Introduction

Mapping service
quality in the tourism
industry
Eda Atilgan
Serkan Akinci and
Safak Aksoy

The authors
Eda Atilgan and Serkan Akinci are Research Assistants
and Safak Aksoy is Associate Professor of Marketing,
all at the Faculty of Economics and Adminstrative
Sciences, Department of Business Administration, Akdeniz
University, Antalya, Turkey.
Keywords
Service quality assurance, Tourism, Perceptual mapping,
SERVQUAL
Abstract
This study suggests a new approach to the exploratory
and evaluative research of service-quality dimensions by
employing correspondence analysis (CA). Although
several studies have investigated the service quality of
service providers using descriptive measures and
statistical tests, this study presents a graphical
interpretation of SERVQUAL data to aid managerial
decision-making in the tourism industry. This paper also
examines the expectations and perceptions of two distinct
groups by determining the differences between German
and Russian tourists' evaluations of service-quality
dimensions in tour operators. The study concludes that CA
can be used effectively in evaluating the service-quality
and displaying the differences in the expectations/
perceptions of distinct consumer groups. Managerial
implications for travel administrators are discussed.
Tour operators should consider cultural differences in
service-quality evaluations.
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Managing Service Quality
Volume 13 . Number 5 . 2003 . pp. 412-422
# MCB UP Limited . ISSN 0960-4529
DOI 10.1108/09604520310495877

In today's changing global environment,

many businesses are facing increasing
competition that forces them to seek
competitive advantage, efficiency, and
profitable ways to differentiate themselves
(Mei et al., 1999). In both domestic markets
and internationally, the service concept is
gaining in importance in parallel with
economic development and increasing
standards of living. In some businesses such
as travel, tourism, catering, and banking the
delivery of high-quality services to consumers
is increasingly recognised as a key factor
affecting the performance of firms. Not
surprisingly, service-quality measurement has
become the main subject of several empirical
and conceptual studies in services marketing.
Various scales and indexes such as
SERVQUAL, SERVPERF, service quality
index (SQI), and service performance index
(SPI) have been developed and extensively
used by academics and practitioners. These
developments have also created opportunities
to combine these tools with other methods for
simpler presentation and monitoring of
service-quality expectations and performance.
This paper demonstrates the use of
correspondence analysis (CA), together with
SERVQUAL, in measuring service quality in
the tourism industry. The study first reviews
the properties of the SERVQUAL scale and
its applications in the services sector. The
service expectations and perceptions of two
groups of tourists are then measured with the
SERVQUAL scale, and mapped using CA.
The service-quality dimensions that have the
most discriminatory power in separating
various satisfaction levels between the two
tourist groups are then identified. Finally, the
study concludes with a discussion of the
managerial implications of the present
research and proposes directions for further
study.

SERVQUAL and its applications in the

services sector
Zeithaml and Bitner (2000) have suggested
that customers do not perceive quality as a
uni-dimensional concept. Rather, their
assessment of quality includes perceptions
of multiple factors. More specifically,
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Volume 13 . Number 5 . 2003 . 412-422

Parasuraman et al. (1988) have defined the

service-quality concept in terms of five major
dimensions reliability, responsiveness,
assurance, tangibles, and empathy. These
dimensions represent how consumers
organise information about service quality in
their minds. Of these, ``reliability'' (that is,
delivering on promises) has been consistently
shown to be the most important determinant
(Zeithaml and Bitner, 2000). ``Reliability'' is
generally defined as the ability to perform the
promised service dependably and accurately.
``Responsiveness'' is the willingness to help
customers and to provide prompt service.
``Assurance'' covers the knowledge and
courtesy of employees and their ability to
convey trust and confidence. ``Empathy'' is
defined as the provision of care, and the
paying of individualised attention to
customers. The last dimension, ``tangibles'',
represents the appearance of physical
facilities, equipment, personnel, and
communication materials (Fitzsimmons and
Fitzsimmons, 1994).
Early research on service quality and related
dimensions resulted in the two-part
SERVQUAL scale the mostly used, valid,
and generally accepted measurement tool
(Brown and Bond, 1995). SERVQUAL is a
multi-item instrument for quantifying the
service expectation-perception gap using the
five generic dimensions described above
(Parasuraman, 1998). Although some
concerns have been advanced about the
expectation concept (Teas, 1993; Boulding
et al., 1993) and the theoretical aspects of the
scale (Dyke et al., 1997; Cronin and Taylor,
1992, 1994), SERVQUAL has been widely
applied and highly valued (Buttle, 1996).
The SERVQUAL scale and derivations
from it have been used by many researchers in
different industries. Kettinger and Lee (1997)
argued the suitability of this approach in the
information services sector and inferred that it
was a remarkable diagnostic tool for the
assessment of service quality. Stressing the
strong relationship between value and
customer services in the tourism industry,
Augustyn and Ho (1998) claimed that the
SERVQUAL model was of the utmost
importance for defining the real meaning of
customer satisfaction. In a similar context,
Ryan (1999) considered that SERVQUAL
was a simple tool for tourism managers to use
in tackling the areas of weakness in their
service delivery. However, he added that it

was difficult for any mathematical model to

capture all aspects of service quality and
customer satisfaction particularly in the
tourism industry, which is a complex mixture
of entertainment, education, self-discovery,
and sheer fun. Neither Augustyn and Ho
(1998) nor Ryan (1999) presented solid
empirical evidence.
There is also a limited number of
empirically oriented articles that discuss the
use of the SERVQUAL approach in the
tourism sector. Luk (1997), for example,
detected a positive relationship between the
arithmetic means for the overall marketing
culture of a travel agency and its overall
service quality. In another study, Baker and
Fesenmaier (1997) focused on the levels of
service-quality expectations of theme park
visitors, employees, and managers.
Comparison of the median scores by the
Kruskal-Wallis test indicated significant
differences in expectations among the three
groups. On the basis of this evidence, the
authors questioned the sufficiency of the
SERVQUAL approach, and claimed that it
ignored multiple stakeholders. Daz-Martn
et al. (2000) demonstrated that servicequality expectations can also be used as a
segmentation variable in the tourism market.
They first used the k-means method to form
homogeneous tourist groups in terms of their
expectations, and then carried out multiple
regression analyses to probe the relationship
between customer satisfaction and customer
perceptions of the service received. They
concluded that the expectations of different
groups influence their overall satisfaction
which lends support to expectation-based
market segmentation. Juwaheer and Ross
(2003) used the standard SERVQUAL
procedure on 39 attributes to measure service
quality in the hotel industry in Mauritius.
Using factor analysis, t-tests, and ANOVA,
they identified nine dimensions in which
assurance and reliability emerged as the main
determinants of service quality.
Gabbie and O'Neill (1997) compared the
service-quality performances of two hotels
that adopted different total-quality
perspectives. The success of the higherscoring hotel was attributed to its
commitment to the total-quality programme.
Another application of the SERVQUAL
model in the tourism sector was reported by
O'Neill et al. (2000), who studied five tour
operators in Australia. Examining descriptive

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statistics only, the authors claimed that

assurance was the most prominent indicator
of overall service performance.
The appropriateness of the SERVQUAL
model has been especially questioned in the
context of the food-service industry, which,
according to Johns and Howard (1998),
requires a greater number of items than
SERVQUAL employs. The authors asserted
that the 18 attributes defined by Johnston
(1995) were much more suitable because they
include almost all of the diverse quality
factors involved.
The possibility of using SERVQUAL in the
hospital industry was tested by Headley and
Miller (1993). The data collected from
patients were examined using factor analysis,
which produced six dimensions for medical
services. The authors concluded that basing
quality measurement on SERVQUAL was
appropriate for medical services, but that a
post-encounter-only assessment of servicequality opinions would be more practical than
the pre-encounter and post-encounter
approach. Similar concerns were also put
forward by Carman (1990) who studied
dental services. Although he accepted the
stability of the original dimensions, he was
critical of its administration and analysis.

Tourism and the quality concept

Among the service industries, tourism is
especially significant in terms of its sensitivity
to quality issues, impact on national
economies, and recent expansion. For many
countries, international tourism has been an
indispensable source of foreign-currency
earnings. In 1999, international tourism and
international fare receipts accounted for
roughly 8 per cent of total export earnings on
goods and services worldwide (WTO, 2003a).
Total international tourism receipts,
including those generated by international
fares, amounted to an estimated US$555
billion, surpassing all other international trade
categories (WTO, 2003a). Furthermore,
the number of international arrivals has
shown a remarkable expansion from a modest
25 million in 1950 to 699 million in 2000,
corresponding to an annual growth rate of
7 per cent (WTO, 2003a). Although these
developments have resulted in a growing
number of studies devoted to the tourism

industry, particularly in the past decade

(Harrington and Lenehan, 1998), there is an
ongoing need for original empirical research
on certain aspects of quality in tourism.
Quality in tourism is an important factor
and ultimately dictates the success of the
tourism business. As Kandampully (2000)
has stressed, quality will be the main driving
force as tourism firms strive to meet the
competitive challenges of the future. The
World Tourism Organization (WTO, 2003b)
has defined quality in tourism as:
. . . the result of a process which implies the
satisfaction of all the legitimate product and
service needs, requirements and expectations of
the consumer, at an acceptable price, in
conformity with the underlying quality
determinants such as safety and security,
hygiene, accessibility, transparency, authenticity
and harmony of the tourism activity concerned
with its human and natural environment.

In this context, tour operators are among the

key players who have a direct influence on the
underlying determinants of quality. Within
this study, the term tour operator is defined as
the principal service provider who is
responsible for delivering and/or contracting
and monitoring the promised service mix,
including all arrangements such as flights,
transportation, accommodation, excursions,
guidance etc. throughout the service delivery
period.

Aims of the study

The present study investigated the quality
expectations and satisfaction of tourists with
respect to tour operators. More specifically,
the study explored the following issues:
.
a new method for evaluating service
quality;
.
the service-quality attributes that
constitute fundamental service-quality
dimensions in evaluating tour operators;
.
the relative importance attached by
tourists to each of the expected and
perceived service-quality dimensions;
.
comparative perspective of distinct tourist
groups in terms of their expectations and
perceptions; and
.
the service-quality dimensions that have
most discriminatory power in separating
various satisfaction levels.

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Research methodology
According to the World Tourism
Organization (WTO), Turkey ranked 11th
in the top 15 tourism earners in the world
with US$8.9 billion of international
tourism receipts in 2001 (WTO, 2003a).
Furthermore, this figure accounted for a
remarkable 17.0 per cent increase from the
previous year the largest expansion of
tourism earnings in the world in 2001
(Table I). The city of Antalya, Turkey, was
targeted as the main data-collection point
because it is generally acknowledged to be the
capital of Turkish tourism. Antalya is a
mature tourist destination for mass tourism,
with Germans and Russians representing the
majority of the tourist population.
As the present research involved different
tourist groups, cultural matters had to be
addressed when deemed necessary. Cultural
characteristics comprising language, values
and attitudes, manners and customs, material
culture, aesthetics, and education and social
institutions are manifestations of the way of
life of any group of people. Because
consumers' expectations, perceptions, and
behaviour are influenced by cultural factors,
services marketers who want their services
adopted across cultures must understand
these differences (Zeithaml and Bitner,
2000). Although the present study did not
Table I International tourism receipts by the top 15 countries in 2001
International tourism
receipts (US$ billion)
2000
2001a
1 USA
2 Spain
3 France
4 Italy
5 China
6 Germany
7 UK
8 Canada
9 Austria
10 Greece
11 Turkey
12 Mexico
13 Hong Kong
(China)
14 Australia
15 Switzerland

% Change
2001a/2000

Market
share
2001a

82.0
31.5
30.8
27.5
16.2
18.5
19.5
10.7
9.9
9.2
7.6
8.3

72.3
32.9
30.0
25.8
17.8
17.2
16.3
10.8
10.1

8.9
8.4

11.9
4.5
2.5
6.2
9.7
6.8
16.7
0.7
1.9

17.0
1.3

1.6
7.1
6.5
5.6
3.8
3.7
3.5
2.3
2.2

1.9
1.8

7.9
8.5
7.5

8.2
7.6
7.6

4.5
9.8
1.6

1.8
1.6
1.6

Note: aData as collected by WTO September 2002

attempt to ``understand'' these differences in

terms of investigating the impact of culture on
each particular tourist group's service-quality
evaluations, it does demonstrate an approach
to ``understanding'' these differences by
presenting the similarities and differences
between the service-quality evaluations of
different cultural groups. Perceptual mapping
of service-quality dimensions using
correspondence analysis provides an easy way
for providers to interpret their customers'
perspectives on service quality.
Correspondence analysis is an exploratory
multivariate technique that converts a
matrix of non-negative data into a particular
type of graphical display in which the rows
and columns of the matrix are depicted as
points (Greenacre and Hastie, 1987).
Correspondence analysis scales the rows and
columns in corresponding units so that each
can be displayed graphically in the same twodimensional space. The advantage of
correspondence analysis, as compared with
other multidimensional scaling techniques, is
that it reduces the data-collection demands
imposed on the respondents (Malhotra,
1999).
The month of July was selected for data
collection because this is the busiest month
for tourist arrivals in Antalya. The tour
operator selected for the study is one of the
top-five Turkish operators in terms of sales
revenue. From the operator's July flight list,
one flight of German tourists was selected at
random, and one flight of Russian tourists
was similarly selected at random. A quota of
100 German tourists and 100 Russian
respondents from each selected flight were
asked to participate in the study.
The SERVQUAL scale (Parasuraman et al.,
1988) was used as the principal survey
instrument. Because it has been argued that
modifications to the SERVQUAL scale might
be required to reflect particular industryspecific characteristics (Stafford, 1999),
separate interviews were held with the
management and staff of certain tour
operators. These interviews provided valuable
insights into the special tasks and service areas
of the travel business and resulted in the
development of 26 items related to the five
service dimensions of the original
SERVQUAL scale. A two-step datacollection method was pursued to measure
the tourists' expectations and perceptions.
The same questions were directed to the same

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persons in both the first and second steps to

measure the expectations, the perceptions,
and discrepancies between the two. In the
first step, which was conducted at the time of
arrival, respondents were asked to indicate
their expectations by assessing the level of
importance they attached to a set of 26 items
on a seven-point Likert scale (with 1 = ``not at
all important''; 7 = ``very important''). The
second step was carried out just before the
tourists left their hotels and involved their
perceptions of the service-quality
performance of the serving operator. Apart
from the SERVQUAL items, there were also
other questions that probed:
.
the overall service quality of the tour
operator;
.
satisfaction levels;
.
willingness to be served again by the same
service provider; and
.
demographic characteristics.
Overall, 200 questionnaires (representing 100
German and 100 Russian tourists) regarding
service-quality expectations were used for
further analysis. Similarly, 200 questionnaires
regarding the perceptions of service-quality
performance were analysed.
The following aspects of tour operator
evaluations (Luk, 1997) were examined
under the five SERVQUAL dimensions.
(1) Assurance dimension:
.
being served by the appropriate
personnel;
.
reinforcement of tourists' confidence;
.
experienced and competent tour and
hotel escorts; and
.
fluent and understandable
communication with tourists.
(2) Responsiveness dimension:
.
sincere interest in problem-solving;
.
provision of adequate information
about the service delivered;
.
prompt response to tourists' requests;
.
provision of information on local
entertainment;
.
willingness to help tourists; and
.
advice on how to use free time.
(3) Reliability dimension:
.
easy contact on arrival at airport;
.
easy location of and contact with tour
and hotel escorts;
.
services delivered on time;
.
right first time;
.
keeping promises;
.
insisting on error-free service;

meeting the tour schedule; and

no sudden increase in tour cost.
(4) Empathy dimension:
.
pleasant, friendly personnel;
.
understanding of specific needs; and
.
cultivation of friendly relationship.
(5) Tangibles dimension:
.
modern and technologically relevant
vehicles;
.
appealing accommodation facilities;
.
availability of information documents
and notes;
.
physical appearance of tour and hotel
escorts (tidiness etc.); and
.
high-quality meals.
.
.

Correspondence analysis was used to evaluate

(or map) the service-quality dimensions by
expectations and perceptions of the two
tourist groups. The perceptual maps showed
the relative importance attached to the service
quality dimensions regarding the tour
operator evaluations.
Discriminant analysis was used to
determine the impacts of each of the servicequality dimension on tourists' satisfaction.
The dependent variable consisted of the
German and Russian tourists' overall rating
of the experience, which was divided into
three-groups:
(1) satisfied;
(2) undecided; and
(3) dissatisfied.
Two separate multiple discriminant analyses
(one for German tourists and one for Russian
tourists) yielded two discriminant functions.
The first functions for both groups were
statistically significant (p < 0.05) in terms of
Wilk's (s which transformed to chi-square
values of 46.689 and 172.015 for Germans
and Russians respectively.

Results
Demographics
The demographic profiles of the Russian and
German tourist groups are summarised in
Table II. Both groups were approximately
equally distributed between males and
females, with both groups having slightly
more females than males. The German
tourists tended to be older than the Russians
with only 28 per cent of Germans being
30 years of age or younger (compared with
52 per cent of Russians) and 20 per cent of

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Service-quality expectations and

perceptions
Expectations of German tourists
Figure 1 shows the results of German tourists'
expectations. As depicted in Figure 1, the
German tourists' expectations regarding
responsiveness, empathy, reliability, and
assurance dimensions were all grouped
around the ``very important'' category. In
these dimensions, attributes of special
importance were indicated as being service
delivery on promises, willingness to help
tourists, trust, confidence, and empathy.
These findings are in line with the general
assumption that before the travel and holiday
experience starts, tourists have high levels of
expectations of tour operators and other
organisations engaged in the service process.
The research findings also showed that
German tourists had little tolerance for any
unexpected situation that would lead to a
failure in these dimensions. However, there
was less expectation regarding physical
aspects of the travel service. Tourists'
expectations of the physical appearance of the
transportation vehicles, informative leaflets,
accommodation facilities, and personnel were
``important'' attributes, but not as important
as the other four service-quality dimensions.
This might give tour operators some flexibility
in designing the physical characteristics of
their offers without a major decline in tourists'

Table II Sample demographics

German
tourists
(%)

Russian
tourists
(%)

Gender
Male
Female

48
52

44
56

Age (years)
20
21-30
31-40
41-50
>50

10
18
34
18
20

22
30
21
24
3

Education
Below high school
High school
University
Master's or above

46
25
21
8

5
33
53
9

Accommodation
Holiday village
Five-star hotel
Four-star hotel
Three-star hotel
Two-star hotel
Other

21
25
43
9
1
1

37
21
33
9
0
0

Holiday duration (days)

7
8-14
>14

41
43
14

31
49
20

Germans being 50 years of age or older

(compared with only 3 per cent of Russians).
German respondents were less educated than
Russians with 46 per cent of Germans
having an education below high school
(compared with only 5 per cent of Russians)
and only 29 per cent of Germans having a
university degree or above (compared with
62 per cent of Russians).
There was a tendency for German tourists
to stay closer to the city centre with 68 per
cent of Germans staying at four-star or fivestar hotels (compared with 54 per cent of
Russians). In contrast, Russian tourists
preferred staying at holiday villages, which
operated on an ``all inclusive'' basis and were
located along the coastal line. The proportion
of Russian respondents staying at holiday
villages was 37 per cent (compared with 21
per cent of Germans). In terms of the holiday
duration, there was little discernible
difference between the groups.

Figure 1 Service quality expectations of German tourists

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satisfaction levels. It is also noteworthy that

none of the service-quality dimensions was
positioned close to the ``unimportant''
category, which implies that none of the
service quality dimensions should be
overlooked or taken lightly by service
providers.
Service perceptions of German tourists
After the service experience, actual
performance of the serving firm could be
somewhat different than the expected level.
These differences may arise from the level of
the performance which either exceeds the
expectations or remains below them. While
the performance over the expectations leads
to quality surprise and customer delight,
performance below the expected level results
in unacceptable quality and customer
dissatisfaction in turn (Parasuraman et al.,
1985). In tourism industry in particular,
customer satisfaction has been found to be
closely related to customer loyalty and
renewed patronage (Kandampully and
Suhartanto, 2000). In the present research, as
depicted in Figure 2, the perceptions of
German tourists did not match their
expectations in most of the service-quality
dimensions. Reliability was the ``most poorly''
perceived dimension, reflecting a failure to
perform the promised service dependably and
accurately. The implications of this can be
very serious for the service provider because
previous studies clearly indicate that

sustaining service quality is one of the most

important strategic issues for service firms
(Kandampully and Menguc, 2000).
With respect to other dimensions, the
assurance dimension received a ``good''
performance rating, whereas assessment of
the empathy dimension was ``neutral''. With
regard to responsiveness, high expectations
were not met, with the actual service delivered
being below expectations. In contrast,
perceptions of the tangibility dimension were
``excellent'', which were higher than
expectations. In summary, German tourists
indicated that none of the service quality
dimensions was poorly performed.
Expectations of Russian tourists
As shown in Figure 3, Russian tourists'
expectations were somewhat similar to those
of the German tourists. Service delivery on
promises, willingness to help, trust, and
confidence during the travel experience were
again ``important'' dimensions. Expectations
of the empathy dimension were ``fairly
important'', whereas tangibility was placed
somewhere between ``fairly important'' and
``neutral''.
Service perceptions of Russian tourists
Russian tourists' perceptions were to a great
extent parallel to their expectation levels
(Figure 4). They evaluated performance as
``excellent'' in terms of the dimensions of
Figure 3 Service quality expectations of Russian tourists

Figure 2 Service quality perceptions of German tourists

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Figure 4 Service quality perceptions of Russian tourists

Table III Structure matrix regarding German tourists

Assurance
Reliability
Tangibility
Responsiveness
Empathy

Function 1

Function 2

0.971
0.950
0.859
0.851
0.811

0.190
0.112
0.111
0.042
0.300

Note: Pooled within-groups correlations between

discriminating variables and standardised
canonical discriminant functions. Variables
ordered by absolute size of correlation within
function
Table IV Structure matrix regarding Russian tourists

Assurance
Responsiveness
Reliability
Empathy
Tangibility

responsiveness, reliability, and assurance

which were rated as the key factors for a
perfect service. Performance in understanding
specific needs and cultivating friendly
relationship were seen as indications of
``good service''. In terms of the tangibility
dimension, Russian tourists were ``neutral'' in
evaluating service performance.
Comparison of service perceptions of
German and Russian tourists
A comparison of the perceptual evaluations of
German and Russian tourists reveals distinct
differences between two groups (Figure 2
compared with Figure 4). In terms of the
empathy dimension, German tourists
evaluated the service performance as
``neutral'', whereas Russians perceived it as
``good''. German tourists evaluated the
assurance dimension as ``good'' and the
reliability dimension as ``very poor''. In
contrast, Russian tourists regarded both the
assurance dimension and the reliability
dimension as ``excellent''. Germans perceived
tangibility as ``excellent'', unlike the ``neutral''
perceptions of the Russians.
Satisfaction: discrimination by service
dimensions
The results of the multiple discriminant
analysis are shown in Table III (German
tourists) and Table IV (Russian tourists). For

Function 1

Function 2

0.904
0.890
0.828
0.772
0.669

0.228
0.345
0.252
0.070
0.255

Note: Pooled within-groups correlations between

discriminating variables and standardised
canonical discriminant functions. Variables
ordered by absolute size of correlation within
function

German tourists, the assurance dimension

had the highest correlation with the
discriminant function, and reliability had the
second-highest correlation (Table III). In
discriminating the Russian tourists'
satisfaction levels, the assurance dimension
was again first, but responsiveness and
reliability were the next most important
(Table IV).
The following linear combinations that best
discriminate the satisfaction levels for each
tourist group provide further information
about their relative importance:
YGerman 0:627Assurance 0:005Tangibility
0:209Empathy
0:008Responsiveness
0:456Reliability

4:849

YRussian 0:693Assurance 0:214Tangibility

0:663Empathy
0:270Responsiveness
0:304Reliability 9:742

Conclusions and managerial

implications
Correspondence analysis
The tourism industry has witnessed a
tremendous change in recent years. Firms are
searching for ways to deliver increased value

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to customers and to improve overall company

performance and capabilities. Quality is a
critical ingredient for competitiveness, but
any assessment of quality requires a
comparative approach both in terms of
expectation-perception gaps and in terms of
serving different customer groups. In the
tourism industry, determining the dimensions
of service quality is of vital importance for
tour operators and other service companies.
Providing high-quality service depends on
identifying customers' expectations accurately
and delivering the expected services
efficiently. Service providers are keen to
provide what customers expect, but might not
be as sensitive in assessing perceived service
levels. Perceptual maps are useful tools for
visualising expectation-perception gaps, and
thus provide service providers with an
opportunity to direct their scarce resources to
weak service dimensions.
The present study brings a new approach to
the service-quality evaluation process. Most
studies in the literature involve either simple
descriptive measures (for example, mean
scores) or certain statistical tests (for example,
t-tests, ANOVA, factor analysis) for
measuring service quality. Despite the
widespread use of such statistical tests, their
interpretation is often easier for scholars
rather than for practitioners. In contrast, the
present study illustrates the graphical
evaluation of service-quality dimensions. This
represents an efficient tool for practitioners
and managers who prefer not to use detailed
statistical procedures. Although CA is not a
substitute for quantitative study, it adds a
fresh dimension to exploratory and evaluative
research, and provides a clear picture of
quantitative data results (Whipple, 1994). For
those who would like to see statistical
precision of their assessment in addition to a
graphical representation, CA can be used in
conjunction with the existing methodologies.
CA enables tourism managers to visualise
their firms' comparative advantages and
disadvantages with respect to their service
dimensions.
This technique is also appropriate for
visualising the relations between demographic
variables and other data sets (for example,
service expectations). From a managerial
viewpoint, this market-based information is
crucial to strategy development because it
allows marketers to fine-tune their service mix
according to the target customer segment. As

has been suggested in similar studies (Javalgi

et al., 1992), the CA approach can also be
applied between competing firms and service
perceptions to develop positioning maps and
subsequent marketing strategies for long-term
tourist satisfaction.
Cultural differences
Cultural characteristics affect perceived
service quality (Espinoza, 1999) and, as more
and more service companies enter the
international arena, an understanding of this
issue will become an increasingly important
factor of success. As depicted in the present
findings, different cultural groups can have
different levels of expectations and
perceptions in terms of service-quality
dimensions. Furthermore, in different
cultural groups, these dimensions vary in
significance in determining satisfaction and
dissatisfaction. Tourism managers therefore
have to consider national differences in
providing satisfactory service to their
customers.
Limitations and future research
Some limitations of the present study must
also be acknowledged. First, this research
shows that cultural orientation as represented
by nationality can affect service-quality
evaluations. However, in cross-cultural
studies, it is of critical importance to cover all
cultural dimensions (such as power distance,
collectivism/individualism, masculinity/
femininity, and so on) for more grounded
inferences. Further research incorporating
additional cultural attributes could provide
stronger evidence on the subject. Second, the
present conclusions on German and Russian
tourists should be interpreted cautiously
because the present study did not use a
probability sample, and because the research
was not specifically based on nationality.
Third, although CA can allow easy
visualisation of the differences between items
being considered, and although it has several
advantages for practitioners and scholars, it
cannot provide exact distances between the
items. Therefore, it is best to combine it with
other statistical tests or use an alternative
approach such as the multi-dimensional
scaling technique (MDS). The problem with
the MDS, however, lies with its very detailed
data-collection requirements. Further

420

Mapping service quality in the tourism industry

Managing Service Quality

Volume 13 . Number 5 . 2003 . 412-422

Eda Atilgan, Serkan Akinci and Safak Aksoy

research on the above issues will contribute to

a better understanding of service quality in
the tourism industry.

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