Study on the Indicators of Taiwanese Tour Guides’ Service Quality

Jennifer Chen-Hua Min, Shu-Hua Chen, Mou-Yi Kao, Fu-Nan Hsu

Department of International Business, Ming Chuan University.

DOI: 10.4236/ib.2013.53B013                

Abstract

The tourism industry is considered a typical service industry, one in which the involvement of service components is relatively high. Serving and satisfying customers are fundamental goals of the tourism business, with service providers being part of the product itself. Given tour guides’ roles as intermediaries between tourists and an unfamiliar environment, special attention should be paid to the service quality of tour guides, as it has the potential to increase tourist satisfaction and produce measurable benefits in profits and market share. The aim of the study is therefore to build the quality indicators of tour guide services. In terms of research methodologies, a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches was conducted to reach the objectives. After both in-depth interviews and two rounds of focus group sessions, six dimensions (reliability, response, physical environment, guarantee, care and culture) and 30 indicators were obtained. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was applied to determine the weighting of various evaluation criteria on the indicators of Taiwanese tour guides’ service quality. Among the criteria, “The tour guides have a precise service attitude and execution ability.” was found to be the most important, while “During the trip, the tour guides dress properly.” ranked as the least important.

Keywords

Tour Guides; PZB Model; Focus Group; AHP

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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