Enhancing hotel services through quality systems: a case study of star rated hotels in India

Achieving service excellence is challenging for hoteliers considering the competitive and fragmented nature of the industry. Continuous efforts to establish the highest degree of service quality levels are required by the hotels to stay ahead in competition. However, the existing literature largely ignores exploring the various techniques used by the hotels to achieve the desired service quality. This study, therefore, attempts to bridge the gap by investigating such techniques and based on this information, proposes a framework explaining how hotels enhance service quality. Further, to explore the effectiveness of the hotel classification system of India, the study evaluates the system against five dimensions of the SERVQUAL model. The study also explores the use of international quality systems used by the Indian hotel Industry and seeks managers opinion about the hotel classification system of India. For this purpose, a structured questionnaire was used to gather the responses of the classified hotel managers in North India. The results indicate that the hotel classification system of India lacks the dimensions of empathy and responsiveness. Further, for the booking related decisions, travellers trust in such ratings is low.