Hotel Service Quality and Business Performance in five hotels belonging to a UK Hotel Chain

Abstract

The study focuses on the nature of hotel service quality and performance in a UK Hotel chain. It examines managerial conceptualizations, implementation and measurement and contextual issues that affect decision-making. Although managers acknowledge the importance of service quality and performance monitoring, their efforts are impeded by flaws in implementation and contextual constraints. The results reveal the flaws as lack of policy on quality, non-implementation of action plans and biased reward schemes. The contextual constraints are identified as competition, budgetary, staff turnover and biased rewards. The results in this study seems to suggest that service and quality are sacrificed at the altar of profits as senior managers appear to hope for quality but reward financial performance. The results also identify a significant gap in UK literature and a consequent paucity in knowledge regarding the use of service guarantees as service quality strategy in hotels. It is concluded that hotel leaders should take responsibility for delivery on service quality and business performance