Perceptions of Service Quality in Jordanian Hotels

The importance of service quality for business performance has been recognized in the literature through the direct effect on customer satisfaction and the indirect effect on customer loyalty. The main objective of the study was to measure hotels ' service quality performance from the customer perspective. To do so, a performance-only measurement scale (SERVPERF) was administered to customers stayed in three, four and five star hotels in Aqaba and Petra. Although the importance of service quality and service quality measurement has been recognized, there has been limited research that has addressed the structure and antecedents of the concept for the hotel industry. The clarification of the dimensions is important for managers in the hotel industry as it identifies the bundles of service attributes consumers find important. The results of the study demonstrate that SERVPERF is a reliable and valid tool to measure service quality in the hotel industry. The instrument consists of five dimensions, namely "tangibles", "responsiveness", "empathy", "assurance " and "reliability". Hotel customers are expecting more improved services from the hotels in all service quality dimensions. However, hotel customers have the lowest perception scores on empathy and tangibles. In the light of the results, possible managerial implications are discussed and future research subjects are recommended