Title: Customer satisfaction and loyalty in Malaysian resort hotels: the role of empathy, reliability and tangible dimensions of service quality

Authors: Si Ni Yeong; Dan Knox; Guru Prabhakar

Addresses: Faculty of Business and Law, UWE, Bristol BS16 1QY, UK ' Faculty of Business and Law, UWE, Bristol BS16 1QY, UK ' Faculty of Business and Law, UWE, Bristol BS16 1QY, UK

Abstract: This paper applies the SERVQUAL model for the purpose of examining the impacts of the five dimensions of service quality on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in the hotel industry in Malaysia, and to investigate which factors among said dimensions (tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy) have a major role in affecting customer satisfaction and loyalty in relation to resort hotels. Questionnaires were used to collect quantitative data for this research by deploying a random sampling strategy to invite 136 hotel guests to complete the survey. The key findings indicate that empathy, tangibles and reliability have significant roles in affecting overall customer satisfaction in the Malaysian resort hotel sector but that responsiveness and assurance were not significantly influential. Empathy was the most significant predictor of customer satisfaction among all of the dimensions, and customer satisfaction has a positive relationship with customer loyalty in this context.

Keywords: service quality; customer satisfaction; customer loyalty; hotel industry; Malaysia.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSOM.2022.122922

International Journal of Services and Operations Management, 2022 Vol.41 No.4, pp.444 - 462

Received: 04 Jul 2019
Accepted: 01 Nov 2019

Published online: 17 May 2022 *

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