Are hotels serving quality? An exploratory study of service quality in the Scottish hotel sector

The importance of tourism to Scotland, the criticality of the hotel sector to its growth and the link between service quality and business profitability provide the rationale for this study. Although service quality in the hotel industry has been well researched, there is little comparative research across the Scottish hotel sector on service quality aspects. This study examines service quality across small, medium and large hotels in Scotland to establish management and customers’ current perceptions of service quality performance. Empirical findings indicate service is being lost by the focus of the Scottish QA scheme on tangibles and there are major inconsistencies in service quality performance across the sector. The implications of the findings and avenues for future research are delineated in the study.