Quality Management in Hospitality Industry

Quality Management in the Hospitality Industry

Service: Hospitality Industry’s Main Product

The hospitality industry is a service-oriented industry. The main offering to customers is service. Let us first discuss what a service is. By definition, services are intangible. The product that is a service or that component of the product that is a service cannot be seen, touched, or felt. As a deed, performance or action, a service is consumed as it is produced, such that the acts of production and consumption are inseparable. Services are perishable, in that they cannot be inventoried or produced and stored for later use. Nor can they be produced without some level of customer interaction. Since services are produced and consumed in real time, they are inherently variable – from customer to customer, from provider to provider and from time to time for the same customer and/or the same provider (John 2003).

Characteristics of Services

Services as Intangible

Services are performances. Services cannot be seen but they can be experienced. The product is a process. Services are the result of value creating activities. The product being purchased is an experience and not a physical good (John 2003). In the hospitality industry for example, hotels provide the service of overnight stay as their core product. The customer does not take title to the room that is being rented. The hotel provides the use of the room for the duration of the time that the customer has paid for.

Services are Consumed and Produced Simultaneously

The acts of production and consumption occur simultaneously in services. Services are produced and consumed in real time. There is a great deal of interaction before, during, and/or after the service between provider and customer. In services, the provider is part o the product. The personnel that the customer interacts with are a part of the product (John 2003). For example in a hotel, the quality of service...