QUALITY

MANAGEMENT
ASSIGNMENT

Submitted To: Hima Gupta

Group No.:
Assignment No.:
Submitted By: Sunil Kaushik (14609114)

INTERNATIONAL PAPERS

1.
Measuring food and beverage
service quality in spa hotels
Literature review
Food and beverage service and its characteristics in spa hotels
Spa is one of the fastest-growing tourism market segments (Mak et al.,
2009). Thenumber of spa locations has grown at an annual average of 20 per
cent and there are more than 100 million active spa-goers worldwide (Kim et
al., 2010, Saar, 2010). This sector continues to grow in terms of demand and
economic potential and has led to the opening of more spa-related
enterprises (Madanoglu and Brezina, 2008). One of the most important
enterprise types in the spa industry is spa hotels (Hsieh et al., 2008) which
aim to promote overall well-being through a variety of professional services
that encourage the renewal of mind, body and spirit (Keskin, 2008; Saar,
2010). The quality of some non-health services is as important as the specific
health services provided in ensuring guest satisfaction and in differentiating
a hotel from its competitors (Bennett et al., 2004; Keskin, 2008; Lebe, 2006;
Williams et al., 1996).
One such service is the food and beverage service which is seen as being as
important as the medical services provided to guests (Bennett et al., 2004;
Lebe, 2006). Spa hotel guests have expectations of receiving freshlyprepared, healthy, organic foods rather than artificial, pre-prepared foods
(Bastic and Gojcic, 2012; Mueller and Kaufmann, 2001; Saar, 2010).
Individual guests have different physiological problems and health agendas
(Deng, 2007; Emir and Saracli, 2011; Keskin, 2008; Saar, 2010) and spa
hotels must ensure that their food and beverage provision responds to each
individual guests particular requirements (Bennett et al., 2004, Saar, 2010).
Spa hotels provide their guests with personalised dietary programmes to
ensure a healthy spa experience (Hsieh et al., 2008; Monteson and Singer,
2004; Saar, 2010). More vegetarian food is being offered and food nutrition
and calorific values are carefully considered in these hotels (Goodrich and
Goodrich, 1987; Medvene Sbazad, 2010; Mielniczak and Sinaga, 2005).
Due to the highly-personalised nature of the food and beverage provision in
spa hotels, employees are a particularly important factor in relation to
service provision (Emir and Saracli, 2011; Hsieh et al., 2008; Snoj and
Mumel, 2002). In addition to the ubiquitous need across the hospitality
sector for food and beverage staff to be friendly and courteous in their
interactions with guests, there is a need for food and beverage staff in spa
hotels to be well-educated/experienced and have a positive attitude towards

the special needs of guests on dietary programmes (Deng, 2007; Saar, 2010;
Sekliuckiene and Langviniene, 2009).

Service quality and its measurement in service companies

Service products have four well-documented characteristics which
differentiate them from physical products: intangibility (service products are
intangible and cannot be evaluated before purchase); heterogeneity
(performance varies from producer to producer); in seperability of production
and consumption (production and consumption take place simultaneously);
perishability (the product cannot be stored for use later) (Antony et al., 2004;
Parasuraman et al., 1985). Nowadays, quality is considered a major driver in
enhancing the business performance of companies (Cronin and Taylor, 1992;
Sureshchandar et al., 2002) and is variously defined as value, conformance
to requirements, fitness for use and meeting customers expectations (Lin
et al., 2001, p. 59). Quality is critical to gaining competitive advantage
todays business world (Sureshchandar et al., 2002).
In the service industry, definitions of service quality tend to focus on meeting
customer expectations and how well the services delivered match their
expectations (Parasuraman et al., 1985, 1988; Munhurrun et al., 2009).
However, due to the intangible nature of service products, measuring service
quality may be more difficult than measuring the quality of physical products
(Babakus and Manngold, 1992; Bouranta et al., 2009; Cronin and Taylor,
1992; Karatepe et al., 2005). One of the most widely-used instruments for
measuring service quality is SERVQUAL, developed and later refined by
Parasuraman et al. (1988, 1991). In 1985, Parasuraman et al. began to study
service quality using disconfirmation, i.e. focusing on the gap between
customers
expectations and perceptions. Service quality was perceived to be higher
when the gap between customer expectations and perceptions of
performance was small or nonexistent (Barringer, 2008; Parasuraman et al.,
1985). Parasuraman et al. (1985) identified ten dimensions in assessing
service quality which were later reduced to five dimensions: tangibles;
reliability;
responsiveness;
assurance;
empathy
(Barringer,
2008;
Parasuraman et al., 1988). In SERVQUAL, 22 statements measure
performance.
Spa hotel guests have expectations of receiving freshly-prepared, healthy,
organic foods rather than artificial, pre-prepared foods (Bastic and Gojcic,
2012; Mueller and Kaufmann, 2001; Saar, 2010). Individual guests have
different physiological problems and health agendas (Deng, 2007; Emir and
Saracli, 2011; Keskin, 2008; Saar, 2010) and spa hotels must ensure that

their food and beverage provision responds to each individual guests

particular requirements (Bennett et al., 2004, Saar, 2010). Spa hotels provide
their guests with personalized dietary programmes to ensure a healthy spa
experience (Hsieh et al., 2008; Monteson and Singer, 2004; Saar, 2010).
More vegetarian food is being offered and food nutrition and calorific values
are carefully considered in these hotels (Goodrich and Goodrich, 1987;
Medvene Sbazad, 2010; Mielniczak and Sinaga, 2005).
Due to the highly-personalized nature of the food and beverage provision in
spa hotels, employees are a particularly important factor in relation to
service provision (Emir and Saracli, 2011; Hsieh et al., 2008; Snoj and
Mumel, 2002). In addition to the ubiquitous need across the hospitality
sector for food and beverage staff to be friendly and courteous in their
interactions with guests, there is a need for food and beverage staff in spa
hotels to be well-educated/experienced and have a positive attitude towards
the special needs of guests on dietary programmes (Deng, 2007; Saar, 2010;
Sekliuckiene and Langviniene, 2009).

2. Service Quality Management in Hotel

Industry: A Conceptual Framework for Food
and Beverage Departments
Literature Review
This paper aims to review existing literature on service quality management
in the F&B departments of hotels, its process, and the effective service
quality management framework. This paper discusses famous models, and
explains Parasuramans dimensional framework of service quality
management in the area of F&B and its application to the hotel industry.
Hotel management scholars consider service quality a precedent to guest
satisfaction. Some experiential studies show that getting a good quality of
service from the food and beverage (F&B) department of a hotel is important
for many guests. There are five dimensions of service quality, namely,
tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. Reliability is
defined as the ability of a service supplier to promptly deliver a good quality
of service. Responsiveness is the agreeableness to help guest by providing
immediate service as soon as a request is received. Assurance is with
consideration to the service quality detention which considerate on the
capability to activate trust and confidence of the product or service provided.
Empathy is the service quality manner that stresses on the contacting of
guests as personalized. Tangibility is the service dimension that makes a
product or service practical and usable for customers. F&B department in the
hotel industry has received considerable attention from researchers and
academics given that this department may help guide the development of
service quality in the entire F&B industry. It can generally be contested that
there are two perspectives to explain Parasuraman`s model. Firstly, the
guests directly gain loyalty from the service quality dimensions: tangibles,
reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. When they perceive a
higher service quality, they will ultimately turn into a loyal guest of a specific
service quality provided such as the F&B department, and secondly, guests
may have higher satisfaction level. The application of this model by hotels
can bring success for food and beverage departments to achieve high
service quality which has a direct effect on satisfaction level of guests. As
this paper is only conceptual, future studies may incorporate empirical data
that will be collected from F&B departments in selected hotels in Jordan.

3. Measuring food and beverage service

quality in spa hotels
Literature review
The aim of this study was three-fold: first, to develop an instrument to
evaluate food and beverage service quality in spa hotels; second, to identify
aspects of food and beverage service quality of which customers had the
highest expectations, i.e. the key dimensions of food and beverage service
quality in spa hotels; third, to measure customer perceptions of the spa
hotels in this study and to identify those dimensions with the largest gap
between customer expectations and perceptions A self-administrated
questionnaire was distributed to 331 customers at four different spa hotels in
Balikesir, Turkey. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis was used to
identify service quality dimensions. Cronbach Alpha indicated the reliability
of the factors identified. Customer expectations, perceptions and gaps
between expectations and perceptions for each dimension were measured.
Factor analysis revealed six quality dimensions: assurance and employee
knowledge; healthy and attractive food; empathy; tangibles;
responsiveness of service delivery; reliability. Customer expectations
were highest for tangibles and assurance and employee knowledge. The
largest gaps between perceptions and expectations were for healthy and
attractive food and tangibles. Key dimensions for food and beverage
service quality in spa hotels were identified and a reliable instrument for
measuring provision was developed. This should be applied by managers on
an ongoing basis to evaluate their performance and give them a better
understanding of food and beverage service quality in spa hotels. The study
provides specific information on the performance of Turkish spa hotels in
relation to food and beverage service quality. This research addresses the
paucity of research on customer perspectives of food and beverage provision
in spa hotels and contributes to enhanced understanding of spa tourists and
their expectations and perceptions of the service quality of food and
beverage service quality.

NATIONAL PAPER

1.

Customer Perceptions of Service Quality

towards Luxury Hotels in Odisha Using
Servqual Model
Literature review
There are a number of models described in the literature that
conceptualized the construct of service quality (e.g. Garvin, 1988;
Albrecht and Zemke, 1985; Parasuraman et al, 1988; Lehtinen and
Lehtinen, 1991; Dabholkar et al, 1996). Parasuraman et al (1985,
1988) emphasized that Service quality is determined by the difference
between customers expectations of service providers performance
and their evaluation of the service they received. The construct of
service quality is a multidimensional phenomenon that contains
various dimensions that make up the construct (e.g. Parasuraman et
al, 1988). There are many research findings to the effect that service
companies are benefitted tremendously through their loyal customers
(Anderson and Zeithaml, 1984). Gronroos (1982) argued that
customers, while evaluating the quality of a service, compare the
service they expect with perceptions of the services actually received
by them. Zeithaml et al (1994) revealed that there could be a
transaction-specific quality judgment as well as global judgment
reflecting the level of service. Service quality is generally measured in
two ways (Urbany et al, 1999): (i) as an overall evaluation of quality of
service (i.e. an overall attitude towards the whole service experience);
or (ii) as consisting of a range of opinions about different aspects of the

service experience (e.g. perceptions of Tangibility, Reliability,

Responsiveness, Assurance and Empathy). Juran (1999) elaborated the
customers perception of service quality as: the features of services
which meet customers needs and necessities and thereby provide
customer satisfaction. Thus, service quality has been considered by
researchers as an attitude formed through long-term and overall
evaluation of a firms performance (Hoffman and Bateson, 2001).
Hospitality services are a harmonious mixture of three elementsmaterial products, behavior and attitude of employees and the
environment (Reuland et al, 1985). E l Farra in 1996 found that price
was the most important factor which influences the patronage of
medium priced hotels by customers. Thomson and Thomson in 1995
conducted a study on quality issues of nine hotels in Wellington, New
Zealand and Juwaheer in 2004 analyzed the strategic importance of
service quality in hotels of Mauritius. Shergill (2004) examined
travelers' perceptions when evaluating the service quality of hotels in
New Zealand and identified factors considered important to customers
using factor analysis. Davidson (2003 a) argued that there was a
causal link between good organizational climate and the level of
service quality in a hotel. In another study Davidson (2003 b)
examined the service quality in hotels and also incorporated customer
satisfaction in organizational culture and climate. SERVQUAL was
considered to be the most appropriate tool to measure service quality
of hotels (Fernandez, 2004). According to Markovic and Raspor (2010),
the main dimensions of perceived service quality in hotels are
reliability, empathy and competence of staff, accessibility, and
tangibles. The dimensions of service quality play a significant role in
the performance of a hotel as a service sector. It is thus necessary to
continuously measure customer satisfaction in order to assess the
service providers performance (Molah and Jusoh, 2011). According to
Gunaratne (2014), most important factor in predicting tourism service
quality evaluation was tangibility, followed by empathy, reliability, and
responsiveness. Service responsiveness in terms of responsive attitude
and prompt response to customers request do have adverse effect on
service quality which can lead to customer loyalty and profitability
(Asirifi et al. 2014). To sum up, providing an excellent and satisfactory
service quality is extremely important to capture and retain customers.
For this reason, this study utilized the SERVQUAL model and gap
scores to investigate the hotel visitors expectation and perception.
Assessing and comparing the perceptions of the hotel visitors with
actual served service quality will help the hotel managers to find
shortfalls and subsequently improve their quality of services with
respect to luxury hotels of Odisha.

2.
Study of Service Quality Management
in Hotel Industry
Literature review
Customers of hospitality often blame themselves when dissatisfied for
their bad choice. Employees must be aware that dissatisfied customers
may not complain and therefore the employees should seek out sources
of dissatisfaction and resolve them. (Zeithaml V., 1981, p.186 -190).
It is said that service quality is what differentiates hospitality sector,
however there is not an agreed definition of what service quality is. There
is however a few different suggestions of how to define service quality.
Dividing it into technical, functional and image components; (Greenrooms
C., 1982) another is that service quality is determined by its fitness for
use by internal and external customers. It is accepted that service quality
is depends upon guest's needs and expectations. Definitions read quality
as follows: 1) quality is excellence; 2) quality is value for money; 3)
quality is meeting or exceeding expectations.

A major problem with service quality is variability and limited capability

and robustness of the service production process. (Gummesson E., 1991)
Hotels consumers have well-conceived ideas about service quality and
quality attributes are considered important for most types of services, the
absence of certain attributes may lead consumers to perceive service
quality as poor. Studies focusing on service quality management suggest
that service firms spend too little effort on planning for service quality.
The resultant costs of poor service quality planning lead to lower
profitability as part of the service failures. (Stuart F., et al 1996).
A key activity is to conduct regularly scheduled review of progress by
quality council or working group and management must establish a
system to identify areas for future improvement and to track performance
with respect to internal and external customers. They must also track the
changing preferences of customer. Continuous improvement means not
only being satisfied with doing a good job or process. It is accomplished
by incorporating process measurement and team problem solving an all
work activities.
High quality builds loyal customers and creates positive word of mouth. It
determines customer satisfaction, which affects repeat business, many
studies have shown that it costs four to six times to create a customer as
it does to maintain an existing one. (Kotler P., 2006, p.420). On an
average, one satisfied customer will tell five others while a dissatisfied
customer will tell ten or more others. To balance the negative word with
positive word, two or more person should leave as satisfied for very one
person leaving unsatisfied. Most hospitality professionals do understand
that hotels that have more satisfied guests experience higher guest
loyalty and perform better financially compared to their competition. The
long-term success is based on guest loyalty and retention which
consequentially results in future revenue.
There is a significant relationship between service quality management
and customer satisfaction. In hospitality industry, the customer
satisfaction variables such as Availability, Access, Information, Time,
delivery of service, availability of personal competence, Comfortable and
safer atmosphere and pollution free environment are of prime concern to
every hotelier. The industry continuously tries to improve upon their
services to meet the levels of customer satisfaction.
The customer variability in the process makes it difficult to determine the
exact requirements of the customer and what they regard as an
acceptable standard of service. This problem is magnified as it is often
judgmental, based on personal preferences or even mood, rather than on
technical performance that can be measured.
It can be inferred from the study that the hotel implement continuous
improvement process and quality management tools to remain
competitive in the market. The ever changing perception of customer for
hotel industry requires the hotels to match the perception of customer by

delivering quality services. This leads to higher levels of customer

satisfaction and customer loyalty.