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Business travellers' perception of service quality: a prefatory study of two European city centre hotels
Author(s) -
Callan Roger J.,
Kyndt Gabrielle
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
international journal of tourism research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.155
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 1522-1970
pISSN - 1099-2340
DOI - 10.1002/jtr.333
Subject(s) - marketing , tourism , globalization , sample (material) , quality (philosophy) , business , service (business) , business travel , hospitality industry , service quality , business tourism , competitive advantage , geography , economics , tourism geography , philosophy , chemistry , archaeology , epistemology , chromatography , market economy
The business traveller contributes significantly to the turnover of the hotel industry and, with the globalisation of business, this sector shows signs of increasing growth. Service quality has now become one of the main factors used to gain competitive advantage, thus the industry must focus more specifically on the needs and expectations of its business customers. The aim of this paper is to focus on the business travel market and more specifically on the comparison of two hotels in two European cities, Brussels and Manchester. This area of research has not been attempted before and will provide an interesting comparison with findings in USA. A literature review identified the relevant attributes used to measure service quality, which were utilised to design a questionnaire, distributed to customers in a five star hotel in Manchester and in Brussels. The primary data obtained were then compared with the findings of otherresearchers. The analysis indicated that Brussels scored the majority of the attributes more highly (many significantly) than did Manchester. This may be influenced by the international profile of the Brusselsrespondents who tended to travel onbusiness more frequently than theManchester sample. The comparisons with the USA surveys found some inconsistencies that might be attributed to societaldifferences.Copyright © 2001 John Wiley& Sons, Ltd.