Abstract:
Ghana is said to have the distinctive peculiarity of delivering poor service and anecdotal evidence suggests that hotel customers, both domestic and international guests have in one way or the other experienced shortfalls in the quality of services offered. Guests have expressed varied needs and expectations during their stay but hotels have not responded adequately. This study examined the gap between guests’ expectations and perceptions of service quality and also the dimensions of service quality in hotels. The study further explored the perceptual interface between guests and service providers. The study gathered cross-sectional data using questionnaires from 172 hotel guests, 197 frontline employees and 125 management staff. Factor analysis was employed to extract the dimensions of service quality while the standard multiple regression was used to analyse the predictive dimensions of service quality. The findings of the study reveal that guests perceived service quality to be far below their expectations. The results also indicate that guests and service providers use different sets of factors to assess service quality. There were significant differences between guests and service providers’ expectations and perceptions of service quality. It is recommended that hotel managers should pay more attention to the tangible, empathy and the reliability aspects of service because customers have the highest expectations scores on these dimensions. Hotels must re-assess guests’ expectations from time to time in terms of products and services. Employee training programmes in hotels should pay particular attention to “interpersonal communication” and “customer care” factors.
