International Journal of Human and Social Sciences 5:13 2010

Customer Loyalty and the Impacts of

Service Quality:
The Case of Five Star Hotels in Jordan
Al-Rousan, M. Ramzi, Badaruddin Mohamed
United Nations World Tourism Organization [4]. The above
statistics have illustrated that the tourism industry has joined
the ranks of agriculture and mining in terms of industry size.
Together with customers loyalty, quality is an equally
important factor and may lead to the success of the tourism
business. Kandampully [5] has emphasized that quality will
steer tourism firms to successfully encounter the competitive
challenges of the future.
For Parasuraman et al. [6], service quality is both the
significant differentiator and the most aggressive weapon
possessed by many leading service organization. It has been
discovered that leading service organizations endeavor to
sustain a superior quality of service over their competitors in an
effort to acquire and retain customer loyalty [7]. This is based
on the concept where the service organizations ability to
expand and maintain a large and loyal customer base is
essential for their long term success in a market. In the face of
such critical importance of customer loyalty being vital for
business survival [8], it is rather strange that the relationships
between service quality and customer loyalty are not equally
well-developed [9]; [10].
This paper is a part of an extensive study conducted on
tourism service quality focusing on the importance of the
relationship between tourism service quality dimensions and
customer loyalty at five star hotels in Jordan.

AbstractIn the present Jordan hotels scenario, service quality is

a vital competitive policy to keep customer support and build great
base. Hotels are trying to win customer loyalty by providing enhanced
quality services. This paper attempts to examine the impact of tourism
service quality dimension in the Jordanian five star hotels. A total of
322 surveys were administrated to tourists who were staying at three
branches Marriott hotel in Jordan. The results show that dimensions of
service quality such as empathy, reliability, responsiveness and
tangibility significantly predict customer loyalty. Specifically, among
the dimension of tourism service quality, the most significant predictor
of customer loyalty is tangibility. This paper implies that five star
hotels in Jordan should also come forward and try their best to present
better tourism service quality to win back their customers loyalty.

KeywordsTourism, Service Quality, Loyalty, Five Star hotels,

Jordan.

I. INTRODUCTION

HE hotel industry, in particular, and all businesses whose

service depend on building long term relationship need to
concentrate on maintaining customers loyalty. In this respect,
loyalty is greatly influenced by service quality. As such, hotels
often invest in managing their relationships with customers and
maintaining quality to ensure that customers whose loyalty is in
the short term will continue to be loyal in the long term. The
growth in tourism is well anticipated as evident in the
researches and analyses conducted by experts and relevant
organizations in this industry. Burns and Holden [1] were
among the early proponents of the idea where tourism is
becoming one of the largest global export industries.
Subsequently, Weaver and Oppermann [2] have observed that
tourism has developed from a marginal local activity to a global
economic giant representing about 6 per cent of the global
economy and creating approximately 200 million jobs
worldwide during the later decades of the twentieth century.
With the rapid growth in the tourism industry, it is projected
that global travel and tourism would generate US$7.0 trillion in
economic activity and 260 million jobs by 2011[3]. The robust
growth is also attested to by the analyses conducted by the

II.

CUSTOMER LOYALTY AND TOURISM SERVICE

QUALITY

As it is, feelings and attitudes experienced by customers via

the service provided by hotels form the perception of service
quality. Based on their personal perceptions of the services,
customers generally form their experiences [11]. Many studies
have investigated the relationship between service quality and
customer loyalty [12]; [13], on the complaints received from
customers [14]. Here a complaint is seen in the light of the
customers request for better service and possible continued
usage of the product in the near future.
In addition, customer loyalty is seen as one of the major
facilitators of service quality that emerged from the literature.
Customer loyalty happens when there is repeated purchasing by
the same customers and their willingness to recommend the
product to other customers without any outright benefits [15],
and eventually the repeated usages would generate positive and
quantifiable financial results [16].
Among the economic benefits of customer loyalty are
improvements in retention and increase in the share of a

Ramzi AL Rousan is with School of Housing ,Building and Planning ,

Universiti SainsMalaysia, 11800 USM, Penang, Malaysia (corresponding
author to provide phone: 0060-173-493-107; e-mail:
manzomh45@yahoo.com).
Badaruddin Mohamed is with School of Housing ,Building and Planning ,
Universiti SainsMalaysia, 11800 USM, Penang, Malaysia (phone: 604-653
3108 ext: 3988., Fax: 604-656 6466.,e-mail: bada@usm.my).

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International Journal of Human and Social Sciences 5:13 2010

company. Customer loyalty means a customer would return or

continue to use the same product or other products of the same
organization, make business referrals, and intentionally or even
unintentionally providing strong word-of-mouth references and
publicity [17]. Loyal customers are those who are not easily
swayed by price inducement from competitors, and they
usually purchase more than those less loyal customers [18]. On
the other hand, service providers must avoid being complacent
as retained customers may not always be the satisfied ones and
similarly not all satisfied customers may always be retained.
There are many factors for such manner of loyal customers.
Some customers may remain loyal due to high switching
barriers or the lack of real substitutes, while others continue to
be loyal because they are satisfied with the services provided.
Past researches have pointed out that perceived service quality
has an impact on customer loyalty. In their study on retail trade,
Wong and Sohal [19] discovered a positive relationship
between service quality and customer loyalty. Other
researchers had found a positive relationship between service
quality and loyalty in the banking sector [12]; [20]. All the
researchers have unilaterally agreed that service quality is
related to behavioral outcomes, especially in the form of
word-of-mouth, complaint, recommendation and switching.
The methods to measure how service quality helps practitioners
effectively manage the delivery of quality service have become
the focus of other researchers [21]; [6]; [22]; [23]; [24]; [25].
Among the various measurement models/frameworks on
service quality in the existing literature, SERVQUAL and
SERVPERF are becoming quite popular.
Parasuraman et al. [6] developed SERVQUAL in their study,
which includes tangibles, responsiveness, assurance-empathy
and reliability. Subsequently, the SERVQUAL framework has
guided numerous studies in the service sector focusing on
various organizations, like hotels [26], tourism [27], dental
services [28], hospitals [29]; [30], However, critics have
questioned and found faults with its conceptual appropriateness
[31], low reliability [32], problems with discriminate validity
[33] and also unstable dimensionality [22]; [34]; [35]; [36];
[37]; [14]. As a result, Cronin and Taylor [24] developed
SERVPERF, a modified and improved version of
SERVQUAL, which determines service quality by only
measuring performance. Based on the literature review in the
field of service quality, this study aims to address certain gaps
that have been identified. For a start, there is a scarcity of
empirical research investigating the association of all the
variables of service quality and customer loyalty in the
Jordanian hotel industry. Apart from this, the impact on the
hotels attitudes to provide better quality services in the face of
economic changes need to be addressed as well.
The main objective of this study is to examine the strength of
association between the variables of service quality and
customer loyalty in five-star hotels in Jordan.

responsiveness, which is how an individual customers

requests are handled beyond traditional service measure [39].
Service quality measures how well the service delivered could
match customers expectations while delivery service quality
refers to meeting and satisfying customers expectation
consistently and positively. Therefore, this research tests
whether there is a positive relationship between service quality
and customer loyalty. Therefore, the hypotheses of this study
can be formulated as follow:
Hypotheses1: Tourism service quality positively affects
customer loyalty in five star hotels in Jordan
H1.a: There is a significant positive correlation between
tangibility and customer loyalty in five star hotels in Jordan.
H1b: There is a significant positive correlation between
reliability and customer loyalty in five star hotels in Jordan.
H1c: There is a significant positive correlation between
responsiveness and customer loyalty in five star hotels in
Jordan.
H1d: There is a significant positive correlation between
assurance and customer loyalty in five star hotels in Jordan.
H1e: There is a significant positive correlation between
empathy and customer loyalty in five star hotels in Jordan.
IV. METHODOLOGY
A self-administered questionnaire, an adapted version of
SERVQUAL scale, was used in this paper to measure the
perceived tourism service quality of the hotel guests. There are
various models used by researchers to assess service quality,
i.e. SERVQUAL [40], SERVPERF [24] and Non-Difference
[41]. This study used the SERVQUAL model to measure the
study dimensions due to its high reliability and validity in
previous studies. Our research instrument design is based on
the five dimensions of service quality and the 23 service items
of the SERVQUAL model. Some modifications were made to
the items in order to suit the context of hotels. The
questionnaire was divided into three parts. The first part of the
questionnaire contained questions relating to
socio-demographic data about the respondents. The second part
was designed to measure the respondents perceptions
regarding quality of services offered by the hotel. Meanwhile,
the third part of the questionnaire assessed the respondents
perceptions regarding loyalty on the same five-point scale.
Seven customer loyalty items were adapted from Zeithaml et
al., [7] and Ndubisi [42]. The researchers introduced the tool of
measurement in such a way that it briefly illustrated the topic of
the study and procedures of response. The measurement grades
were placed according to the five-point Likert scale [43]. The
scales were ordered regressively as follows: Strongly agree (5),
Agree (4), Neutral (3), Disagree (2), and strongly disagree (1).
The study was conducted in three branches of the Marriot
Hotel chain situated in three cities in Jordan for three months in
the summer of 2008. The target population selected for this
study during the data collection period comprised tourists who
stayed in all three branches of the Marriot Hotel. A
convenience sampling approach [44] was employed, in which
322 questionnaires were distributed to the guests who agreed to
participate in the survey. The guests completed the
questionnaires in the presence of the researchers. The

III. HYPOTHESIS
In the tourism sector, service quality has two aspects [38] in
the form of basic service quality and responsiveness. The first
is basic service quality, and it involves cycle time, on-time
delivery, and inventory availability. The second aspect is

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International Journal of Human and Social Sciences 5:13 2010

completed questionnaires were then collected by the

researchers immediately.
The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS)
version 16.0 was used to analyze the data. Descriptive statistics
analysis was used to measure customers perception scores. To
explore the dimensionality of the 23-item scale, a factor
analysis was performed. Validity and reliability of the adapted
scale were established. Validity tests determine how well an
instrument measures a particular concept. Reliability of a scale,
on the other hand, indicates the stability and consistency with
which the instrument measures the concept and helps assess the
goodness of a measure [45]. A reliability analysis was
employed to have an idea on the internal consistency among the
items and the convergent validity of the overall scale.
Within-scale factor analyses were used to ensure that all
indicators in the scale measured the same construct. This
process is known as construct validity [46]. To test the internal
consistency of each factor, a reliability analysis was conducted.
Based on the new factors derived from the factor analysis, a
multiple regression analysis was used to identify the relative
importance of the factors in predicting customer loyalty with
the service quality provided by the Marriot hotels in Jordan.
V.

Status

Education

Occupation

Annual
Income

RESULT AND ANALYSIS

The analyses of the collected data were carried out through

various statistical techniques such as factor analysis, validity
analysis and multiple regressions. The data were compiled and
analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Science
(SPSS 16) for Windows computer software.
Table I shows the demographics of the respondents. As can
be seen from Table I, the gender distribution was 56.5% female
and 43.5% male. The highest proportion of the respondents
(18.3%) fell into >63 year age group, followed by the 27-32
year age group (14.9%). The majority of respondents were
married (51.9%). The question on the educational level of
customers showed that 42.5% of the respondents had a
university degree, followed by diploma (20.2%), postgraduate
(12.1), and others (Professional Editor, Specialized Market
Research). A variety of occupations were reported by the
respondents. The highest frequencies were private sector
(45.5%), followed by government (18.9%). As for annual
income, the highest rate was $21000-$30000 (32.0%), while
the lowest rate was $61000-$70000 (2.5%).
Figure 1 show that the majority of respondents came from
Europe (70%) followed by America (19%), while the number
of tourists from Australia (6%) and Asia (5%).

Category
Male
Female
Age

56.5

< 20 years old

11

21-26 years old

28

3.4
8.7

27-32 years old

48

14.9

33-38 years old

43

13.4

39-44 years old

33

10.2

8.7

57-62 years old

31

9.6

63> years old

59

18.3

Single

106

32.9

Married

167

51.9

Divorced

22

6.8

Widowed

27

8.4

Primary School

25

7.8

Secondary School

24

7.5

Diploma College

65

20.2

University Degree

137

42.5

Postgraduate Degree

39

12.1

Others

32

9.9

Government

61

18.9

Own Business

49

15.2

Private Sector

145

45.0

Retired

49

15.2

Others

18

5.6

37

11.5

$21000-$30000

103

32.0

$31000-$40000

86

26.7

$41000-$50000

35

10.9

$51000-$60000

38

11.8

$61000-$70000

2.5

>$70000

13

4.0

<$20000

Factor analysis was used to reduce the items to several

factors. Some items sometimes represent the same idea, thus
these can be omitted if they are redundant or unnecessary. The
number of participants in the present research is 322.
According to Hair et al. [47], if the number of samples in the
factor analysis is 100 or larger, factor loadings in the range of
.30 to .40 are considered to meet the minimal level for
interpretation of structure. Loading of .50 or greater are
considered practically significant, and loadings exceeding .70
are considered indicative of well-defined structure and are the
goal of any factor analysis. The adequacy of the sample size

43.5

182

12.7

28

VI. FACTOR ANALYSIS

Frequency Percent
140

41

51-56 years old

Fig. 1 Country of Origin of the Respondents

TABLE I
PROFILE OF THE RESPONDENTS (N=322)
Gender

45-50 years old

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International Journal of Human and Social Sciences 5:13 2010

was confirmed using both the Kaiser-Meyer Olkin (KMO) test

sampling adequacy and Barletts Test of Sphericity. In fact,
KMO for tourism service quality (0.86), customer satisfaction
(0.89) and customer loyalty (0.89) exceeded satisfactory
values. The retention decision of each item was based on factor
loadings which were greater than or equal to 0.50;
cross-loading with the other factors were generally smaller than
0.35[48].

The brochures and pamphlets are Q5

visually presented
The hotel is clean

Q6

The results of the factor analysis concerning tourism service

quality shows that all of the items is found to have a
five-dimensional construct with 23 items. The results indicate
that the five factor solutions with Eigenvalues were greater than
1.0, and the total variance explained was 72.91% of the total
variance. The KMO measurement of sampling adequacy was
.86, indicating sufficient inter-correlations. Meanwhile, the
Barlett Test of Sphericity was significant (Chi square= 6.360,
p<.001). By identifying whether or not the correlation matrix is
an identity matrix, one can be certain if the variables are
unrelated. The chi-Square significant level was less than .01.
Therefore, a value higher than about .10 or so may indicate that
data are not suitable for factor analysis as mentioned in Table II
and Table III.

The front-desk employee Q7

accurately verified the reservation
requests

.838 .139 .261 .177 .039

The time it took to check in or Q8

check out is not too long

.701 .197 .060 .139 .273

The reservation system (e.g., Q9

telephone or internet reservation)
is easy to use

.610 .181 .108 .145 .260

Transport facilities are available

Q10 .885 .096 .232 .140 .069

The employees provide error-free Q11

records
The employees are courteous

Q12 .246 .192 .289 .601 .183

The employees gave us special Q13

attention

.190 .150 .213 .813 .285

The employees adapted services to Q14

our needs

.163 .238 .088 .830 .182

The staff are willing to help guests Q15 .146 .160 .132 .889 .262
Assurance (X4)
The staff in the hotel are polite

Q16 .103 .271 .118 .249 .670

The staff imparted confidence to Q17

the guests

Chi-Square

KMO

Empathy (X5)

.862

The employees quickly apologized Q20

when service mistakes are made

.238 .085 .873 .182 .200

The employees listened carefully Q21

when you complain

.216 .116 .906 .187 .165

The employees
customers by name

.212 .122 .864 .184 .133

The KMO measures the sampling adequacy which should be

greater than 0.5 for a satisfactory factor analysis to proceed.
Looking at the Table (IV), the KMO measure is .904. From the
same table, we can see that the Bartlett's test of sphericity is
significant (Chi-Square = 1.4923; p<0.001).
Table (V) explain a factor loading is the correlation between
a variable. Factor loading came from a factor that has been
extracted from the data set. The loading for customer loyalty
was ranging from .783 to .858. At the same time, the
Eigenvalues is 4.76 and the total variance is 68%.

Employees understand
customer's requirements

X3

X4

Tangibility (X1)
Furniture in this hotel is modern Q1
and comfortable

-.010 .843 .096 .123 .128

The interior and exterior Q2

decoration in this hotel is quite
appealing

.142 .618 .258 .331 -.091

have

The hotel facilities are up-to-date

neat Q3
Q4

the Q23

.190 .204 .709 .078 .314

9.570 2.367 1.963 1.589 1.282

Total Variance (72.91%)

16.52 15.49 15.26 13.65 11.96

7
8
8
2
8

TABLE IV

Component
X5

the Q22

Eigenvalues

KMO

Chi-Square

.904

1.4923

NOTE: ***P<0.001

X1

called

KMO AND BARTLETT'S TEST FOR CUSTOMER LOYALTY

TABLE III
FACTOR ANALYSIS FOR TOURISM SERVICE QUALITY

The employees
appearances

.305 -.011 .272 .165 .677

253***

FACTOR ANALYSIS OF CUSTOMER LOYALTY

Code X2

Q18 .163 .201 .183 .208 .797

df

Note: ***p<0.001

VIII.

.063 .220 .268 .285 .685

The staff had sufficient support Q19

from the hotel to do their jobs

TABLE II
KMO AND BARTLETT'S TEST FOR TOURISM SERVICE QUALITY
6.3603

.860 .175 .270 .139 .062

Responsiveness (X3)

The staff are friendly

.862

.043 .872 .088 .183 .102

Reliability (X2)

VII. FACTOR ANALYSIS FOR TOURISM SERVICE

QUALITY

KMO

.258 .607 .192 .201 .120

.267 .627 .029 .002 .236

.299 .662 .011 .087 .291

889

df
21***

International Journal of Human and Social Sciences 5:13 2010

TABLE V
FACTOR LOADING FOR CUSTOMER LOYALTY
Customer Loyalty (Y2)

Code Y2

I would recommend this hotel to other people

Q31 .790

I would like to stay in this hotel next time

Q32 .843

TABLE VII
REGRESSION RESULTS ON TOURISM SERVICE QUALITY AND
CUSTOMER LOYALTY
Service Quality
t-value Standardized Coefficients Beta
Tangibility

9.062

.413***

I would like repurchase many services in this hotel Q33 .783

Reliability

3.437

.162**

I would encourage friends and relatives to visit this Q34

hotel

Responsiveness

1.991

.099*

Assurance

1.431

.072

Empathy

4.605

.219***

I consider the performance in this hotel strong

.853
Q35 .839

I would consider this hotel as my first choice when I Q36

need hotel service
I intend to continue using this hotel
Q37 .805
Eigenvalues

.858

4.762

Total Variance (percent)

68.028

Note: Underline loadings indicate the inclusion of that item in the factor

80.942***

.564

Adjusted R

.557

R Change

.564

F Change

80.942***

Note: *p<0.05; **p<0.01; ***p<0.001

IX. VALIDITY ANALYSIS

One of the major criticisms SERVQUAL has received from

researchers is on the dimensionality of service quality. The
most serious criticisms concern the number of dimensions, and
their stability from one context to another [49]. When
SERVQUAL is employed in modified forms for different
service fields, researchers identified varying numbers and
contents of dimensions according to the service sector under
investigation [49]. Parallel to these claims, numerous studies
have been conducted on service quality in the hotel industry
[34]; [50]; [51]; [52]. These studies have produced several
contributions to help gain an understanding of the dimensional
structure of service quality of hotels.
This study was conducted in the five star hotels in Jordan and
identified five service quality dimensions tourists use to
evaluate service quality in these hotels. The findings confirmed
the five-dimensional structure of SERVQUAL, but some of the
dimensions found along with its components differed from that
of SERVQUAL. These findings support the claim that the
number of service quality dimensions is dependent on the
particular service being offered; in addition, different measures
should be developed for different service contexts [23]; [22].
The studies conducted in the hotel industry produced different
outcomes with regards the hierarchy of dimensions in
contributing to an overall assessment of service quality. Akan
[26] reported that the most important dimension is the
courtesy and competence of hotel personnel, while Mei et al.,
[52] reported that employees comprise the most important
dimension. On the other hand, Saleh and Ryan [34] reported
that most important dimension was conviviality, while
Knutson et al. [53] found it to be reliability. Ekinci et al.
[54] stated in their study that intangibles were the most
important dimensions influencing the perception of quality in
the hotel sector. In this study, it was found that assurance is
the most important factor in predicting tourists service quality
evaluation. This appeared to be different from that in
Parasuraman et al.s [6] study, wherein reliability is defined
as the best predictor. This finding suggests that for the guests of
hotels, the purpose of their stay may be an important
determining element when evaluating the quality of hotels.

Table (VI) presents the validity analysis for this research was
carried out using Cronbachs Alpha. The validity for the
potential variables were found to be 0.85 for tangibility, 0.90
for reliability, 0.90 for responsiveness, 0.83 for assurance, 0.93
for empathy, and 0.92 for customer loyalty. Since the results
are significantly higher than the value of 0.7, the questionnaire
is deemed to have excellent stability and consistency.
TABLE VI
RESULTS OF THE VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY TESTS
Variable

Cronbach's
Alpha

Mean

Std. Deviation

Tangibility

0.85

4.02

0.59

Reliability

0.90

3.87

0.66

Responsiveness

0.90

4.00

0.69

Assurance

0.83

3.93

0.63

Empathy

0.93

3.82

0.80

Customer Loyalty

0.92

3.99

0.68

A regression analysis was used to further investigate the

relative importance of the five tourism service quality
dimensions in predicting customer loyalty. Table (VII) shows
the results of the regression analysis.
The hypothesis testing that was conducted to check for the
direct relationship between tourism service quality and
customer loyalty showed that that tangibility ( = .413,
p<0.001; t-value = 9.062), reliability ( = .162, p<0.01; t-value
= 3.437), responsiveness ( = .099, p<0.05; t-value = 1.991)
and empathy ( = .219, p<0.01; t-value = 4.605) were found
positively significant to customer loyalty. Nevertheless,
assurance ( = .072, p>0.05; t-value = 1.431) was found not
significant with customer loyalty. An examination of the
t-values for the five dimensions indicated that the most
important factor in predicting customer loyalty evaluation is
tangibility followed by empathy. It appears that hotel
managers should exert more attempt and focus to develop its
service quality along these two vital dimensions as shown in
Table (VII).

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International Journal of Human and Social Sciences 5:13 2010

X. CONCLUSION

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Reexamination and Extension. Journal of Marketing, 56(3), 55-68.
[25] Donthu, N . and Yoo, B (1998). Cultural Influences on Service Quality
Expectations. Journal of Service Research, 2(1), 178-186.
[26] Akan, P (1995). Dimensions of service quality: a study in Istanbul.
Managing Service Quality, 5(6), 39-43.
[27] Atilgan, E., Akinci,S. and Aksoy, S (2003). Mapping Service Quality in
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in Dental Care. Managing Service Quality, 13( 3), 207-216.

In this study, a scale for measuring the service quality of five

star hotels was proposed through exploratory factor analyses.
Having knowledge on these areas would definitely help
managers meet the challenge of improving service quality in
the hotel industry. The current paper contributes to the
theoretical orientation of tourism service quality and tourists
satisfaction in hotel industry literature by determining some
pivotal service quality levels. This study also identified five
tourism service quality dimensions, namely, tangibility,
reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy, all of which
comprise the criteria tourists use to evaluate the service quality
of five star hotels in Jordan. The findings of this study indicate
that the most important factor in predicting tourism service
quality evaluation was tangibility, followed by empathy,
reliability, and responsiveness. The findings of this study
suggest that among the five dimensions of service quality,
assurance has emerged as the best predictor of tourism service
quality. These results support the idea that despite the
usefulness of the SERVQUAL scale as a concept, it should be
adapted for the service environment as well.
Along with the important findings obtained in this study, the
modified questionnaire itself is another important contribution.
The questionnaire developed through this study is suitable for
use for tourists staying in five star hotels in Jordan, allowing
them to confidently identify the service areas of services which
require action. At the same time, the modified questionnaire
could also provide indicators through which managers and
planners can plan service policies that would result in satisfied
customers. Finally, the results of this study may not have been
representative of the whole population, due to the fact that a
convenience sampling method was used to collect the data.
This study was conducted for only five star hotels. To be able to
generalize the findings for this specific hotel segment, a study
that would include more hotels in a variety of regional settings
could be conducted.
Monitoring customer loyalty has become an important focus
for all managers in the hotel industry. Failure to recognize the
power of customer satisfaction, especially their emotions, could
destroy the power of customer retention and loyalty [55].
Therefore, the hotel managements greatest challenge lies not
only on attracting customers but specifically on identifying
customer satisfaction individually. Customers may agree that
the hotel provides high levels of service quality but not
necessarily agree that the hotel ensures high satisfaction. If
prices are perceived to be high, this may still have a negative
effect on loyalty. Higher levels of quality are only meaningful
to the extent that customers believe that value is being
enhanced. Therefore, managers must carefully execute price
competition and understand the value perceived by different
market segments. Customers may sometimes refrain from
purchasing when price is perceived to be too high, while some
became suspicious of quality when price is too low. In
summary, understanding the relationship among service quality
and loyalty will help managers make decision and plan their
strategies in the competitive hospitality market environment.

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Ramzi AL-Rousan is a Ph.D. candidate of Tourism Planning and Development

from School of HBP, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). He has a master degree
in tourism from Alyarmok University in Jordan. Ramzi is active to participate in
conferences and journal publication. His research areas are tourism service
quality in hotel industry.
Prof. Badaruddin Mohamed is a lecturer in planning at the School of HBP,
Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), specializing in tourism planning. Prof.
Badaruddin is a dean of research in division research and innovation at USMs
research creativity and management office. He graduated with a Ph.D. degree in
Tourism Planning and Development, a Master degree in the same field from
Tokyo, Japan. He is actively involved in research, and consultancy work related
to tourism

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