Quality Service Management in Tourism and Hospitality

This course aims to enable the students to recognize and assess quality management processes in
a hospitality and tourism related organization and to evaluate departmental processes and
planning strategies.

 Topics include concepts and terminologies of TQM: definition, common element and

terminology; vision and reality - bridging the gap; constructive and critical personal reflection:
proposed quality, self- assessment and peers’ assessment; seeking practical feedback
for supervisors and continuing improvement, developing a personal management philosophy and
personal development plan.

CHAPTER 1
Introduction to Total Quality Management in Hospitality and Tourism Industry
Total Quality Management (TQM) in general
TQM is the continual process of detecting and reducing or eliminating errors in manufacturing,
streamlining supply chain management, improving the customer experience, and ensuring that
employees are up to speed with training.
Introduction to Hospitality Industry
Most of people define Hospitality as restaurants and hotel 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.
There are some characteristics of Hospitality in most 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.
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.
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.
The Second Goal, making things work for the visitors and guests. Everything needs to be clean
and ready before the guests step foot on the place. The manager should ensure that the work is
done properly and maintained at all times.
The Third Goal, making sure the process continues to provide the best service and make a high
profit.
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 guests’ issues, and seeking to make stay more.
Different Components of Hospitality Industry
 Assembly and Event Management Conversation
 Recreation, Attractions, Gaming, Parks
 Lodging, Hotels, Resorts, Motels
 Restaurant and Managed Services
 Travel, Air, Eco-tourism, Coach, Rail
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 the guests get the necessary services and supplies required.
Job is another importance added to the hospitality. Wide jobs are created in the hospitality sector.
These numerous sectors are restaurants, fast food shops, hotels, take away shops, outdoor
catering, and many others.
Hospitality has contributed to the improvement of the tourism industry which includes travelling
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 with words and actions. The ability to reply to guests request
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. Better services
with high quality, more satisfied and happier the customer feels.
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.
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. Excellent hospitality makes
the resident feel comfortable and important.
Organization Structure in Hospitality Industry Firms
Organizational objectives require the organization to structure the human functions and physical
resources through breaking down the task 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, 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.
Introduction to Tourism Industry
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 residence and is not connected with any permanent or temporary earning activity.
Several Characteristics of tourism may be identified based on the analyzed definitions:
 Two main elements: Movement, which refers to the journey (travel) to and from a
destination (the dynamic element of tourism); and the Overnight stay outside the
permanent residence in various destinations (the static element of tourism);
 Movement to and from the destination is temporary (temporary change of residence),
short-term, with intention to return;
 Destination is visited for purposes other than taking up permanent residence or
employment;
 The activities tourists engage in during their journey, and the stay outside the normal
place or 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 product 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 cloths; 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 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.
Tourism is about activities and services. It is about selling, buying, managing, and marketing of
numerous activities and services, which range from renting hotel rooms, selling souvenirs, and
managing an airline, to marketing special events.
TQM in Hospitality and Tourism Industry
In the industry of hospitality, total quality management (TQM) 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 group 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 in hospitality organization in particular will improve customer satisfaction,
competition, condition and cost effectiveness as well.
People have diverse wants and needs in terms of preferences which make 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 organization enables the
organization to increase their market share and price advantage.