RESEARCH AND CONSULTANCY SKILLS

Research and Consultancy Skills

Research and Consultancy Skills

Introduction

In this paper, we describe a study undertaken in India, wherein we developed and validated an instrument to measure and benchmark SQ in tourism by using a second order factor approach. In the first section, we discuss the existing scales to measure SQ in tourism and the need for a second - order factor approach. The second section deals with the research methodology which includes scale development, questionnaire and sampling design, details on data collection and data analysis. In the third and the concluding section, we discuss the managerial implications of our work and also the directions for future research.

Benchmarking is an improvement process in which a company measures its performance against that of best-in-class companies, determines how those companies achieved their performance levels, and uses the information to improve its own performance (Bemowski, 1992). Service benchmarking is made more difficult than benchmarking in manufacturing because it appears that those things, which are important to a customer, would differ significantly from one service industry to another (Sower et al., 2001) and also because of the reason that quality is not universal in services (Motwani and Sower, 2006). Benchmarking in tourism industry would call for a comparison among countries (destinations), and this process is perceived to be difficult (Kyriakidou and Gore, 2005). In order to benchmark destinations, researchers and practitioners need to know how to measure service quality (SQ) in tourism. The objective of this work is to contribute towards the body of literature pertaining to measuring SQ in tourism, so that managers can benchmark destinations more effectively.

A “quality tourism product” is the sum of contributions and processes, resulting from many stakeholders, both private and public. The notion of quality of the tourism product includes assurance of safety and security as a basic factor. Quality also includes a professional approach to do things right at all times and meet legitimate expectations of consumers (www. unwto.org/quality/index. htm).

Hwang and Lockwood (2006) opined that some of the capabilities necessary for hospitality and tourism SMEs are customer focused goals, planning and control, and achieving consistent standards. In order to deliver and maintain SQ, an organization must first identify and comprehend the perceptions and perspectives of customers with reference to SQ (Grönroos, 1984).

It would tremendously benefit destination managers if they had a good instrument to measure and benchmark SQ of a tour, which has been developed from customers' perspective. The data collected using this instrument could be used in assessing whether the customers' expectations have been met or not. Many instruments aimed at measuring SQ of a tour have been developed by several researchers. While we take a rather different approach, we believe the same would broaden the extant literature.

(A) Preliminary assessment of the potential to develop a new tourism facility that will benefit from the designation of the new South Downs National Park

For the purpose of literature review, we have reviewed the scales developed to measure both SQ as well as customer satisfaction (CS) in ...