QUALITY SERVICE MANAGEMENT
UNIT 1. INTRODUCTION TO TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN HOSPITALITY AND TOURISM
INDUSTRY
INTRODUCTION
Companies' ability to sustain its competitive lead is vital for the stability of the business in
today's highly competitive market, and quality is one of the important factors for keeping the
company in a competitive advantage. It is the extent of how well a service provider can meet or
exceed its customers' needs and expectations.
In the free-market competition tends to be high to achieve customer satisfaction which is very
important because of the following reasons:
The offered products or services are similar if not identical;
Prices are not easy to change; and
the cost to change to another service is measured as low;
Due to the above; we can say that Quality Management and continuous improvement are closely
associated concepts, so customer satisfaction and recalling loyalty are very important to any
hospitality organization because of the strong market competition within this industry.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
At the end of this chapter, the student must be able to:
1. Define and explain what Total Quality Management (TOM) is;
2. Define hospitality and tourism;
3. Understand the different components of Hospitality Industry;
4. Describe the Organization Structure in Hospitality Industry Firms; and
5. Identify the several characteristics of tourism.
DISCUSSION PROPER/TEACHING ACTIVITIES
Total Quality Management (TQM) in general
Total quality management (TQM) is the continual process of detecting and reducing or
eliminating errors in manufacturing, streamlining supply management, Improving the customer
experience, and ensuring that employees are up to speed with training. Total quality management
aims to hold all parties involved in the production process accountable for the overall quality of the
final product or service.
Principles of Total Quality Management
TQM was developed by William Deming, a management consultant whose work had a great
impact on Japanese manufacturing. While TOM shares much in common with the Six Sigma
improvement process, it is not the same as Six Sigma. TOM focuses on ensuring that internal
guidelines and process standards reduce errors, while Six Sigma looks to reduce defects.
• Total quality management (TOM) is an ongoing process of detecting and reducing or
eliminating errors.
• It is used to manufacture to streamline supply chain management, improve customer service,
and ensure that employees are trained.
• The focus is to improve the quality of an organization's outputs, including goods and
services, through continual improvement of internal practices.
• Total quality management aims to hold all parties involved in the production process
accountable for the overall quality of the final product or service.
Introduction to Hospitality Industry
Most of people define hospitality as restaurants and hotels services which are honestly a
narrow definition of Hospitality. It doesn't only mean the provided services, but it goes far beyond
this. Hospitality means the reception and entertainment of visitors, guests, or even strangers with
liberality and good will.
Hospitality business is either profits making such as commercial hotels, or nonprofit making
as cafeterias, and canteens.
There are some characteristics of Hospitality in most of Hospitality places like working hours.
It is open 24 hours a day. Also, those who are at senior level work 10 - 12 hours per day including
evenings and weekends. This makes us aware that we are enjoying while others are working and
serving us. Furthermore, Hospitality is considered as the largest and fastest growing industry. The
whole effort of Hospitality concentrates on service, and guest satisfaction. And the product of
Hospitality is perishable and intangible. Not everyone is able to work in the hospitality sector. Work
in this sector can entail lots of guest communication and interaction, long hours, the ability to
think, make a decision and solve a problem very quickly.
Actually, Hospitality has experienced a huge growth in recent years. And the numbers of
goals that the Hospitality Managers seek to achieve became widely different goals. But basically, a
successful manager in the hospitality sector should exhibit different skills and specialized
knowledge all directed toward accomplishing these managerial goals. The First goal and the most
important one is making the guests and visitors feel really welcome. This requires both a friendly
manner toward the guests and an atmosphere of good will among the people who are with you in
the same workplace. As we know this often translates in which workers get along well with each
other, so all this will lead to the satisfaction of both guests and workers. Secondly, making things
work for the visitors and guests. Everything needs to be ready and clean before the guests' step foot
on the place. A hospitality system requires much efforts and the manager should ensure that the
work is done properly and maintained at all times. Thirdly, making sure the process continues to
provide the best service and make a high profit. The key and the best way to achieve this lies in
achieving a controlled profitable operation. Simply stated, these objectives direct the managers to be
able to relate success fully and strongly to employees and guests, direct the work in an effective
way, and achieve operating.
objectives within a budget. The activities which a manager needs to perform are many such
as scheduling, taking Inventory, social interaction, solving guest issues, and seeking to make the
stay more. There are many trends which affecting the Future of the Hospitality such as
globalization, increasing competition changes in management and marketing made possible by
technology, emphasis on service, and many others. Hospitality Industry has different components
as following:
Figure 1.1 Different components of Hospitality Industry (Tim Smet, 2003)
Hospitality is very important in today's economy. The economy of any country is affected by
the food served in both eating establishments of the country and homes. It is the main
responsibility of the hospitality sector to serve food for people of different cultures and ages, at all
times, and in every situation. Hospitality management should not only identify the people's needs,
but should also make sure that guests get the necessary services and supplies required.
Job is another importance added to the hospitality. Wide jobs are created in the hospitality
sector. There are different and many places that create the hospitality industry. These numerous
sectors are restaurants, Fast food shops, hotels, take away shops, outdoor catering, and many
others. These various places provide many job opportunities in the areas of administrative staff,
security personnel, managers, maintenance staff etc. And this of course will develop the overall
economy.
Moreover, Hospitality has contributed to the improvement of the tourism industry which
includes traveling and staying in hotels and other hospitality outfits, because it works as a driving
force by providing drinks, foods and sleeping accommodation to both foreigners and residents.
Hospitality makes people strongly feel they belong. It makes people feel valuable, special, and
warmly welcomed. Hospitality workers deal with strangers like they are from their families, and
communicate through well words and actions. The ability to reply to guest requests Immediately is
important to maintain a great level of hospitality.
Hospitality directly affects a customer satisfaction and so will affect a business. A customer
usually doesn't frequent a hotel which gives poor and slow services. A good hotel management can
also affect a country's image as it tells the quality of a service of a country. It can also improve
tourism. So, we can see that Hospitality affects the levels of customer satisfaction. Better services
with high quality, more satisfied and happier the customer feels.
An excellent hospitality management can also reflect a country's image because it tells the
quality and value of a service in a country. Hospitality introduces wide business and services,
because this sector includes cooperative relationships with different organizations. For example,
hotels are allied with car rental agencies, airlines, other hotels, restaurants, and suppliers. In order
that, every country needs to share globally best programs and practices for training and retention,
and make Hospitality industry sponsored more readily available educational programs to employees
at different organizational levels to raise awareness and knowledge.
In addition, Hospitality enables effective communication. It is like a tool that allows
communication with people of different ages all over the world. Hospitality needs employees who
have excellent organizational skills, interpersonal skills, and communication skills. Hospitality
plays a big role in encouraging resident satisfaction. Excellent hospitality makes the resident feel
comfortable and important. Hospitality employees try to ask their guests questions in order to
understand them and make suggestions.
Organization Structure in Hospitality Industry Firms
This section will describe the optimal way of structuring Hospitality industry firm and in
specific Hotels. Organizational objectives require the organization to structure the human functions
and physical resources through breaking down the tasks into roles; each role has to be placed
under a specific department, and each department has to have identified roles. This way will ease
achieving the organizational objectives.
A good practice in structuring hotels is classifying the department in accordance to its
contact with customers in this case is the guest is the customer), so will end with two main
categories; front departments and back departments, where front departments perform the
activities with direct contact to the guest, and back departments perform other supporting tasks.
In the figures shown below (Figure 1.2) and (Figure 1.3) we can see a typical structure of both
limited and full services hotel types, while the number of employees of 500 is the boundary line
between the two types.
Figure 1.3 Structure of Full-service Hotel (A. Stutts, J. Wortman, 2006)
Introduction to Tourism Industry
Tourism has a number of different definitions. It is very difficult to pinpoint a definition that
would give a meaningful and adequate explanation of tourism, because the concept is fragmented,
wide-ranging, and multidimensional. Historically, the concept of tourism was first developed in the
period between the two world wars. Tourism was defined as a sum of relations and phenomena
resulting from the travel and stay of non-residents, in so far as [travel] does not lead to permanent
residence and is not connected with any permanent or temporary earning activity. Since 1942, the
concept of tourism has been broadened by including various forms of business and pleasure travel.
Several characteristics of tourism may be identified based on the analyzed definitions:
1. Two main elements: (a) movement, which refers to the journey (travel) to and from a
destination (the dynamic element of tourism); and (b) the overnight stay outside the permanent
residence in various destinations (the static element of tourism);
2. Movement to and from the destination is temporary (temporary change of residence),
short-term, with intention to return;
3. Destinations are visited for purposes other than taking up permanent residence or
employment;
4. The activities tourists engage in during their journey, and the stay outside the normal
place of residence and work, are distinct from those of the local residents and working
populations of the places visited.
Tourism is the most wide-ranging industry, in the sense that it demands products from
many sectors of the economy and employs millions of people in different sectors. For example,
airplanes and buses must be manufactured to transport tourists; computers must be produced to
make hotel booking and airline reservations; steel, concrete, and glass are needed to build hotels
and restaurants; fabrics are needed to make clothes; meat, wheat, and vegetables must be grown to
feed visitors. No other industry has so many linkages and interactions with so many sectors of the
economy, and delivers so many different kinds of products and services to its consumers.
Tourism is multidimensional. Mcintosh, Goeldner, and Ritchie (1995) noted that tourism
embraces virtually all aspects of human life and society. Tourism is a major economic activity of the
travel, lodging, retail, entertainment subsector, and many other subsectors that supply tourist
needs. It is a major sociocultural activity that provides different tourist markets with cultural
experiences. Tourism involves production, marketing, and consumption of numerous products such
as car rentals, hotel rooms, meals, etc. It requires researching, planning, managing, and controlling
tourist enterprises. It is about the location of tourist areas, their physical planning, and changes
that tourism development brings to the landscape and community. The Industry depends on
various intermediaries and organizations that perform tourism activities. Tourism also involves a
historical analysis of tourism activities and various institutions.
It is difficult to apply the concept of an industry to tourism in view of the special nature and
complexity of the potential contributors to the tourism product. Tourism is about activities and
services. It is about the buying, selling, managing, and marketing of numerous activities and
services, which range from renting hotel rooms, selling souvenirs, and managing an airline, to
marketing special events. However, since these activities and services represent the supply in the
market (tourists constitute the demand) and are part of the economy, they might be described as
the tourism "industry."
TQM in Hospitality & Tourism Industry
In the industry of hospitality, total quality management (TOM) is a sharing process that
authorizes employees in different levels to work in groups in order to start guest service prospects
and determine the most suitable approach to meet or exceed these prospects. And in order to have
those groups formed an organization needs to employ a leader who creates the required motivation
to incorporate guests and employees in the process of setting goals and objectives. Implementing
TQM inhospitality organizations in particular will improve customer satisfaction, competition
condition and cost effectiveness as well.
People have diverse wants and needs in term of preferences which makes it tougher to
control quality in hospitality organizations. Quality problems in hospitality firms are having direct
impact instantly on the organization operation via customer complaints. In order to end up with a
successful TQM implementation in hospitality firms, they have to incorporate the quality
management within the whole business strategy and to direct the goals toward quality within the
organization among all levels. Implementing quality in general in any hospitality organization
enables the organization to increase their market share and price advantage.
