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ABSTRACT
This study attempted at assessing the level of customer satisfaction and service quality in Hotel Industry. To this end, descriptive research method was employed. Data for this investigation was collected from 390 respondents of sampled SNNPRS hotels/Restaurants employing convenient sampling. The measurements used were based on widely accepted SERVQUAL model. A descriptive statistics analysis percentage, mean and gap analysis was used to see the gap between customers' perceptions and their actual expectation. The result revealed that Hotels/Restaurants in SNNPRS do not met the service expectations of their customers because there is a significant gap between the perceptions and expectations. Among the Modified five dimensions of service quality, the highest negative gap score belongs to Assurance and Tangibility. Furthermore, the study also found that the lowest negative gap score is examined in responsiveness dimensions of service quality. Therefore, SNNPRS hotels and Restaurants needs to better understand their customers and continuously measure and evaluate their service quality performance in order to improve service quality based on customers' perception.
Keywords: Service Quality, Customer Satisfaction, SERVQUAL.
1.INTRODUCTION
Customer satisfaction is a critical success factor in service organizations. Hotel industries in developing countries also have to compete with others and have to satisfy local and international customers, because, today's customers are more aware, educated and open to a lot of information through web sources, internet, bulletins, magazines, journals, articles, etc., (Armstrong, Mok et al. 1997; Padma and Rajendran 2010)
Customer satisfaction is a key to building lasting relationships with consumers. Satisfied customers repurchase the service, recommend and encourage others to use the service, develop positive word of mouth toward the service and the organization, pay less attention to competitive brands and advertising, are less sensitive to price and buy other services. (Zekiri 2011)
A dissatisfied consumer, on the other hand, responds differently. As a satisfied customer tells people about a good service experience, dissatisfied customer complains to even more people than a satisfied customer does. Research indicates unfavourable word of mouth travels farther and faster than favourable word of mouth and can quickly damage consumer attitudes about a company and its services. Therefore, a company should try to measure customer satisfaction regularly. By studying the overall interest and the decision making process of buyers, service delivering organizations might...