers, Weaver and Oh (1993) and Shanahan and Hyman
(2007) found that cleanliness was considered to be one of the most
important factors in producing repeat usage of a hotel. Similarly, as
has been underlined before, the relevance of the attributes related
to room comfort (Choi and Chu, 2001; Zhou et al., 2014) and the
evaluation of the physical facilities (Shanka and Taylor, 2004) and
the physical setting (Zhou et al., 2014) have also been highlighted
in the empirical scholarly literature. As ISO 9001 encourages systematization and continuous improvement of the core operational
activities of the organization (Vavra, 2002), the evaluation of the
level of cleanliness of certied facilities should be higher. Similarly, previous scholarly works have shown that ISO 9001 certied
organizations generally have greater access to physical and other
resources than non-certied organizations of similar size in the
same sector of activity (Heras et al., 2008), as there is evidence of a
selection effect for this type of certication (Heras et al., 2002; Dick
et al., 2008). Therefore, we posit the following three hypotheses:
Hypothesis 3. ISO 9001 certied hotels receive higher customer
ratings than non-ISO 9001 certied hotels regarding the factor of
the level of cleanliness of the facilities.
Hypothesis 4. ISO 9001 certied hotels receive higher customer
ratings than non-ISO 9001 certied hotels regarding the factor of
the degree of satisfaction with the comfort of the hotel.
Hypothesis 5. ISO 9001 certied hotels receive higher customer
ratings than non-ISO 9001 certied hotels regarding the factor of
the degree of satisfaction with the facilities of the hotel.
Finally, value for money is identied in the scholarly literature
as one of the most important factors explaining customer satisfaction in both luxury and budget hotels. For example, in their analysis
of hotel guests perceptions of factors inuencing their satisfaction
and loyalty, Ramanathan and Ramanathan (2011) found that value
for money was one of the main critical attributes. This nding was
corroborated by Magnini et al. (2011), Li et al. (2013) and Dong
et al. (2014). Most of the reviewed empirical works aimed at analyzing the impact of ISO 9001 on an organizations performance
found better performance of ISO 9001 certied rms in terms of
productivity and reduced costs and waste (e.g. Sampaio et al., 2011;
Heras-Saizarbitoria and Boiral, 2013). These positive effects should
improve the value-for-money of products and services produced
by organizations aiming to meet or surpass customer needs and
expectations (Haider, 2001; Oke and Charles-Owaba, 2007; Dale
et al., 2013). Based on these observations, the following hypothesis
is proposed:
Hypothesis 6. ISO 9001 certied hotels receive higher customer
ratings than non-ISO 9001 certied hotels regarding the factor of
the value for money.

141

purposive sampling to ensure that the results provided are robust

and avoid potential bias (Cochran, 2007). The matched subsample of non-certied hotels was bigger in order to reduce error in
the statistical analysis (Liu et al., 2005). In the data verication
stage, in order to analyze the number of non-certied hotels that
were to match each certied hotel, we analyze the main factors
that, in the specialist literature (e.g. Shankar et al., 2003; Juaneda
et al., 2011), are identied as the most important for customer satisfaction. Among the sample, we found that, for our total sample
of non-certied hotels, the factor of location of the hotel was the
one that limited the selection of the total number of non-certied
hotels for each certied hotel. Therefore, with the aim of avoiding
the distortion that might arise from using hotels in distant locations and the errors that might arise from using small samples, we
decided to select the maximum possible number of non-certied
hotels that were homogeneous on other characteristics for each
certied hotel. That maximum number of hotels was three, which
was seen as an appropriate compromise between the conicting
demands outlined above. That was the rationale for using three
non-certied hotels to every certied hotel. Similarly, in this stage,
for both the certied and non-certied hotels, we selected hotels
that had at least thirty reviews, to reduce the percentage error in
the global perception of each item, as recommended in the literature (Liu et al., 2005). As a result, the mean number of reviews is
236 for ISO 9001 certied hotels and 195 for non-certied hotels.
Data was obtained from the Booking.com website, the worlds
leading on-line hotel reservations broker that ranks rst in terms
of competitive intelligence metrics (Ali, 2014). This data source is
increasingly the focus scholarly surveys (e.g. Chaves et al., 2012;
Bezzubtseva and Ignatov, 2013; Herrmann and Herrmann, 2014)
as it has a very important advantage compared to other similar
sites; customer ratings are only reported by real customers who
have received a specic service provided by the hotel under review.
Although, on-line rating systems may be inuenced by spam opinions and fake reviews intended to promote or to discredit certain
hotels (Anderson and Simester, 2014; Jindal et al., 2010), this issue
affects both certied and non-certied hotels equally. Generally
speaking, as noted by Zhou et al. (2014), customer review data
improves the trustworthiness of information on hotel satisfaction.
It also avoids certain biases of traditional studies based on respondents from the organization rather than from its customers. These
biases are particularly related to the assessment of service quality by managers themselves (self-reporting bias) and the tendency
to prevaricate over undesirable aspects that could undermine the
image or social legitimacy of the organization (social desirability
bias).
For each hotel, information about the number of rooms, stars
and reviewers, was obtained from the Booking.com website. Similarly, customer reviews of hotel cleanliness, comfort, location,
facilities, staff, value for money and satisfaction were obtained from
the Booking.com website. These reviews are scored using a Likert
scale from 0 to 10.3
Data about ISO 9001 certied hotels in Italy was obtained from
Sincert, the institution that accredits Italian certication bodies,
and about Spanish hotels from the Spanish Ministry of Tourism
and different certication bodies. The software package used in the
analysis was IBM SPSS Version 21 (Table 2).
4. Results

3. Methods and data

The eld work was conducted in 2013 with a total sample of
186,769 guest ratings of 828 hotels (676 Spanish and 152 Italian),
207 of which were ISO 9001 certied hotels and 621 of which were
non-certied ones. The non-certied hotels where selected with
a specic research protocol that combined aspects of random and

First, we present some introductory descriptive statistics for our

sample. In the total sample of 828 hotels, 207 are ISO 9001 certied

3
Those criteria have changed since the study was conducted, as the criterion of
Satisfaction has been replaced by Free Wi.

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I. Heras-Saizarbitoria et al. / International Journal of Hospitality Management 51 (2015) 138146

Table 2
Distribution of certied and non-certied hotels in the sample according to country and number of stars.
Stars

Spain

Italy

Certied
Total
1
2
3
4
5
Total

Non-certied
%

3
9
51
96
10
169

Total

1.8
5.3
30.2
56.8
5.9

9
41
191
249
17

100

Total

1.8
8.1
37.7
49.1
3.4

507

Total

Certied
%

0
0
5
32
1

100

Non-certied
Total

0
0
13.2
84.2
2.6

38

0
0
20
91
3

100

Certied
Total

0
0
17.5
79.8
2.6

114

Non-certied
%

3
9
56
128
11

100

Total

1.4
4.3
27.1
61.8
5.3

207

100

9
41
211
340
20

1.4
6.6
34.0
54.8
3.2

621

100

Source: Prepared by the authors.

Table 3
Distribution of certied and non-certied hotels samples according to country and size.
Number of rooms

Spain

Italy

Certied
Total
049
50149
150299
>300
Total

Total

Non-certied

Certied

Total

Total

Non-certied

Certied

Total

Total

Non-certied
%

Total

50
80
33
6

29.6
47.3
19.5
3.6

209
219
64
15

41.2
43.2
12.6
3.0

9
24
4
1

23.7
63.2
10.5
2.6

45
50
13
6

39.5
43.9
11.4
5.3

59
104
37
7

28.5
50.2
17.9
3.4

254
269
77
21

40.9
43.3
12.4
3.4

169

100.0

507

100.0

38

100.0

114

100.0

207

100.0

621

100.0

Source: Prepared by the authors.

and 621 non-certied. The non-certied hotels are selected to be

in the same location and with similar characteristics (number of
stars and size) as their matched, certied hotel. Table 1 shows
the distribution of certied and non-certied hotels in the sample according to the country and the number of stars. As can be
seen in the last column of Table 1, there are 676 Spanish (79.6%)
and 152 Italian hotels (20.4%). 88.8% of both the certied and noncertied hotels have three or four stars; 61.8% of the certied have
four stars, as do 54.8% of the non-certied hotels. We analyzed
whether there were any statistically signicant differences in each
category in terms to the proportions of certied and non-certied
hotels. There was no overall difference between countries (twoproportion z-test). However, in Italy there was a bigger proportion
of hotels with four stars and the proportions of hotels with two
or three stars are signicantly smaller than in Spain. As shown in
Table 3 the sub-sample of certied hotels has more stars (mean
3.65) than the non-certied sample (mean 3.51). Similarly, for the
Spanish hotels the mean number of stars in the sample of certied
hotels 3.60, which is signicantly higher than the number for noncertied hotels (3.44). In Italy, the differences are not signicant, as

the means for certied and non-certied hotels are 3.89 and 3.84,
respectively.
Table 3 shows the proportion of hotels according to size. The
scale suggested by Bohdanowicz (2005) is used to discuss the hotel
lodging capacity. The scale splits hotels in three categories: small
hotels with fewer than 50 rooms, medium sized hotels with a capacity between 50 and 149 rooms and large hotels with 150 rooms or
more. In Spain, the proportion of certied hotels with fewer than
50 rooms is signicantly smaller than for non-certied hotels. In
the other cases, there are no statistically signicant differences
between the proportions of the two sub-samples. However, certied hotels have more rooms (mean 105.37) than non-certied
hotels (mean 88.71). In Spain, there is a signicant difference in
size between certied hotels (mean 109.1) and non-certied hotels
(mean 88.21) but in Italy the difference is not signicant, with the
average size being 90.96 rooms for certied hotels and 88.95 for
non-certied hotels.
Table 4 shows the results of the correlation analysis. There
are statistically signicant correlations showing that ISO 9001
certied hotels have more rooms, more stars and provide worse

Table 4
Correlation analysis of the sample.
Rooms
Rooms
Stars
Cleanliness
Comfort
Location
Facilities
Staff
Value for money
Satisfaction
ISO 9001
Mean with ISO
Mean without ISO

Stars

Clean

Comfort

Location

Facilities

Staff

Value for money

Satisfaction

1
0.264**
0.402**
0.051
0.290**
0.018
0.009
0.229**
0.080*

1
0.858**
0.287**
0.803**
0.171**
0.573**
0.897**
0.005

1
0.194**
0.865**
0.102**
0.628**
0.883**
0.015

1
0.194**
0.046
0.015
0.479**
0.045

1
0.145**
0.632**
0.885**
0.024

1
0.142**
0.167**
0.030

1
0.707**
0.076*

1
0.028

105.37*

3.6522*

8.4353

8.0343

8.4246

7.8908

8.2778

7.7894*

8.1419

88.71*

3.5169*

8.4422

8.0071

8.5196

7.8481

8.3415

7.9068*

8.1774

1
0.269**
0.184**
0.067
0.097**
0.030
0.049
0.040
0.133**
0.081*

Source: Prepared by the authors.

Notes: *p, 0.05 and **p, 0.01 in two-tailed tests; cell entries are standardized coefcients.

I. Heras-Saizarbitoria et al. / International Journal of Hospitality Management 51 (2015) 138146

143

Table 5
Logit analysis.
Variables
First step
Satisfaction
Facilities
Second step
Satisfaction
Facilities
Value for money

Beta

Sig.

Stand. error

Wald

Exp (Beta)

95.0% Exp (B) lower

95.0% Exp (B) upper

0.884
0.776

0.001
0.004

0.258
0.266

11.778
8.517

0.413
2.173

0.249
1.290

0.684
3.660

0.524
0.802
0.400

0.079
0.003
0.017

0.298
0.267
0.167

3.094
9.012
5.676

0.592
2.230
0.670

0.330
1.321
0.482

1.062
3.764
0.932

Observed (n)
ISO (n)
No ISO (n)
2 Log likelihood
Cox and Snell R2
Nagelkerke R2
Omnibus tests of model coefcients (Chi-square)
Sig. (Chi-square)
Hosmer and Lemeshow tests Chi-square
Sig. (Hosmer and Lemeshow tests Chi-square)

First step

Second step

828
621
207
921.768
0.239
0.319
226.084
0.000
9.139
0.331

827
620
207
916.083
0.244
0.326
231.768
0.000
12.504
0.130

Table 6
Variables not included in the Logit equation.

First step
Clean
Comfort
Location
Staff
Value for money
Global statistics
Second step
Clean
Comfort
Location
Staff
Global statistics

Score

Sig.

0.884
0.352
0.991
0.272
5.737
6.752

0.347
0.553
0.320
0.602
0.017
0.240

0.234
0.210
0.286
0.256
1.065

0.628
0.646
0.593
0.613
0.900

hotels. As independent variables we have only taken into account

customer opinions on cleanliness, comfort, location, facilities, staff,
value for money and satisfaction. Likelihood ratio tests were used
for the selection of those independent variables for the model. On
this basis, three variables were selected in the second step, namely
satisfaction, facilities and value for money. All the other variables
were excluded from the function as they are not considered to add
signicantly to the analysis.
As can be seen, the only variable which proved to be signicant
that had not been included in the equation was value for money,
so it enters in the second step in the following equation:

Ln

P[ISO]
(1 P(ISO))

= (Satisfaction)
+ (Facilities) + (Value for money) +

Source: Prepared by the authors.

value for money. However, both the level of statistical signicance

and the correlation coefcients are very low. In the case of the rst
two variables, as has been mentioned above, the non-ISO 9001 certied hotels have not been randomly selected. In general, in order to
obtain samples with hotels of similar characteristics, for the location of each ISO 9001 hotel, the selected non-ISO 9001 certied
hotels have more rooms and more stars than those that were not
selected. It is therefore plausible that bigger hotels and hotels with
more stars are more likely to adopt ISO 9001, primarily because
they tend to have more resources to implement this standard. In
other words, a selection effect is evident in this case, which could
be linked to a signaling or reputational motivation for the pursuit
of ISO 9001 certication (Heras-Saizarbitoria et al., 2011).
The corresponding analysis of differences of means conrms the
results of the correlation analysis. The ISO 9001 certied hotels are
signicantly bigger, have signicantly more stars and their ratings
for value for money are signicantly lower. The differences are not
very large, but with samples that are this big the differences are
statistically signicant (Tables 5 and 6).
Having concluded the correlation analysis, we applied a forward
step-wise logistic regression analysis. This selection procedure is
useful when research attempts to study a relationship between
large numbers of independent variables for inclusion in the function (Hair et al., 1998). This kind of analysis has been used in some
previous studies in the hospitality industry (Kim and Gu, 2009),
when the dependent variable is dichotomous. In our study, when
estimating the logistic regression model, the dependent value is a
dummy, with 0 representing non-ISO hotels and 1 representing ISO

Ln

 P(ISO)] 
1 P(ISO)

= 0.524 (Satisfaction) + 0.802 (Facilities)

0.400 (Value for money) +

The model is signicant with a Chi-square of 231.768. In other

words, it is statistically signicant at a level of probability of 0.000.
The Hosmer and Lemeshow Test produces a Chi-square value of
12.504, which is not signicant at the 0.05 level. This means that the
model ts the data well because there is no discrepancy between
the observed and predicted values (Hosmer et al., 2000). The value
of the Nagelkerke R square is 0.326, which is acceptable, and implies
that the model explains 32.6% of the variation in the dependent
variable (Nagelkerke, 1991). The Wald test statistic has been used
to test the signicance of the individual coefcients for each independent variable, testing the true value of the parameter based
on the sample estimate (Hair et al., 1998). The variables facilities and value for money are signicant with values of 0.003 and
0.017 respectively. The variable satisfaction is signicant in the
rst step but when value for money is included in the model in
the second step, satisfaction loses signicance and its value is
reduced from 0.001 to 0.079. The reason for this decrease is related
with the correlation between these two elements, which is very
large (0.707). However, the model calls for the introduction of this
variable.
Considering the model results and preceding analyses we can
evaluate the various hypotheses. First, Hypothesis 1 is rejected.
There is a negative correlation between satisfaction and ISO
9001 certication, but it is low and not statistically signicant.

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Similarly, the difference of means test does not indicate signicant

differences, since ISO 9001 certied hotels have a slightly lower satisfaction index. Finally, the logit model introduces the variable of
satisfaction with negative sign in the rst step. In the nal model
this variable has a level of signicance of 0.079 and a negative value
of equal to 0524.
Similarly, Hypothesis 2 is not supported. Both the regression
analysis and the difference of means test indicate that there is little
difference and that such differences as there are not statistically
signicant. Furthermore, the conditional logistic binary model discarded this variable. Thus, ISO 9001 certication appears to have no
impact on higher ratings from customers in relation to the service
provided by the staff of the hotel.
Nor was Hypothesis 3 accepted. Both the regression analysis and
the test of differences in means show that there is nearly no difference between certied and uncertied hotels. Furthermore, the
conditional binary logistic model discards this variable. That is to
say, ISO 9001 certication appears to have no impact on satisfaction
with the cleanliness of the hotel. In the same way, Hypothesis 4 cannot be accepted. The ISO 9001 certied hotels have obtained slightly
higher ratings but there are no statistically signicant differences
in any of the three tests. This implies that ISO 9001 certication
appears to have no impact on higher ratings from customers in
relation to the comfort of the hotel.
In contrast with those negative results, Hypothesis 5 can be
partially accepted. In both the correlation analysis and the test of
difference of means, it is found that, although users of ISO certied hotels give higher scores for the facilities offered by hotels,
there were no signicant differences. However, in the binary logistic regression model this variable has a positive sign and a value for
= 0.802 and is statistically signicant (p = 0.003).
Finally, Hypothesis 6 is not only discarded but the reverse
hypothesis can be accepted. Both the regression analysis and the
test of difference of means show that customers of ISO 9001 certied hotels give signicantly lower ratings for value for money,
although both the values obtained for the mean difference and the
correlation coefcient are small. Similarly, the logit analysis conrms that ISO 9001 certied hotels have a signicantly lower rating
for value for money as the coefcient in the model is 0.400 and
the level of signicance is 0.017.

5. Discussion and conclusions

In general terms the ndings of the empirical work carried out
indicate that the ISO 9001 certied hotels do not receive a statistically signicant better evaluation or rating from their customers.
Indeed, the statistical analysis, carried out using a comparison of
means, a correlation analysis, and a Logit analysis, conrms that
ISO 9001 certied hotels have a statistically signicant lower rating in terms of value for money than non-certied hotels. The guest
rating is only signicantly better for the case of ISO 9001 certied
hotels in the specic case of the evaluation given by customers
for the facilities of the hotels an issue that might be related to a
higher propensity for certication in the case of the bigger hotels
and hotels with more stars.
The main contribution of our study is to question the positive relationships between the implementation of the ISO 9001
standard in the hospitality industry and the satisfaction of customers. Although it has not been extensively studied empirically,
this relationship tends to be taken for granted in the practitioner and scholarly literature alike (e.g. Rubio-Andrada et al.,
2011; Claver et al., 2006; Tar et al., 2010). Similarly, the supposed
signaling value of ISO 9001 in showing a superior level of service
quality of the certied organizations, which is repeatedly emphasized in the general literature on ISO certication (e.g. King et al.,

2005; Potoski and Prakash, 2009; Cao and Prakash, 2011; Han et al.,
2012; Tricker, 2013) is called into question.
Generally speaking, the ndings of our study are in line with the
critical literature on ISO standards (e.g. Kumar and Balakrishnan,
2011; Boiral, 2003, 2012a,b; Christmann and Taylor, 2006). According to this literature, ISO certication is often intended to improve
corporate image rather than internal practices and organizational
effectiveness. As a result, many organizations implement ISO 9001
rather symbolically and the certication process has no substantial
effect on improving performance and customer satisfaction. This
critical perspective generally draws on legitimacy theory, which
claims that the adoption of new practices and structures by organizations tends to be driven by institutional pressures and the
search for social legitimacy rather than a push for internal efciency (Meyer and Rowan, 1977; Christmann and Taylor, 2006;
Boiral, 2003). Although the motivations for the adoption of ISO 9001
in the hospitality industry remain under-studied, one can assume
that external pressures, such as decisions of headquarters of international hotel companies to promote ISO certication worldwide,
play an important part in the implementation of this standard.
Whatever the intensity of these external pressures, managers and
employees are not necessarily convinced of the internal relevance
and efciency of ISO 9001. As a result, the implementation of this
standard can be somewhat disconnected from internal practices
and does not necessarily contribute to improving customer satisfaction. Although the certication process is conducted by external
auditors and is supposed to prevent decoupling between the ISO
standard and internal practices, its rigorousness and impacts have
been criticized in the literature (Heras-Saizarbitoria et al., 2013;
Boiral, 2012a,b, 2003).
Consistent with this critical literature, our results show that,
although the ISO 9001 certication is essentially aimed at improving internal practices and customer satisfaction, it does not
positively contribute to the guest ratings of certied hotels, especially in terms of cleanliness, comfort, location, staff, value for
money and satisfaction. For practitioners our ndings should give
pause for thought, as inated expectations of ISO 9001 quality certication are likely lead to disappointment. Nevertheless,
this conclusion does not necessarily call into question the relevance of the ISO 9001standard itself, especially for organizations
in which this quality management system is well integrated into
daily activities and is used as a real tool for quality improvement.
As consistently shown in the literature (e.g. Heras-Saizarbitoria and
Boiral, 2014; Boiral, 2003, 2012a,b; Christmann and Taylor, 2006),
the internalization of the ISO 9001 standard is far from uniform and
can be very different from one organization to another. As a result,
the ineffectiveness of the ISO 9001 certication observed in our
study may be related to the way this standard is implemented in
the hotels studied rather than the basic foundations of the standard.
In any event, it must be concluded that ISO 9001 certication does
not automatically improve customer satisfaction and should not be
considered by hotels managers as a benchmark for quality management. Similarly, customers should not consider the ISO certication
as a guarantee of quality. Because the information on guest rating is
easily accessible on-line and is based on criteria directly related to
customer satisfaction, its signaling value would appear to be more
relevant and effective for that purpose than the ISO 9001 certicate.
5.1. Limitations of the study and avenues for future research
5.1.1. The limitations of the study suggest directions for future
research.
First, although the study shows consistently that quality certied hotels do not get higher guest ratings, it does not analyze
the reasons why ISO 9001 does not contribute to customer satisfaction. Future research could explore those reasons in order to

I. Heras-Saizarbitoria et al. / International Journal of Hospitality Management 51 (2015) 138146

determine the main obstacles to quality improvement and how

certied organizations in the hospitality industry could overcome
those obstacles. According to the general literature on ISO 9001, the
key success factors for this standard are essentially related to internal factors, such as the motivation for certication, commitment
of managers, involvement of employees, internal communication,
resources for quality management, and follow-up of the standard
(Ivanova et al., 2014; Heras-Saizarbitoria and Boiral, 2014; Boiral,
2011). Because of the specicities of the hospitality industry, the
key success factors of ISO 9001 may be different. Although a few
studies have highlighted the importance of internal motivation in
improving the effectiveness of ISO 9001 in the hospitality industry
(Tar et al., 2014; Alonso-Almeida et al., 2012), this area remains
under-examined. In-depth qualitative studies in certied hotels
would make it possible to explore the nature of the key success factors of ISO 9001 further and under what conditions this standard
can contribute to improving quality management and guest satisfaction.
Second, there could be some minor bias in the data used related
with factors such as transitional hotels and the time delay in
updating information on ISO 9001 certication. If a hotel became
certied after joining the website, a proportion of the review scores
could be related to its performance before certication. Similarly,
other bias could be associated with the length of time that elapses
between a hotel implementing and certifying ISO 9001 and its
inclusion in the data bases for certied organizations. Furthermore,
other transitional hotels may have implemented the ISO 9001 and
obtained the benets of that system of quality management but not
yet have obtained certication (Heras et al., 2002).
Third, the data collection has been limited to the guest ratings
of Spanish and Italian hotels from the Booking.com website. The
ndings of this study may be inuenced by cultural, economic or
geographic specicities. Future research could analyze further the
relationships between ISO 9001 certication and customer satisfaction in the hospitality industry in different countries. Moreover, the
criteria for customer satisfaction could be extended through the use
of different on-line booking and rating systems. The fact that one of
the variables studied, namely the facilities offered by hotels, is positively correlated with ISO 9001 certication tends to indicate that
this standard could be associated with specic criteria of quality.
Such criteria may be difcult to measure or may not be covered by
on line rating systems such as that of Booking.com. Future research
could collect more information from different sources, such as the
management of customer complaints, the reduction of waste, or
the improvement of quality management. Longitudinal studies on
the evolution of guest ratings over time could also shed more light
on the impact of ISO 9001 certication in the short, medium and
long-term. The impact of different standards commonly used in the
hospitality industry, such as the ISO 14001 standard for environmental management, could also be studied. Although this standard
is less directly connected to customer satisfaction, it could have an
impact on certain variables, such as cleanliness, satisfaction and
value for the money.

Acknowledgements
The research for this paper was supported by a grant from the
Basque Autonomous Government (Grupo de Investigacin Consolidado del Sistema Universitario Vasco IT763-13/GIC12-158).

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