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Sservice Quality And Customer Satisfaction

Service quality has been recognized as a key factor in differentiating service products. Customer satisfaction can be secured through high quality products and services (Getty & Getty, 2003; Gupta & Chen, 1995; Tsang & Qu, 2000). Edvardsson (1996) reflected that the concept of service should be approached from the customer's point of view, since it was his/her perception of the outcome that constituted the service. Customers may have different values and different grounds for assessment and most of the time they may want to acquire the same service in different ways. The concept of service quality has been the subject of many research studies in variety of service industries, attention and even research towards hospitality industry has been growing. However, these research studies were mostly focused on Australia, Korea, the United States and Europe. Only a minimal number of research studies related to service quality in the hospitality industry in the Malaysian society could be found throughout the process of a literature review. Furthermore, today's tourism business environment and the multicultural diversity of international tourists points to the importance of developing a better understanding of the culturally different tourist (Reisinger & Turner, 1999). Previous studies reported that people from different cultures have different preferences, expectations and so travel consumption patterns (Wong & Kwong 2003). Cultural differences in value orientations and social behavior have direct impacts on tourist holiday experiences. The hosts' ability to respond effectively to a culturally different tourist was an important element determining positive tourist holiday experiences and satisfaction (Reisinger & Turner 1999). As mentioned by Camison (1996), poorness or non - existence of customer satisfaction measuring systems could cause the hotel companies to be lacking in market orientation. Attributes of the service and product that add value for the customer and...