Strategic Competitiveness Of XYZ Hotel

In order to understand service quality and models proposed to assess it, Seth, Deshmukh, & Vrat (2005) conducted a literature review of the service quality models and examined 19 different service quality models. Their paper summarized different models and highlighted the strengthens and weakness of each model. The authors conclude that while none of models were able to address all aspects of measurements and selection of a model to measure service quality would be dependent on the subject that the researcher wished to measure.

Nowadays, customers have been continually aware about quality of service (Soriano, 2002). Service also plays an importance role in a restaurant. A good service can attract customer purchase in their restaurants. Service quality is usually defined as the customer’s judgment of the overall excellence or superiority of the service to the customer (Zeithaml, 1988). Based on the theory, Parasuraman et al. (1988) developed SERVQUAL to measure service quality. SERVQUAL consists of five dimensions which are reliability, responsiveness, empathy, assurance, and tangibles. Customers evaluate the service quality based on these 5 distinct dimensions. Firstly the tangibility refers to appearance of physical facilities, equipment, and appearance of personnel. Reliability indicates ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately while responsiveness represents the ability to provide prompt service and willingness to help customers. Besides that, assurance is defined as an employee’s knowledge and courtesy and their talent to provide trust and confidence to the customers. Last but not list is empathy means caring, individualized attention the firm provides to its customers. According to (Andaleeb & Conway, 2006) , among the

The first role of the brand is brand image. The brand image is defined as the consumer memory hide in the brand perception (Keller, 1993). It is mean how the customers see and the impression of the brand. The company can use different ways to increase brand image, such as advertisement to show the hotel can provide a high quality service let the customer feel relaxed, and the

A company (in this case, a coffee shop) needs to establish a clear and consistent brand identity by communicating its brand attributes in a way that can be easily understood by prospective customers. One of the firm’s most valuable assets for improving marketing productivity is the customers’pre-existing knowledge of the brand from the firm’s investment in previous marketing programs (Keller, 1993). According to Keller (1993), the differential effect of brand knowledge upon customers’ response to brand marketing is known as brand equity. Brand equity is related to customer satisfaction and brand loyalty (Nam, Ekinci, and Whyatt, 2011). Customer satisfaction is a mediating variable between brand equity and brand loyalty, while brand loyalty itself is the biased (non-random) behavioral response (purchase) expressed over time by some decision-making unit with respect to one or more particular brands out of a set of brands and is a function of psychological processes (Jacoby, 1971). Considering the importance of brand equity in companies’ efforts to develop positive customer perception and win the tight competition in their industry by achieving customer satisfaction and loyalty, this study aims to investigate

Services are one of the factors in customer loyalty studies because of the consistent and high standards of service that provided by the hotel. The delivery of service as promised was identified as the factor, which is the most important in developing loyalty to the hotel. In contrast, employees of the hotel should ensure the quality of hotel services by constantly reviewing their guest’s needs and the management should provide service from time to time in order to improve staffs performance. The third elements which is internal marketing is also crucial to the quality of hotel services. Treating the employees as internal customers would increase the employees’ satisfaction which is fundamental to the provision of good service to the hotel customers.

market responses (Lane and Jacobson 1995; Simon and Sullivan 1993) and determines the extendability of a brand name (Rangaswamy et al. 1993). It also increases the probability of brand choice, willingness to pay premium prices, marketing communication effectiveness, and brand licensing opportunities, and decreases vulnerability to competitive marketing actions and elastic responses to price increases (Barwise 1993; Farquhar et al. 1991; Keller 1993; Simon and Sullivan 1993; Smith and Park 1992). In summary, from a managerial perspective, brand equity provides sustainable competitive advantages to the firm (Bharadwaj, Varadarajan, and Fahy 1993). Brand Equity and Its Dimensionality

The last section discuss about service quality which is the most impact that will effect in service industry. In this section, a service quality model has been discuss for further explain the relationship of the service quality and customer satisfaction. The result of the literature review and the themes which emerged can be found in chapter two.

According to the researches by Louviere et al. (2002), it supports that the quality perceptions of the customers will probably rise through the brand credibility. Researchers also find that brand credibility can probably increase that guests will contain the consideration set of the brand (Erdem and Swait, 1998).

In the previous twenty-five years, hotel industry has been gripped the most essential element that actually has positive effect on the development. In the concept regarding modern high-flying marketing strategies, branding is considered as the most imperative factor as the top-notch industries have realized the worth of it. This is the most developed section of hospitality industry that is basically dependent on the pillar of first-rate services. Like various major industries, the base of hotel industry is about the notion of “demand and supply” and its inevitability. Everybody is quite acquainted with the hotel industry’s theory of demand and supply and that is essentially focused on the idea of a place, where customers come to stay, stopover, eat as well as visit alone or with families or friends or colleagues and others. (Kandampully & Suhartanto, 2000)

Brand awareness is the most important indicator of the consumers’ knowledge about a brand. Brand awareness and customer loyalty go hand in hand. Loyalty of a customer is an emotional attachment to the brand. This attachment is driven by brand image and brand awareness. Brand awareness and brand image should develop an affection similar to a friendship. When buying a product for the first time, brand awareness is key. It is what gets the consumer to purchase that product. Measuring brand awareness is another key part in relating it to consumer buying behaviors. Three ways to measure brand awareness are spontaneous brand recall, top-of-mind recall, and aided recall. The ways that measure brand awareness are key in successfully marketing your product. Brand awareness is a starting point for all customer satisfaction.

I am agreeably with this assumption because well managed branded hotel can creates emotional,visual and cultural connection between guest and hotel and it makes more loyal customer and loyal customer helps to penetrate the market and finally increase market shares(Madden, T. J., Fehle, F., & Fournier, S. (2006). Brands matter: An empirical demonstration of the creation of shareholder value through branding. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 34(2), 224-235..)

Our society is constantly changing and these changes have an impact not only on our buying habits and consumption but also on the hotel companies that must constantly adapt to meet new customer requirements. When performing market research to determine customer loyalty strategy, hotel marketers are often faced with questions that require application of both quantitative research methods and deep knowledge coming from unstructured qualitative approaches. Subsequently, the quantitative approach is used to design and test an instrument for web-based service quality

In fact it is argued that, service organizations, such as the hotels, may be more environmentally sensitive due to four factors; ease of transfer of innovations, size, ease of competitive entry and inability to buffer the productive core from high task and information variety (Lowry, 1990). While numerous study has been undertaken to study the relationship between strategy and environment with organizations‟ MCS, most has been focusing on the manufacturing industry. Harris and Brander Brown (1998) point out three specific reasons for which the empirical evidence of the „MAS use and performance relationship‟ in the manufacturing industry may not apply in the hotel industry. First, heterogeneity of customers in hotels that creates demand for multiple types of services. This creates high uncertainty in the work environment which unlike products in manufacturing, they go through standard and mechanized production process. Second, the personalized and customized nature of the hotel business creates a highly labor intensive provision of products and services in which managers play a key role in managing quality. The managers involvement adds uncertainty to the hotel work environment which unlike production of manufactured goods that can be mechanized through the use of technology. Finally, a hotel‟s products and services are highly perishable and intangible. Thus, they are affected by fluctuating demand, and their production, delivery and consumption takes

A brand is a name that has the power to influence a buyer. Brand influence could be as a result of a set of mental associations and relationship built up over time among customers or distributors. Brand equity is the differential effect of a brand knowledge on a consumer response to the marketing of a brand. The present study focuses on the study of the basic four dimensions of customer-based brand equity on consumer`s perceptions of a brand viz. brand awareness, brand loyalty, brand image, brand performance. This is based on the assumption that all these dimensions of customer-based brand personality have

UDK / UDC: 640.41(658.562) JEL klasifikacija / JEL classification: L83 Stručni rad / Professional paper Primljeno / Received: 31. svibnja 2007. / May 31, 2007 Prihvaćeno za tisak / Accepted for publishing: 03. srpnja 2007. / July 03, 2007 Summary The quality of service in hotel industry is an important factor of successful business. The existing trend of complete quality management in hotel industry ensures the achievement of competitive advantage of hotel companies and is therefore the subject of contemporary research into service quality in