A QFD and Servqual Approach to Hotel Service Design

Abstract

Current challenges facing the hotel service providers, such as "high customer demands on quality", "increasing competition for high customer satisfaction" and "the demand for full services", are directly related to better understand the attributes of hotel services and improve the service design characteristics accordingly. In service quality literature, SERVQUAL is the most widely used structure to measure customer expectations and perceptions. Quality Function Deployment (QFD) method is also a suitable means and works well to support the development of a wide range of services although it is originally stemming from product development. This study describes the development of a conceptual framework to measure the hotel service quality using the SERVQUAL model as a starting point, and then identifies service design and hotel guests' requirements using a QFD approach. This integration of SERVQUAL and QFD approaches in the conceptual Hotel of Quality model has been illustrated through a case study.