Quality Service Management in Tourism

• These study notes cover topics related to quality service management in the tourism and hospitality industry, including the concept of guestology and strategies for improving service quality.

Introduction to Quality Service Management

• Quality is a prime factor in choosing a tourism or hospitality entity.
• Customers have many options, making quality crucial.
• The concept of quality evolves with time, especially with increasingly sophisticated customers.

The Evolving Concept of Quality

• Intense competition drives businesses to differentiate and capture higher quality.
• Achieving high quality remains the ultimate goal in tourism, despite varying experiences for tourists and suppliers.
• Quality is evaluated through specifications, standards, and measures.
• Guests often recognize quality even if they can't define it.

Defining Quality

• Joseph Juran defines quality as "fitness for use," emphasizing its variability depending on the user.
• The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) defines quality as the features of a good or service that satisfy needs.
• Addressing "given or implied needs" is essential, defined by the user (guest or staff).

Service Product: Goods and Services

• Product: Anything offered to a market to satisfy a need or want, including tangible and intangible items.
• Goods: Physical objects with preserved attributes, can be owned, exist independently, and be traded.
• IHIP characteristics: intangible, heterogeneous, inseparable, and perishable.
• Goods and services are intertwined; services rely on tangible items for proper delivery.

Characteristics of Services

• Services are intangible, lacking a physical presence and existing only in connection to other things.
• Services are heterogeneous, varying due to the workforce delivering them, leading to "inconsistency".
• "Service recovery" addresses failures in service delivery, heterogeneity stems from differing guest preferences.
• Services are inseparable; production and consumption occur simultaneously.
• Services are perishable and cannot be stored or resold.

Dimensions of Quality for Service Products

1. Performance: Primary operating characteristics, often prompt service in the hospitality industry.
2. Features: Secondary aspects supplementing basic functionality, like free drinks or Wi-Fi.
3. Reliability: Ability to perform promised service dependably and accurately.
4. Conformance: Meeting set standards in service product design and characteristics.
5. Durability: Technical and economic dimensions, measured by usage before deterioration.
6. Serviceability: Speed, courtesy, competence, and ease of repair, crucial for restoring paid standards.
7. Aesthetics: Subject personal judgment, influenced by demographics and psychographics.
8. Perceived Quality: Based on indirect measurement, used to compare brands.

Notable Figures in Service Quality

• Walter A. Shewhart: Father of Statistical Quality Control, related to the Shewhart cycle.
• William Edwards Deming: Championed Shewhart's work, including statistical process control.
• Joseph M. Juran: Incorporated the human aspect of quality management as Total Quality Management (TQM).
• Philip B. Crosby: Initiated the Zero Defects program, reduced rejection rates and scrap costs.
• Armand V. Feigenbaum: Devised Total Quality Control (TQC), inspiring Total Quality Management (TQM).
• Kaoru Ishikawa: Rejuvenated workplace norms, emphasized customer service and after-sale service
• Genichi Taguchi: Developed statistical methods for improving the quality of manufactured goods.
• James H. Donnelly: Highlighted differences in marketing "channels" for services vs. physical goods.
• A. Parasuraman, Valarie A. Zeithaml, and Leonard L. Berry: Gaps model of service quality.
• Mary Jo Bitner and Bernard H. Booms: Expanded "marketing mix" for services, including people, process, and physical evidence

Chapter 2: Guestology

• Guestology focuses on the guests
• Hospitality means what we, as service providers, give to our guests
• Service is the sequences of acts, tasks, and procedures done with consistency
• Hospitality is a positice emotional response from our guests
• Service is skills and hospitality is spirit
• Service is what we do for guests, hospitality is what we do with them
• Service is about delivering needs and wants, hospitality is about anticipating needs and wants
• Dickson (2010) defines guestology as the scientific study of behaviors, needs, and expectations of people in a service environment.
• Guestology entails studying the totality of the guest experience

Integrating Guestology

• To achieve customer satisfaction and customer service, understand customer expectations.
• A first-time guest varies from a returning guest, a frequent flier varies from a family
• Companies need to constantly inquire if they exceeded their expectations
• Planning for satisfaction involves desining the experience
• The Filipino culture entails different beliefs and ideals
• When a guest becomes more exposed, he/she becomes more complex
• It is better to meet guest expectations rather than over-deliver
• The management team needs to strategize and take the constanting changing industry into account
• If the level of service goes up, expectations go up
• Establishments must be clean and the staff must be courteous, responsive, reliable, and friendly

Identifying Customer Types

• Customers, otherwise known as guests and clients, in the hospitality and tourism business play a significant role in the operations.
• Identify and match each need to each type of customer.

Identifying Each Customer

1. Loyal customers - Represents no more than twenty percent of the customer base but actually drives majority of the sales revenues
2. Impulse customers - Best to use for suggestive selling. Second to loyal customers when it comes to attractiveness in the market.
3. Discount customer - Contributory to a company's cash flow because the products which are seldom purchased at full price.
4. Need-based customers - Buy for a specific reason and occasion, and because of this, it may be difficult to convince them to upsell.
5. Wandering customers - Enjoys social interaction while shopping

Chapter 3: Strategies for Quality Service

• Managing the Expectations of the future
• Meeting Demands
• Utilizing Competitive Strategies to build the business
• Setting objectives
• Allocating resources

Porter's Three Generic Strategies

1. Cost Leadership: Reduce operational costs
2. Differentiation Strategy: Make services that is attractive
3. Focus Strategy: Develop services for niche markets

Internal and External Assesments

• Internal Analysis: The "secret sauce" of an organization or a flaw
• External Analysis : PESTEL tool

Factors That Affect Operations

• Demographics, social expections, technology, competition in industry
• Natural and economical forces
• Resource supplies
• Capital supplies
• Labor supply

The Guest and the Service Setting by Albert J. Rutledge

1. Everything should have a purpose" There should be a good relationship between the different parts of an establishment.
2. Design should be for both employees and guests. It is also important to consider the physical strengths and weaknesses of the site
3. Function and aesthetics should be present."In designing the hospitality and tourism workplace and guest experience, both the concept of function and aesthetics should be considered 4.Set up a substantial experience for the guests and employees." 5.Set up an appropriate experience for guests and employees." 6.Adhere to technical requirements.It is required for the owner and the management to follow and procure necessary procedures for proper implementation of design the usual requirements would be adherence to certain local laws and the procurement of permits such as the business permit to operate and other related permits
4. Comply with needs in the lowest possible cost".It is very important that the development entails profitability that is the lowest possible cost can be utilized for maximum profitability
5. Establish design with less supervision" to minimize supervision and costs that goes with it states that proper design can encourage "good behavior " while discouraging "bad it means

Importance of Servicescape

• Creates expectations that sets the mood and emotion of the visit to project the experience
• Factors
• Mood and emotion
• Expectations
• Function Value
• Labour supply

Service Staffing

• How to find employees
• What training to give
• What values to implement

Service Organization

• Staff must be competent and dedicated
• Right attitude and character
• Internal recruitment is an objective stratetgy
• A diverse work force is recommended