An investigation of factors affecting service quality in tourist hotels: a case study of tourist hotels in Tanzania

Service quality has for along time received great attention in service industries. One of the major ways to differentiate a service organization from other organizations, in the service industry is to deliver consistently high quality services than competitors. The main objective of this study was to find out the factors affecting service quality in tourist hotels in Tanzania. To achieve this five hypotheses were developed which rested on the five service quality dimensions as tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. Subsequently the literature review developed a service quality gap model, which determined critical factors from within service organizations that create service quality shortfalls. The results show that: there is a gap between hotel customer expectations and management perception of the hotel services. This has affected the quality of service offered by tourist hotels in Tanzania. Hotel customer expectations and management perceptions of those expectations were also found to differ. This has affected customers’ evaluation of hotel services thus creating a difference on what is expected by customers and what is really provided by the hotels. It was also found that there is a gap between service quality specifications and actual hotel service delivery. Actual hotel service delivery and external communications were also found to differ. Lastly it was found that the ineffectiveness of service quality in hotels is related to various organizational factors responsible for the size of each of the service quality gaps. The statistical tests indicated that there is room for improvement in order to attain customer satisfaction and loyalty. Recommendations on how to improve the services thus meeting customer expectations which lead to customer loyalty and reduce corporate image elasticity and lowering cost of attracting new customers are given at the end. The cumulative effect of satisfied and loyal customers is an economic asset to the hotels.