The relationship among tourist satisfaction, tourism service quality and tourists loyalty

RESEARCH PROJECT BMBR5103 THE RELATIONSHIPS AMONG TOURIST SATISFACTION, TOURISM SERVICE QUALITY AND TOURISTS LOYALTY STUDENT’S FULL NAME : NGUYEN THI HA MY TRAM ADVISOR’S NAME & TITL

RESEARCH PROJECT

(BMBR5103)

THE RELATIONSHIPS AMONG TOURIST SATISFACTION, TOURISM SERVICE

QUALITY AND TOURISTS LOYALTY

STUDENT’S FULL NAME : NGUYEN THI HA MY TRAM

ADVISOR’S NAME & TITLE : ASSOC.PROF.DR PHAN DINH NGUYEN

December 2015

Advisor’s assessment

Advisor’s signature

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to examine the relationship between tourism service quality, tourism loyalty and tourism satisfaction expectations in hotel industry In this paper, the service quality standard model has been used for evaluation of service quality, Parasuraman, Zeithaml, & Berry (1985, 1988) Fornell et al (1996) and Oh (2000) models with revision was used for evaluating the loyalty, and the instrument presented by Cauana, Money, and Berthon (2000) was used for evaluation of customer satisfaction The focus of this research is five stars hotels in Vietnam, and

300 customers of these hotels were sampled The results of this paper demonstrate that in all aspects, customers’ expectation, are higher than their perceptions of the hotels services In addition, this research findings show that customer satisfaction plays the role of a mediator in the effects of service quality on service loyalty Moreover, the findings of this study provide tourism professionals in Vietnam with more insight about the idea of TSQ and help them improve the quality of their services Finally, there are some suggestions for further research

Key words: service quality, tourism, customer satisfaction, loyalty

ACKNOWLEDMENTS

Firstly, I would like to acknowledge my supervisor Dr Khai Nguyen at Open University Malaysia, for his valuable guidance and support while I undertook this research I was very fortunate to be under his supervision, as he embraced every responsibility of a principal supervisor to guide my research

Besides, there were many teachers at the International Business Management Department through the course of the last year who offered me friendship and knowledge also experience in life I want to convey my thanks to all

of you for helping me along the way To my classmates, my friends and other people whom I had chance to meet in Taiwan thanks for your help, interest, and valuable hints

I would like to take this opportunity to express my special thanks to my family who sitting patiently in the shadows, waiting, and hoping for a happy ending for their love, their encouragement and their support to me

With all your support, my thesis would be possible so that I could close one of amazing chapter in my life and start to write new one

Nguyen Thi Ha My Tram

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT iii

ACKNOWLEDMENTS iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS v

LIST OF FIGURES vii

LIST OF TABLES viii

Chapter I: Introduction 1

1.1 Background and Motivation 1

1.2 Purpose 3

1.3 Scope Of Research 3

1.4 Research Process 3

Chapter II: Literature Review 5

2.1 Tourism Service Quality in the Hotel Industry 5

2.2 Tourists Loyalty in the Hotel Industry 8

2.3 Tourist Satisfaction in the Hotel Industry 10

Chapter III: Research Methodology 13

3.1 Research Framework 13

3.2 Research Hypothesis 13

3.2.1 Relationship among Service Quality and Tourist Satisfaction 13

3.2.2 Relationship among Tourists Satisfaction and Tourists Loyalty 14

3.2.3 Relationship among Tourism Service Quality and Tourists Loyalty 15

3.2.4 Relationship among Customer Satisfaction, Tourism Service Quality and Tourists Loyalty 16

3.3 Measurements and Scale 17

3.3.1 Socio-Demographic Data Of The Tourists 17

3.3.2 Tourism Service Quality 18

3.3.3 Tourist Satisfaction 20

3.3.4 Tourist Loyalty 21

3.4 Scope Of Research 23

Chapter IV: Analysis Results 24

4.1 Respond Data 24

4.2 Descriptive Statistic Analysis 24

4.3 Reliability test 26

4.3.1 Tourism service quality variable 26

4.3.2 Tourist Satisfaction variable 27

4.4 Tourist loyalty 28

4.5 Regression analysis 29

4.5.1 Correlation test 29

4.5.2 Hypothesis test 30

Chapter V: Conclusions 34

5.1 Conclusion and Implication 34

5.1.1 Conclusion 34

5.1.2 Implication 35

5.2 Limitation 35

5.3 Suggestion for future research 36

References 38

APPENDIX: ENGLISH VERSION OF QUESTIONAIRE 45

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 Research Process of this Study 4Figure 2 Research Framework 13Figure 3 The mediation of tourist satisfaction on the relationship between tourism service

quality and tourist loyalty 32

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 The Items of Socio-Domographic Data Of The Tourists 17

Table 2 The Items Tourism Service Quality 19

Table 3 The Items Tourist Satisfaction 20

Table 4 The Items Tourists Loyalty 22

Table 5 Characteristics of respondents 25

Table 6 Reliability of Tourism service quality 26

Table 7 Reliability of Tourist satisfaction 27

Table 8 Reliability of Tourist loyalty 28

Table 9 Correlation Matrix 29

Table 10 Regression results on tourism service quality and tourist satisfaction 30

Table 11 Regression results on tourism service quality and tourist loyalty 30

Table 12 Regression results on tourist satisfaction and tourist loyalty 31

Table 13 Multiple regression results of tourism service quality, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty 32

Chapter I: Introduction

1.1 Background and Motivation

Vietnam is situated to the east of the Indo-Chinese peninsula Its long narrow territory stretches 1700 km from north to south and in the center a mere 50

km from east to west Vietnam has common borders with Cambodia in the west, Laos and China in the north Typified by very hilly terrain, the country covers an area of some 327 500 km2 Its varied land- scape ranges from forests and mountain areas (three-quarters of the land surface) to rivers, delta areas, and beaches The coastline, which extends for 3260 kin, has fine beaches and archipelagos, stretching from the Tonkin Gulf to the Gulf of Thailand Vietnam's landscape represents in many respects, a basic resource for the development of tourism products The hotel industry of Vietnam is expanding rapidly with increasing international arrivals and domestic tourists Vietnam’s economy has been transferred from Communism to Capitalism Vietnam has opened more markets to foreign countries Open market policy of Vietnam brought the investment of foreign companies to Vietnam and contributed to the development of the hotel industry in Vietnam

Despite economic challenges, global tourism grew by 4% year-on-year (YoY) in 2012, reaching 1.035 billion for the first time according to the World Tourism Organization, while the Asia Pacific region, with 233 million international arrivals, recorded the strongest growth of 7% YoY Accordingly, international visitors to Viet Nam in 2012 increased by 14% YoY, with approximately 7 million arrivals or 3% of the total for the entire region International visitors arriving in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) in 2012 reached 3.8 million, or 55% of Viet Nam’s total, while Ha Noi’s visitors accounted for 30%, Da Nang for 9% and Nha Trang for 7% Although the GDP growth rate in Viet Nam has fluctuated from 5% to 7% over the last five years, the total number of domestic visitors has increasedover the last five

years, the total number of domestic visitors has increased continuously, with an average annual growth of 12%, from 21 million arrivals in 2008 to 33 million in

2012 Viet Nam’s tourism turnover totaled VND160,000 billion (US$7.7 million) in

2012, an increase of 23% YoY

The importance of tourism is highlighted through its role via revenue and foreign exchange, a preserver of cultures and historical heritage, a promoter of national development and a vital and crucial factor of employment opportunities Where tourism is concerned, hotels are the first concern of all tourists In Vietnam tourism is ever growing and customers are becoming more demanding (Alrousan, 2010) They demand for better services This is because Hotel service quality has been attracting the attention of customers and stakeholders in the face of global warming and increasing awareness towards the importance of protecting the global environment The link between service actions and service quality has verified its importance in marketing (Heskett & Sasser, 2010; Hutchinson, Lai & Wang, 2009)

In the past decades, the notions of service quality and service satisfaction have been greatly regarded and broadly used in marketing texts and activities The benefits of satisfaction and quality have been admired by marketing researchers, who have viewed them as indices of an organization competitive benefit (Ruyter, 1997) Service loyalty, on the other hand, is one significant structure in service marketing, whose significance stems from its last effect on customers’ repeated purchases In fact, those loyal customers who purchase frequently are considered the starting point of any business (Caruana, 2002) Even though these concepts have been used

in the marketing literature, but the link between these three concepts still remain unclear Therefore, this research intends to study the relation of these three concepts

1.2 Purpose

The following important questions would be solved:

(1) What are the critical factors that influence the tourism in Vietnam?

(2) How do these factors affect to hotel manager (positive or negative)?

According to the research background and motivation of this study, the objectives of this research are as follows:

The study tests the relationship among service quality, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty

Assistance to hotel managers in further improving their hotels

Explore the appropriate methods for help hotel managers develop strategies that enable them to remain competitive in the hotel industry

1.3 Scope Of Research

The present study will be carried out in different branches of the five stars hotel chain located at Ho Chi Minh city in Vietnam The population of this study comprised tourists who stayed in all five stars hotel at Ho Chi Minh city in Vietnam

I design the pre-test questionnaires manually to make sure that questionnaire has reasonable reliability and validity After all the testee finish their questionnaires,

I will ask them whether the content of the questionnaire is clear enough or not I will distribute 300 questionnaires, and then we will run the program SPSS to examine the questionnaire

1.4 Research Process

The process of this study is that we identify the motivation and objectives

of this study at first, then we start to accumulate the literatures from domestic or foreign countries, establish research framework and draw up the research methods After these actions, we design the questionnaires, collect the data of the

investigation, analyze the data, and then address the conclusion and recommendation of this study according to the result of the analysis

Each of stages in our research process is described below:

Identify research background - motivation and purpose

Collect domestic and foreign literatures

Establish the research framework

Develop the research hypothesis

Design Questionnaires Determine statistical analysis method

Pre-test the questionnaires

Collect questionnaires and analyze data

Identify research implications

Draw up conclusions and recommendations

Chapter II: Literature Review

2.1 Tourism Service Quality in the Hotel Industry

According to the Viet Nam National Administration of Tourism, there are currently 13,500 tourist accommodation premises with 285,000 rooms – including

57 five- star, 147 four-star and 335 three-star hotels – in Viet Nam Ha Noi, Ho Chi Minh city, Da Nang and Nha Trang have the largest volume of three- to five-star hotels in the country, totalling 227 with 28,500 rooms HCMC has the largest supplyof three- to five-star hotels (89), providing approximately 12,000 rooms, 150% more than in Ha Noi, 250% more than Nha Trang and 300% more than Da Nang As HCMC and Ha Noi are the key political and economic cities in Viet Nam,

as well as tourism and transit hubs thanks to cultural and historical sites, their market share offive-star rooms is the largest across the three grades, at 40% and 50% respectively.Three-star rooms dominate Nha Trang and Da Nang with a 56% and 50% market share of total three- to five-star rooms respectively These two cities are key economic areas and well-known beach destinations for both local and international visitors

Services are one of the variable in customer loyalty studies because of the consistent and high standards of service that provided by the hotel Customers are also assured of the hotel being familiar with the specific of their needs The hotel will also offer substantial discounts according to the need of the customers The delivery of service as promised was identified as the factor, which is the most

important in developing loyalty to a hotel (Weber, 2001) Due to the dynamic

changes of customer preference at all the time, research into customer satisfaction in the service industry has increased dramatically in recent years (Peterson & Wilson, 1992) The increase has been aggravated by the increasing growth of the service industries (Danaher & Haddrell, 1996) According to Kivela (1996) customers are

likely to view the services as bundle of attributes which may differ in their contributions from the service evaluations and choice With a very good service offer to customers, it may establish loyalty (Cronin and Taylor, 1992), resulting in repeat purchases (Fornell, 1992), and favorable word-of–mouth advertising

(Halstead & Page, 1992) Teas (1994) states that there are five dimensions of hotel

service quality: Tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy Tangibility means the physical facilities, equipment, appearance of employees, and other customers Reliability involves the consistency of performance and dependability which means the hotel performs the service correctly for the first time and honours its promise to customers While responsiveness concerns the willingness or readiness of employees to provide services Assurance defined as knowledge, courtesy of employers and their ability to convey trust and confidence Empathy means offering caring and individual attention to customers provided by the staff

Providing a high-quality service has become an increasingly important issue to hotel service providers An excellent quality of service that offered by a hotel can achieve competitive advantage, differentiate itself from competitors, increase customer loyalty, enhance corporate image, increase business performance, retain existing customers, as well as attract new customers (Watson et al., 1992) According to Tat and Raymond (2000), which says that “Staff Service Quality”,

“Room Qualities” and “Value” were the three most influential factors in determining travellers’ overall satisfaction levels and their likelihood of returning to the same hotel Staff service quality has been identified as the most influential component in determining customers’ overall satisfaction levels and their likelihood

of returning Various research studies show that quality of service is considered being one of the top priorities in evaluating service quality (Oberoi & Hales, 1990) Cronin and Taylor (1992) suggest that service quality is likely to have a significant

effect on purchase intention, but they also reported that customer satisfaction has a stronger and more consistent causal relationship with purchase intention than service quality Another unique aspect of service is the importance of face-to-face contact with customers (James, 2006) A successful hotel will recruit employees who display flexible personalities and willingness to do what it takes to satisfy the customers The hotel’s training and socialization processes should encourage employees to care emotionally about their customers

Even though SERVQUAL (Parasuraman et al., 1985; 1988) has been established for more than 10 years, it is puzzling that tourists satisfaction research and service quality measurement research in the hotel industry are still lacking both

in depth and width (Tsang & Qu, 2000; Akababa, 2006; Wilkins, Merrilees & Herington, 2007) Getty and Thompson (1994) developed a specific application for quality research in the hotel industry, named LODGQUAL as a derivative of SERVQUAL and they used similar dimensions in their study It focused on 45percent of overall quality using a sample of hospitality students and the authors are confident that their findings could be used as a benchmark for measuring hotel performance

Tsang and Qu (2000) evaluated service quality in China from tourist and hotel manager’s perspective They employed a modified version of the SERVQUAL model and they consistently identified the underperformance of hotels (except for one out of 35 questions), with the most significant aspects relating to cleanliness, room quality, staff performance, and prices Two extremes were noted where the hotel managers consistently overestimated the tourists' expectations but generally underestimated the tourists' perception of service quality

In summary, the limited amount of literature on service quality in the hotel industry hinders the development ofmany generalizations (Briggs, Sutherland & Drummond, 2007; Tsaur & Lin, 2004; Hudson, Hudson & Miller, 2004) With

regard to service quality, three studies that utilized some derivations of SERVQUAL were identified In their study, Saleh and Ryan (1991) maintained that the SERVQUAL dimensions did not apply to the hotel industry Consequently, Getty (1994) proposed an amended version of SERVQUAL, called LODGQUAL, and alternately Tsang and Qu (2000) applied SERVQUAL but avoided any comment on the use of the measure, and instead believed that "the study attempted neither to test existing theory nor to develop new research instruments" (Tsang &

Qu, 2000 pg 323) Other studies on service quality in the hotel industry compared business travelers in two locations, but only focused on a small number of respondents (Callan & Kyndt, 2001), and mature travelers (Callan & Bowman, 2000) Therefore, the lack of previous research on service quality in hotels, even when combined with the work on customer satisfaction, results in many aspects of hotel performance being left behind, unanswered

2.2 Tourists Loyalty in the Hotel Industry

Loyalty represents one dimension of behavioral intentions (Zeithaml et al., 1996) It shows the customer’s willingness to pay more for a firm’s services The higher level of loyalty means the customer will unlikely to change or switch to other hotels that is available For a customer, on the other end, loyalty to one organization reduces the risk of service variability, allows for the development of a social rapport with the provider, and the customization of services to his/her specification (Berry, 1995).The study of customer loyalty towards hotel industry is increasingly interesting among many researchers It had become a competitive marketplace for this leisure industry where the customers enjoy unprecedented alternatives In order

to remain as the best option of hotel to their potential customers, different efforts had been taken by hotels to preserve customer’s loyalty Understanding the customer preferences in choosing a hotel could determine the customer loyalty in

the hotel industry It is known that hotelier’s main responsibilities are to deliver their quality services to customers (Su, 2004) as this industry is a highly competitive and being able to deliver quality services determines success in this industry

Typically, customers choose hotel based on their own primary instinct and satisfaction These factors are causing occurrence of varieties of preferences within hotel customers Since the hotel industry is highly competitive in nature, while there

is a lack of substantive differentiation within any hotel quality grading, it is imperative that the issue of consumer loyalty is significant More recently, in the broader marketing arena, the issues associated with consumer loyalty in a hospitality context have received an increased attention and focus both by related researchers and industry players bent on capturing a bigger slice of the industry Despite the increased attention, specifically research on loyalty within a service context is still comparatively low (Javalgi & Moberg, 1997; Kandompully & Suhartanto, 2003; Chen McCain, Jang & Hu, 2005), and the number of specific research on consumer choice and loyalty in the hospitality context are equally lacking in number and depths (Slattery, 2003).Many researchers often assumed that loyalty is inferred from assessments of the factors consumers rated as important in selection As such, it is implied that the main factor encouraging customer loyalty depends on resourcing those attributes that influences customers’ choices (Slattery, 2003) However, despite the limited number of research in the area of customer loyalty (Kandompully & Suhartanto, 2003), the importance of loyalty (Bowen & Chen, 2001; Tepeci, 1999) An analysis of current hospitality research undertaken has shown inconsistencies in the focus and findings, with some researchers discovering no significant relationship between service quality and repurchase intentions (Cronin & Taylor, 1992; Skogland & Siguaw, 2004) In contrast, Boulding, Kaira, Staelin and Zeitham (1993) found a significant relationship

between service qualities and repurchase intentions Another research has indicated

a threshold relationship with very high levels of satisfaction having a substantial impact on the levels of loyalty (Bowen & Chen, 2001) This is with implications about the need for customers to enjoy the service provided so as to generate loyalty (Finn, 2005).Of the existing studies in the hotel industry which looked at customer satisfaction, only a limited number have extended beyond this and studied the impact on loyalty Of these, three studies were carried out in the United States and one in New Zealand The findings of all three studies showed some substantial difference in results In one of the studies conducted in the United States the findings included the importance of the quality of on-site services, personnel, guest room design and amenities (Dube & Renaghan, 1999a), room upgrades, flexible check in-out and customized services (Bowen & Shoemaker, 1998) In the other study, Barsky and Nash (2002) found distinct groups of affective emotions influencing loyalty Alternatively, the New Zealand study discovered that the factors influencing loyalty included hotel image and customer satisfaction with reception, housekeeping, food and beverage and price but only housekeeping showed significance Other researchers opined that housekeeping and hotel image were the most important factors in determining loyalty (Kandampully & Suhartanto, 2000) In addition, the use of loyalty schemes has also prompted other researchers

to suggest hotels generate spurious rather than true loyalty (Baloglu, 2002; Javalgi

& Moberg, 1997)

2.3 Tourist Satisfaction in the Hotel Industry

To obtain loyalty and to outweigh other competitors, hotel providers must

be able to obtain high levels of customer satisfaction for the service supplied There are several studies analyze the needs and the desires of tourists A research by Wuest et al (1996) defined the perception of hotel attributes as the degree to which

guests may find various services and facilities critical for their stay in a hotel Hotel's attributes such as cleanliness, price, location, security, personal service, and physical attractiveness, opportunities for relaxation, standard of services, appealing image, and reputation are recognized as decisive by travelers to assess the quality of the hote Studies pertaining to customer satisfaction in hotels (Barsky & Labagh, 1992; Choi & Chu, 2000; Gunderson, Heide & Olsson, 1996) show much variety in their focus and findings Two studies from the United States, one Norwegian and another from Hong Kong showed much variance in their results The Norwegian study initiated by Gunderson et al (1996) reported that both the intangible elements

of reception and food and beverage, and the tangible aspect of housekeeping were significant, explaining eighty percent of the variance in satisfaction They also discovered that the combined model of tangible and intangible aspects provided less clarity, as there was an overlap between the non-significance of the tangible elements of food and beverage and reception, and the intangible aspects of housekeeping (Luck & Lancaster, 2003) Weber (1996) has proposed consumer satisfaction as a fundamental pillar of marketing theory and as a key influence over future purchase intentions, market share, and word- of-mouth (WOM) communication She argues that product competitiveness is strengthened when consumers are satisfied Based on these perspectives, tourist expectations and experiences may be expected to influence satisfaction or dissatisfaction Given that satisfaction is a multifaceted concept, it is important to undertake an evaluation that takes account of the multiple dimensions of the holiday encounter, including products, services, and facilities

In a US based study, Barsky and Labagh (1992) concluded that employee attitude was the most important contributor of customer satisfaction, followed by locations, room, price, facilities, reception, services, parking and food and beverage The study based on a survey of restaurant and hotel managers pertaining to the

causes of compliments and complaints On the other hand, price, speed, and quality

of service, parking and poor employee knowledge resulted in negative feedbacks (Lewis & McCann 2004) In Hong-Kong, Choi and Chu (2000) and Torres and Kline (2006) researched on a comparison of the satisfaction levels between Asian and Western travelers Using a regression analysis of Asian and Western travelers’ overall satisfaction, they discovered that in terms of customer satisfaction, Asian travelers placed the most importance on value as compared to Western travelers

who considered room quality as the most important criteria for their satisfaction

Overall, the numbers of researches, which have addressed customer satisfaction in the hotel industry in isolation, are rather limited (Choi & Chu 2001) There are existing researches which have incorporated different research approaches and, although there some elements of similarity in the findings Akababa (2006) found in the hotel in turkey, the substantive differences between the approaches used would reduce the possibility of similarity

Chapter III: Research Methodology

3.1 Research Framework

According to the discussion and variables of Chapter 2, I extend previous

research and establish our own research framework in Error! Reference source

ot found This research is based on several variables from previous researches:

tourist satisfaction, tourist loyalty, tourism service quality

Figure 2 Research Framework

3.2 Research Hypothesis

3.2.1 Relationship among Service Quality and Tourist Satisfaction

Several studies illustrated a positive relation between service quality and customer satisfaction The findings of previous studies have shown that service quality often leads to customer satisfaction (Bitner & Hubert, 1994; Fornel et al., 1996; Sivadas & Bakereprewit, 2000; Zenithal, Berry, & Parasuraman, 1996; Mentzer, Flint, & Hunt, 2001) Oliver (1997) claims that when tourists experience service attributes of high quality, they are likely to experience higher levels of satisfaction with the service On the other hand, if a customer was to experience any service quality which is lower than expected, then the satisfaction level will drop

Tourism

Service Quality

Tourists Satisfaction

Tourists Loyalty

H3

Therefore, this hypothesis proposed that and increase or decrease in service quality would increase or decrease customer satisfaction in tandem with the changes

In the case of the chain of five stars hotels in Vietnam, international tourist often demand or request for high levels of service quality This suggests that when excellent service quality is provided, the involved international hotel guests will surely be satisfied That is, once their desires and needs for high level service quality are met, then it may lead to customer satisfaction Thus, the first hypothesis reads as:

Hypothesis 1: There is a positive relationship between service quality provided by five stars Hotels chains in Vietnam and its tourist’s satisfaction

3.2.2 Relationship among Tourists Satisfaction and Tourists Loyalty

It has been argued that a positive service encounter would lead to the building of customer service relationship A series of positive encounters will definitely improve customer satisfaction, trust and relation commitment (Morgan & Hunt, 1994) In practice, satisfaction is an outcome of a purchase or a consumption

of a service As such, satisfaction is expected to influence loyalty at an increasing rate However, some opposing studies suggested that the relationship between satisfaction and loyalty is non-linear (Oliva, Oliver, & MacMillan, 1992) and consequently satisfaction does not ensure customer loyalty (Jones & Sasser, 1995) Therefore, this research tests whether there is a positive relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty

When the international guests at the five stars hotel in Vietnam have any needs, they usually forward their request to the front desk Here, the responsibility

of the officers at the front desk is very crucial as the type of service encounter by the international guests will have a bearing on their satisfaction By ensuring that the international guests experience a series of positive encounters, the guests will

trust the hotel and this leads to an increase in the satisfaction As their satisfaction is enhanced, the result will be a high level of customer loyalty Therefore, the first hypothesis is as follows

Hypothesis 2: There is a positive relationship between Tourists satisfaction

of guests at the five stars hotel in Vietnam and their loyalty to the hotel

3.2.3 Relationship among Tourism Service Quality and Tourists Loyalty

In the tourism sector, service quality has two aspects (Maltz & Maltz, 1998)

in the form of vital service quality and responsiveness The first is vital service quality, and it involves cycle time, on-time delivery, and inventory availability The second aspect is responsiveness, which is how an individual customer’s needs are solved beyond traditional service measure (Davis & Mandrodt, 1996) Service quality measures the extent to which delivered services match customers’ expectations Delivery service quality refers to meeting and satisfying customers’ expectation every time and completely Thus, this study examines whether a positive relationship between service quality and tourists loyalty exists or not

Normally the international guests expect a high level of service quality Here, the managers at five stars hotels in Vietnam and hoteliers must remember that what the guests seek for might also be offered by other adjacent hotels As such, by being aware of the competition, the hotel concerned must ensure that the service quality is not only the best at all times but also must be consistently provided for all its guests As a result from this best service quality guarantee, the international guests are likely to become loyal customers

Consequently, this leads to the second hypothesis as illustrated below

Hypothesis 3: There is a positive relationship between Tourism Service Quality provided by five stars Hotels chains in Vietnam and its Tourists Loyalty

3.2.4 Relationship among Customer Satisfaction, Tourism Service Quality and Tourists Loyalty

The literature discussed above has confirmed that service quality strongly influence customer loyalty by providing and maintaining customer satisfaction (Caruana, 2002; Fornell, Johnson, Anderson, Cha, & Bryant, 1996) On the contrary, some researches were of the opinion that perceived service quality can pose a direct impact on behavioral outcomes in the absence of the satisfaction factor (Zethaml, 1998) Oliver (1997) disagreed with this satisfaction absence theory and instead suggested that satisfaction is “potentially all salient dimensions” and found that quality is the antecedent of satisfaction instead A study done by Andreas and Wolfgang (2002) supported the idea posited by Oliver (1997) as they found that perceived value is a complement and not a substitute of satisfaction They even claimed that customer satisfaction could strongly predict customer loyalty since customer satisfaction is ultimately measured against how far the perceived value is provided or offered to them Hence, this study proposed that the relationship of tourism service quality is mediated by satisfaction

With regard to international guests staying at the Marriott hotels in Jordan,

it is evident that customer satisfaction is influenced by service quality In the views of the international guests, they would prefer to continue using or to repeat the use of the same hotel’s services when they are satisfied with the service quality offered or delivered by the hotel This notion of delivering the perceived value is a true measure of the satisfaction which ultimately leads to customer loyalty Hence, the fourth and last hypothesis is:

Hypothesis 4: Satisfaction among five stars Hotels chains in Vietnam Mediates the Effect of Tourism Service Quality on Tourists Loyalty

3.3 Measurements and Scale

In my research, I consider three variables in our model These variables are: tourist satisfaction, tourist loyalty, tourism service quality

In this study, a self-administered questionnaire, which is an adapted version

of SERVQUAL scale, was used to measure TSQ of the hotel guests The questionnaire consisted of four parts The first part contained questions about socio-demographic data of the respondents The second part was designed to measure the respondents’ perceptions about the quality of services offered by the hotels Based

on questionnaire instruments developed in previous studies, 21 service quality items were developed The third part of the questionnaire focused on assessing the respondents’ perceptions regarding satisfaction on the same five-point scale, where seven tourists’ satisfaction items were developed The final part of the questionnaire assessed the tourist’s perceptions regarding their loyalty The instrument of measurement was introduced in a way that the topic of the study and procedures of response were briefly illustrated

The measurement grades were used according to the five-point Likert scale (Malhotra, 2003) The grades were ordered regressively as follows: strongly agree (5), agree (4), neutral (3), disagree (2) and strongly disagree (1)

3.3.1 Socio-Demographic Data Of The Tourists

Table 1 The Items of Socio-Domographic Data Of The Tourists

3 31-40 years

4 41-50 years

5 51-60 years

6 Over 60 years

2 Senior high school

3.3.2 Tourism Service Quality

In my study, I adopt the structures of tourism service quality by Tsang and

Qu (2000) relating to guest services/Operator, room quality and prices

Table 2 The Items Tourism Service Quality

6 Restaurant and bar

7 Food quality and presentation

8 Bar menu choice

3.3.3 Tourist Satisfaction

In this study, I adopt the structures of tourist satisfaction by Gunderson et

al (1996) and Barsky and Labagh (1992) relating to employee attitude, locations,

room, price, facilities, reception, services

Table 3 The Items Tourist Satisfaction

your stay?

3 How did you feel the service

attitude of

employee ?

Locations 1 Hotel location convenient for you

2 Hotel location makes you comfortable

Price 1 Are you satisfied with the hotel’s room

Services 1 Menu restaurant and Bar

2 The hotel's services are diverse

3.3.4 Tourist Loyalty

Of the existing studies in the hotel industry which looked at customer satisfaction, only a limited number have extended beyond this and studied the impact on loyalty Of these, three studies were carried out in the United States and one in New Zealand The findings of all three studies showed some substantial difference in results In one of the studies conducted in the United States the findings included the importance of the quality of on-site services, personnel, guest room design and amenities (Dube & Renaghan, 1999a), room upgrades, flexible check in-out and customized services (Bowen & Shoemaker, 1998) In the other study, Barsky and Nash (2002) found distinct groups of affective emotions

influencing loyalty Alternatively, the New Zealand study discovered that the factors influencing loyalty included hotel image and customer satisfaction with reception, housekeeping, food and beverage and price but only housekeeping showed significance Other researchers opined that housekeeping and hotel image were the most important factors in determining loyalty (Kandampully & Suhartanto, 2000) In addition, the use of loyalty schemes has also prompted other researchers

to suggest hotels generate spurious rather than true loyalty (Baloglu, 2002; Javalgi

2 I feel the hotel staff very friendly

3 if have the chance to go back Vietnam, I

would still choose this hotel

The willingness to introducing 1 I will recommend this hotel to my Five stars hotel in Vietnam family and friends

to others 2 If someone asks for my advice, I will

recommend this hotel

3.4 Scope Of Research

The present study will be carried out in different branches of the five stars hotel chain located at Ho Chi Minh city in Vietnam The population of this study comprised tourists who stayed in all five stars hotel at Ho Chi Minh city in Vietnam

I design the pre-test questionnaires manually to make sure that questionnaire has reasonable reliability and validity After all the testee finish their questionnaires,

I will ask them whether the content of the questionnaire is clear enough or not I will distribute 300 questionnaires, and then we will run the program SPSS to examine the questionnaire