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related to quality of service. Therefore, the measurement of service quality and customer 
satisfaction benefits company in both qualitative and quantitative way. Gaining high level of 
service quality and customer satisfaction equal to enhancement in customer loyalty, market share 
increase, higher returns in investment, cost reduction and guarantee a competitive advantage. 
(Knutson, 1988; Haksever, Render, Russell, & Murdick, 2000; Wuest, 2001). It also has a 
positive impact on employee satisfaction. 
For the three star hotels or above, measurement of the service quality is a way to prove its quality 
and it is one of the hotel marketing methods. Those hotels management look at the hotel rating 
system. The top ten positions in hotel rating websites is the common target of thousands of hotel 
because those positions are considered as the certificate for their hotels’ quality service. When 
travelers search for the hotels, they also browse those websites. It is usual that travelers who care 
about high quality only look at some beginning pages which show the highest positions. Having 
the name here becomes a competitive advantage and helps hotels attract more guests. It is clear 
that hotel rating systems encourage hotel operators to improve their service quality, which may 
lead to changes in hotel performance. 
 
 
Figure 5: Relationship of Hotel Rating Systems, Service Quality Improvement and Hotel 
Performance Changes 
Those reasons are motivations for researchers try to find out the measurement models of 
customer satisfaction and service quality in various industries. 
 
2.3 Measurement models of service quality and customer satisfaction in hotel industry  
 
Due to multi-dimensional nature of the service quality, the lack of consensus on how to measure 
the quality of hotel industry should be admitted. The nature of services which are impalpability, 
inseparability from provider and receiver of service and impossibility of storage led to creation 
of specific models.  

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2.3.1 SERVQUAL MODEL  
 
This is the most popular model to measure the customer satisfaction in almost services industry. 
The model is based on the client’s evaluation of service quality, which is a comparison of the 
expected and the obtained value as well as a consideration of gaps in the process of service 
provision. The foundation of SERVQUAL scale was the gap model. 
 
 
Figure 6: Model of service quality gaps 
(Parasuraman et al, 1985; Curry, 1999; Luk and Layton, 2002) 

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 The gap model is an extension of Parasuraman et al. (1985). There are seven major gaps in the 
service quality concept:  
 
•
 
Gap1: Gap between customer expectation and management perception.  This gap is one the 
three important gaps related to the external customers. This gap is big if an organization has a 
lot of management layers, a wrong orientation in marketing research or lack of the upward 
communication. 
•
 
Gap 2: Gap between management perception and service specifications. This gap is resulted 
by inadequate commitment to service quality of manager board or employees, a perception of 
unfeasibility, lack of task standardization and absence or unsuitable goal. 
•
 
Gap 3: Gap between service specifications and service delivery.  Employees do not perceive 
clearly their position and/or their tasks that lead to this gap. In other cases, even employees 
know their roles but they are not able to perform their task well. Besides, lack of team work 
and inappropriate supervisory control systems can be reasons. 
•
 
Gap 4: Gap between service deliveries versus external communication. Over-promise to both 
external and internal customers as well as the low horizontal communication state can be 
reasons of this gap. 
•
 
Gap 5: The gap between customer expectations versus their perceptions of the service 
delivered. This gap is very important and considered the true measure of service quality. It 
has a direct relation with external customer also is the gap that SERVEQUAL model 
influences on. All of providers try to satisfy the needs and expectations of customers which 
are really diversified. However, their perception of service delivered is not based only on 
service itself, their needs and expectations but also external impacts such as word of mouth 
and the breakthrough of competitors. 
•
 
 Gap6: The gap between customer expectations and employees’ perceptions. This gap also 
direct related to external customers. If employees understand wrong the customer 
expectations, immediately it can cause the bad effect to the customer satisfaction. 
•
 
Gap 7: The difference between employee’s perceptions and management perceptions. It can 
be reduced if managers and employees have a good communication to resolve the problem. 

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In the service quality concept, to all the seven gaps, the smaller gap is, the higher service quality 
level can gain. Even if only one gap arises, the service gaps will appear because it means that 
customers are dissatisfied. 
 
Based on this model, Parasuraman et al. (1985) built the SERVQUAL scale. The SERVQUAL 
scale contains desirable characteristics of services with ten dimensions and then it is summed up 
into five in 1988- tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. However, 
researchers found that when applying SERVQUAL to different industries, items must be 
removed or added in order to customize the scale to accommodate differences in service settings 
(Van Dyke et al., 1997). In the development of quality measurement of hotel industry, all ten 
original dimensions of SERVQUAL were used in order to reveal any potential dimensions, 
especially the unique ones to this industry.  
These dimensions are defined as follows 
•
 
Responsiveness: Willingness to help customers and provide prompt service 
•
 
Competence: Employees possess the required skills and knowledge necessary to perform the 
service adequately. It measures the employee’s ability to perform a job accurately and be 
able to address customers’ questions with the correct answers. 
•
 
Courtesy: How polite, respectful, considerate and friendly contact personnel are toward 
guests. 
•
 
Credibility: A person’s inclination to trust the statements that employee has made. Credibility 
taps into the believability and honesty of the service provider. 
•
 
Security: Providing freedom from danger, risk or doubt. 
•
 
Access: The extent to which employees are approachable and easy to find. 
•
 
Communication: The ability of employees to keep customers informed. Good 
communication implies good listening skills and using language and terms that all customers 
can understand.  
•
 
Understanding: Making the effort to know the customers’ needs. 
•
 
Reliability: Ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately. 
•
 
Tangibles: Appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel and communications 
materials. 

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