Evaluation of the quality of services provided from the point of view of customers of 4 and 5 star hotels in Isfahan province based on the Seroqual model

Master's Thesis-

Allameh Tabatabai University

Summer 87

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to evaluate the quality of services provided from the perspective of customers of 4 and 5 star hotels in Isfahan province based on the SERVQUAL model. The current applied research and the research method in this research is of the type  It is descriptive & inferential and of a survey type. The statistical community studied in this research is all people who have received services from 4 and 5 star hotels in Isfahan province at least once. The statistical sample in this research is 150 customers of 4 and 5 star hotels in Isfahan province. The sampling method in this research is simple random sampling. The method of collecting information in this research is the library and field method. The data collection tool in this study is a questionnaire. In this research, the questionnaire includes 25 questions regarding service quality according to different dimensions. According to the researchers' research, the questionnaire was highly reliable and the reliability of the questionnaire was obtained using Cronbach's alpha of 0.78. In order to analyze the data, first the questionnaire was distributed among the selected statistical sample. Then the information collected from the questionnaire was entered into the spss program. Then statistical tests were performed on these data. The statistical results showed that there is a difference between the current and desired conditions of services provided by hotels in terms of the dimensions of service tangibles, service reliability, responsiveness, service reliability, service empathy, and service price from the point of view of customers.

Keywords:

Service quality, tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, reliability, empathy, service price, SERVQUAL model.

1- Chapter 1: General Research

Evaluation of the quality of services provided from the perspective of customers of 4- and 5-star hotels in Isfahan province based on the service quality technique model (servaqual of Isfahan province

1-1- Introduction

One of the relatively new techniques that plays an effective role in improving the quality of services is the service quality model (Serqual). and examining them, efforts are made to reduce these gaps. In order to determine the amount of gaps between the desired levels and the actual performance levels in a service organization or the service department of a production organization, it is very necessary to prepare a tangible questionnaire in order to value the customer and satisfy his needs. Service gave way to this new necessity to allow the quality of service to be affected by the needs of customers. Paying attention to quality based on customer expectations is one of the ways to gain competitive advantage among competitors. Today, the quality of products and services, perceived from the point of view of customers, is a competitive factor. Therefore, it is considered a very important and basic issue for countries to define, measure, and improve the quality of perceived services.

The quality of services provided in hotels is of particular importance in attracting customers, so it seems necessary that private hotels seek to gain experience and identify the needs and expectations of their customers in order to understand what expectations and perceptions different people have from the services provided and to what extent they are acceptable.

1-2- Statement of the problem

According to the increase in the number of 4 and 5 star hotels after the Islamic revolution and the increasing growth of travel, it is inevitable to check the performance and supervision of such institutions. Before the Islamic Revolution, a limited number of hotels were providing services in Iran, and most of the centers providing accommodation services included inns. But after the Islamic revolution and simultaneously with the growing population and the growth of travel, the need for these centers increased, and at the same time as the growth witnessed their development and the creation of 4 hotels and  We became 5-star and luxurious in Iran, most of which can be seen in Mashhad. The first reason is because of the pilgrimage of that city. Almost 60% of Iran's hotels in holy Mashhad have been providing services. The main goal of the researcher in conducting this research is the constant disagreement of travelers who use these services with hoteliers who provide services.Travelers have always believed that the quality level of services does not correspond to the stars of hotels, and hotels have always emphasized on the quality of their services and called travelers an excuse. Now, considering the researcher's employment in the hotel and full familiarity with this industry, we are going to examine and evaluate the performance of hotels in Isfahan province at the level of 4 and 5 stars. According to the above, the main issue in this research, which we will answer, will be the assessment of the quality of services provided from the perspective of customers of 4 and 5 star hotels in Isfahan province based on the service quality model. It works because the quality of service is vital for the survival and profitability of the organization. In fact, today customer satisfaction and service quality are considered vital issues in most service industries. Especially, this issue is more important in relation to financial services, where it is generally difficult to differentiate services.

Improving the quality of services leads to attracting new customers (aggressive effect [1]) in such a way that satisfied customers spread positive words by word of mouth and leads to attracting new customers and then increases the market share. It also enables the organization to maintain its current customers (defensive effect [2]). The meaning of the offensive effect is to gain more market share and the defensive effect is to retain customers and reduce promotional costs (Haiderzadeh and Hajiha, 1387, 81).

Despite the importance of service quality, little research has been done in this field in the country in different organizations. For example, a research entitled "Evaluation of the quality of social security organization services from the perspective of employees" done, it shows that the employees of the social security organization believe that in all five dimensions of service quality, the performance of the organization is lower than the expectations of the customers. Considering the increasing importance of service quality in the hotel industry in the eyes of customers, this research seeks to satisfy the customers of 4- and 5-star hotels and provides solutions to improve these services. Senior - Allameh Tabatabai University (Faculty of Accounting and Management), which this research was carried out in 2009.

In this research, the researcher seeks to identify and prioritize factors affecting the selection of travel service offices, so that in this way he can play an effective role in providing services that meet the needs and wishes of domestic tourists. The researcher also determined by conducting statistical tests that there is a significant difference between the influence of the factors influencing the choice according to the demographic characteristics.

Other researches that are available on the subject of hotels and hospitality in the country are as follows:

Kaviani Hossein, comparison between the expectations of foreign tourists and the services provided to them in 5-star hotels in Tehran, Master's thesis - Allameh Tabatabai University (Faculty of Accounting and management).

The purpose of this research is to compare the expectations and perceptions of foreign tourists from the services provided to them in 5-star hotels in Tehran and to determine the gap between their expectations and perceptions. In this research, 6 hypotheses have been developed and one main hypothesis is named " The services provided in 5-star hotels in Tehran do not meet the expectations of foreign tourists. and 5 sub-hypotheses that are set according to the 5 dimensions of service quality.

In this research, effective factors for increasing the level of customer loyalty and prioritizing them in terms of importance are considered. For this purpose, eight hypotheses have been proposed: hospitality, accommodation, food and beverages, recreation and entertainment, complementary services, security and health, location and movement, and price. There is a meaningful and positive relationship between these 8 considered variables and customer loyalty. At the same time, among these variables, supplementary services and accommodation had the most significant relationship with loyalty with a positive correlation coefficient of 0.546 and 0.495, respectively. And the weakest relationship is the safety and health variable with a correlation coefficient of 0.398.