Title: The impact of tourism service quality on customer satisfaction: the case of five-star hotels in Jordan

Authors: Ramzi AL-Rousan, Badaruddin Mohamed, Yudi Fernando

Addresses: Tourism Planning and Development, School of Housing, Building, and Planning, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang 11800, Malaysia. ' Tourism Planning and Development, School of Housing, Building, and Planning, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang 11800, Malaysia. ' School of Management, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang 11800, Malaysia

Abstract: This paper aims to investigate the service quality expectations of business hotel customers and evaluate their satisfaction with regard to tourism service quality (TSQ) in five-star hotels in Jordan. To achieve the objectives of this paper, questionnaire surveys were used to measure visitor satisfaction. The questionnaire instruments were developed from previous studies and contained 23 proposed TSQ items. The respondents were tourists who stayed in five-star hotels in Jordan. From the 322 questionnaires collected, only four service quality dimensions were found to be positively related to customer satisfaction. Among the four dimensions, assurance was the highest predictor in measuring customer satisfaction. Therefore, the quality of service is directly related to the customer satisfaction. Theoretically, the findings showed that customers would only be satisfied when the service is perceived to be valuable and of superb quality. It is also one of the determinants influencing customers| choices with regard to the five-star hotel they will stay in. The results of this paper could provide tourism planners and marketers in Jordan an increased understanding of the concept of TSQ and teach them how they can continually improve their services.

Keywords: tourism marketing; service quality; five-star hotels; 5-star hotels; Jordan; business customers; customer satisfaction; hotel selection.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLTM.2011.038885

International Journal of Leisure and Tourism Marketing, 2011 Vol.2 No.2, pp.124 - 139

Published online: 05 Mar 2011 *

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