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Tanzania’s hospitality industry has expanded rapidly in recent years, and is currently the
leading source of foreign exchange earnings. However, tourist operators indicated a drop
in cash flows up to 20%, with tourist cancellations of 30-50% for the season starting
January 2009 (URT, 2009). Literature on the growth of the hotel industry in Tanzania
tend to focus on macros, such as the sector's contribution to the GDP, statistics on
tourists (international and local) and revenue growth. Least has been written about the
fundamental issue of quality of service. Marketing appeals likewise almost singularly
brand Tanzania as a vastness of tourism natural resources leaving a blind spot on quality
of services to be expected. This vacuum has been vaguely filled with perceptions and
associations. It is therefore important to find from the perspective of customers what
attributes of quality in hotels contribute to customer satisfaction. Specifically, this study
sought to know:
(i) What attributes are the important in the perspective of customers in the
hospitality industry?
(ii) What attributes of the service from the perspective of customer can be
categorized as threshold, performance and excitement?
(iii) What do service providers in the hospitality industry perceive as important
attributes of service.
Data was collected and analysed based on Kano Model of classification of quality
attributes of services. Findings show that customer regard professionalism and
responsive of attendants higher and take fluency of English and friendliness as attractive
attributes. Moreover, while many hotels lack emergency medical services, tourist
customer think it is an important service. Service providers may get insight from this
study and apply them to designing their service experience and focusing their
investment. |
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