Barriers to improving service delivery in Malaysian hotels: Experts views on a proposed model

Tourism is an important industry that contributes at least 9 per cent of the world's GDP, and makes a significant contribution to the economic development of many countries. In Malaysia, for example, tourism is central to economic prosperity and is seen as a major catalyst for growth and development. While many Malaysian hotels are opulent, well-appointed hotels, service delivery tends to be inconsistent often failing to meet internationalstandards. This suggests that there is a need to develop a customized, industry-wide servicedelivery model that could assist hotel operators to improve service quality. A review of literature has found that there are countless service quality models that could be used todevelop an appropriate service improvement model for Malaysia. However, service sector researchers have recognised that businesses that develop motivated, customer consciousemployees achieve better service outcomes because employees who do not have confidencein the service that they are required to deliver are incapable of delivering services in a manner that meets or exceeds customer expectations. This would suggest that a suitable serviceimprovement model should focus primarily on the people dimension of service. The aims of this study were to test this proposition by exploring the current state of play in the Malaysianhotel sector by soliciting the views of key, industry experts. In depth interviews were used toexplore their perceptions of the importance of the people dimension in service delivery. Thedata obtained from this research process was then used to fashion a customised serviceimprovement model by extracting the most appropriate service improvement dimensionsfrom existing, empirically tested models found within the literature.