Customer Service in Travel and Tourism- A Complete Guide

Customers today expect a very high overall level of service in hospitality, travel, tourism, and leisure. Competition in these fields will thus be driven by strategies focusing on quality of service to add value, as opposed to product or price differentiation. Tourism can be domestic or international, and international tourism has both incoming and outgoing implications on a country’s balance of payments. Today, tourism is a major source of income for many countries, and affects the economy of both the source and host countries, in some cases being of vital importance. Every customer has an ideal expectation of the service they want to receive when they go to a restaurant or store. Service quality measures how well a service is delivered, compared to customer expectations. Businesses that meet or exceed expectations are considered to have high service quality. Let’s say you go to a fast food restaurant for dinner, where you can reasonably expect to receive your food within five minutes of ordering. After you get your drink and find a table, your order is called, minutes earlier than you had expected! You would probably consider this to be high service quality. There are five dimensions that customers consider when assessing service quality. Customer satisfaction is the outcome of customer’s perception of the value received in a transaction or relationship, where value equals perceived service quality, compared to the value expected from transactions or relationships with competing vendors. The subject emphasizes conceptual, analytical, and problem solving skills which integrate service management models, service marketing, service quality, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty. The purpose of creating this book is to allow students to consolidate and practice the service quality concepts and skills in a real tourism and travel enterprise.