A Research On Hotel Service Quality Based On The Gap Model

The improvement of service quality is a key for hotels to survive,develop and gain comparative advantages.The measurement and assessment of hotel service quality is the first step for its improvement.But in practice,the management often lacks scientific methods of service quality measurement.To resolve this problem,this research reviews and analyses the popular methods and the researching results of service quality measurement in western countries,the study on the structure of service quality dimensions and the existing disputes,and especially the most popular gap study methods in service quality measurement.All of these deepen our understanding and knowledge of hotel service qualityIn order to develop a hotel-specific and parsimonious scale,the research designed a 20-item questionnaire which is specifically suitable for hotel service quality measurement based on SERVQUAL,LODGQUAL,LODGSERV,HOLSERV,LQI and tested its reliability and validity.Based on the existing researches,this reasearch puts forward a comprehensive service quality gap model which includes 14 gaps.This model involves three perspectives—managers, contact employees and guests,overcoming the limitations of the traditional methods that study the gap only from the guests' perspective.Based on the model and the survey results,this research carries out a positive and systematic analysis of the existing gaps in hotel service.The results show that the traditional 5-dimension structure isn't suitable for hotel industry and that only two dimensions—the basic dimension and the critical dimension are found based on the data of all managers,contact employees and guests.Through gap analysis the results show that the expectations of managers,contact employees and guests are so high that they are higher than their perceptions,which means the service quality is low.This is not caused by the subjective aspects but by the objective aspects.The results show that managers and employees have a good knowledge of the guests' expectations. From the employees' perspective,they are willing to provide high quality service and they understand guests more.The results show that the perceptions of managers,contact employees and guests are not significantly different.Managers and guests tend to overestimate service quality and the service ability of the employees.The results also show that the peceptions of service quality of managers and employees are significantly lower than the guests' expectations. In sum,the managers and employees' perceptions of service quality don't reach their expected level and also don't reach the guests' expected level.Based on the results of the positive analysis,the research puts forward 6 proposals about how to improve hotel service quality.They points out the directions and approaches of improving hotel service quality.Forthmore,Based on the scientific theory and scientific methods,the research finds out some persuasive and compelling results and lays a good foundation for completely understanding and improving service quality in hotel industry.