Abstract

The importance of service quality for business performance has been recognized in the literature through the
direct effect on customer satisfaction and the indirect effect on customer loyalty. The main objective of the study
was to measure hotels' service quality performance from the customer perspective. To do so, a performance-only
measurement scale (SERVPERF) was administered to customers stayed in three, four and five star hotels in
Aqaba and Petra. Although the importance of service quality and service quality measurement has been
recognized, there has been limited research that has addressed the structure and antecedents of the concept for
the hotel industry. The clarification of the dimensions is important for managers in the hotel industry as it
identifies the bundles of service attributes consumers find important. The results of the study demonstrate that
SERVPERF is a reliable and valid tool to measure service quality in the hotel industry. The instrument consists
of five dimensions, namely "tangibles", "responsiveness", "empathy", "assurance" and "reliability". Hotel
customers are expecting more improved services from the hotels in all service quality dimensions. However,
hotel customers have the lowest perception scores on empathy and tangibles. In the light of the results, possible
managerial implications are discussed and future research subjects are recommended.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.