Tourism services quality

Tourism services quality (TourServQual) in Egypt
The viewpoints of external and internal customers




The Authors


Mohammed I. Eraqi, Tourism Studies Department, Faculty of Tourism & Hotels, Cairo University, Egypt


Abstract


Purpose – This research paper aims is to evaluate the customer's views related to tourism quality in Egypt. It attempts to measure the extent to which tourism business environment is creative and innovative as necessary conditions for internal customer satisfaction.

Design/methodology/approach – The objectives of this research have been achieved through reviewing a number of literatures in the fields of services quality management and tourism quality measurements. The paper's outcomes have been obtained through two surveys, one to measure the satisfaction of the internal customer (employees) and the second to measure the external customer satisfaction (tourists).

Findings – The main conclusions of this research paper are: quality can be considered as a philosophy for guiding tourism organization/destination when taking decisions related to tourism services; tourism business environment in Egypt does not support the internal customer satisfaction because the absence of a suitable system for encouraging people to be creative and innovative; and in the area of the external customer satisfaction there is still a need for things to be done such as the environmental conditions improvements, internal transport quality enhancement, increasing people awareness, and improving the level of safety and security conditions.

Research limitations/implications – There is a number of limitations which faced this paper research they are: the sample size is small, compared with the size of total population, that was reflected on the level of reliability of the research results; and the limited time allowed to the respondents was reflected on the validity of the research outcomes, because they interviewed at the last time of their journey by the time they are ready for departure.

Practical implications – A useful source of information about total quality management (TQM) and how practitioners can measure it. It provides wide guidelines for improving the quality of tourism services in total manner in Egypt.

Originality/value – This paper provides useful information that are needed for tourism services quality improvement. It offers a practical help to tourism planners and marketers in Egypt to understand the concept of TQM and how they can improve their services continually.

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Article Type: Research paper
Keyword(s): Tourism; Quality; Customer satisfaction; Egypt.


Benchmarking: An International Journal
Volume 13 Number 4 2006 pp. 469-492
Copyright © Emerald Group Publishing Limited ISSN 1463-5771

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Introduction


The complexity and globalisation of today's competitive business environments have made quality as one of the most important sources of competitive advantage for the tourism business enterprise/destination. Many leading quality organisations have started to exploit opportunities to face this situation and recognized the importance to have systematic processes to manage quality to gain and maintain this competitive position. Each business management is aware of the fierce competition in every sector and customer expectations have never been greater. It is no longer sufficient just to maintain a business; it is necessary to move forward if a business wants to achieve a sustainable future. Customer care, improvements in efficiency, effective marketing, benchmarking, staff training and development are all vital for survival and competitiveness in a changeable business environment.

To improve, means to change, and change can be stressful. There is no magic formula that can be applied to every business, but there are proven systems, such as quality management that can bring great benefits if it is applied in the right way. For business to be successful, the motivation to develop and implement a quality management system must be based on a clear understanding of the business aims and objectives. Whatever the size of the organisation and whatever the type of business, management will appreciate just how important quality is to the organization/destination's continued success.

After all, the term “quality” frequently leads to misunderstanding. A better understanding of the term is essential, particularly if the quality has been seen from a strategic viewpoint. However, the term quality has come to take on a broader meaning in the management of organisations. The total quality management (TQM) movement and other management philosophies have focused on the fitness of final products and services for stakeholders, have emphasised not only the product quality, but also the need to build quality into the production and delivery processes of the organisation and have stressed the importance of employee involvement in process redesign and commitment to the improvement of the final tourism product or service.

Tourism as a business is asserting itself as the engine of Egypt's economic development. In 1982 Egypt hosted about one million visitors. By 2003, that figure has risen to 6.0 million visitors and it has continued to rise, despite the political turbulence of the last few years. Egypt's tourist facilities and destinations are able to compete well by following tourism quality standards and sustainable tourism models.

Owing to the customer-oriented service endeavours, tourism enterprises, either private or public, need to improve service offerings by determining the needs of their target groups. Exploring the current ratings of customer expectations and customer perceptions on specific service attributes provides a tool for management in order to improve the service quality of the firm. Within this context, this study aims at determining the current service quality level of tourism services in Egypt.

This paper endeavors to evaluate the customer overview related to tourism quality in Egypt. Also, measuring the extent to which tourism business environment in Egypt is creative and innovative.



Quality definitions and implication


Quality in service industries has both static and dynamic dimensions (Day and Peters, 1994). The static dimension represents the expectation of the customers, that always changes over time as extra facilities such as in-flight meals become the rule rather than the exception. Dynamic dimension of quality occurs during service delivery and offers opportunities for the customer to be delighted by the extra efforts of staff to, for example, address the customer tangible product which is a primary cause of customer dissatisfaction, but dynamic quality is not achieved easily. By definition, spontaneous acts of dynamic quality, cannot be pre-arranged or scripted, but are nevertheless an important means of customer satisfaction (Ingram et al., 1997).

There are many definitions and implications for the quality as a concept. The main definitions and implications are summarised in Table I.

Whatever the definition of quality is, for success in a highly competitive tourism market, a tourism enterprise/destination has to make sure it is providing the goods or services that the customer wants; it gets its quality right; and that it delivers on time. This leads to customer satisfaction and achieving a suitable level of profits. Quality in service delivery leads to more repeated visits and greater sales revenue. This enables serving staff on performance-related pay to earn more and enhance the quality of their service to the customer. In addition, the extra profit generated enables tourism enterprise/destination management to invest in upgrading facilities to the customer and in training schemes beside creating innovative business environment for tourism services improvement.



The philosophy of quality


Deregulation and globalization have increased competitive pressures, helping to bring down prices and to improve the quality of services provided by professional tourism enterprises/destinations. From this standpoint, what it is needed is to enforce compliance with safety and environmental regulations and new working conditions. The 1980s witnessed many service industries placing increased emphasis on managing quality. Traditional ideas of quality, which had evolved from manufacturing industries and had been based on the conformance to the standards defined by operation management, began to be replaced by customer-focused notions. This required close consideration of what the customer wanted and how their needs could be met. Different dimensions of service were defined and customer satisfaction, considered to be the gab between perceived and expected service, was assessed. Quality management began to be viewed as an overall process which involved everybody from top management down to junior staff rather than just to do with concentrating on the employee-customer interaction. New approaches such as TQM and the continuous improvement programmes began to be applied by an increasing number of service industries (Souty, 2003; Lockwood and Guerrier, 1989).

However, the source of competitive advantage is found firstly in the ability of the organization to differentiate itself, in the eyes of the consumer, from its competitors and secondly by operating at a lower cost and hence at greater profit. This requires examining consumer service under three conditions (Lalonde and Zinszer, 1976):

pre-transaction elements;
transaction elements; and
post-transaction elements.
Quality of service attracts new customers and ensures consumer retention. Consumer retention provides a higher profit contribution and has to grow in terms of the value and frequency of purchases. The importance of customer retention is underlined by the concept of the “lifetime value” of a customer. The life time value of a customer is calculated as follows (Christopher, 1998): Equation 1 A successful business would better serve its shareholders' needs by focusing on customers, employees, suppliers and the wider community (Mann et al., 1999). Culture management is an important aspect of leadership and plays a great role in creating positive business environment for innovating and changing to the best. This is vital to continuous improvements. It deals with the ability of leaders to know and understand what the organization culture is, modifying that culture to meet the needs of the organization as it progresses. Organizations that have tried to proactively exploit new opportunities in the environment experienced successful culture change (Baron, 1995; Horner, 1997). The development of employees empowerment and autonomy beside their participations in decision-making process are very important for ensuring tourism quality.

As Hamel and Prahalad (1993, p. 76) have commented “long term competitiveness depends on manager's willingness to challenge continually their managerial frame” to maximize their benefits from the new opportunities and minimize the negative effects. This needs to create an atmosphere of generosity, freedom and safety in which innovation can flourish. Effective knowledge management is essential to innovation and it also needs an atmosphere of generosity, freedom and safety if it is to act as the river on which innovation can sail (Brand, 1998, p. 17). For example, The Ritz-Carlton fosters a work environment where diversity is valued, quality of life is enhanced, individual aspiration are fulfilled, and The Ritz-Carlton mystique is strengthened. The Ritz-Carlton pledges to provide excellent personal service and facilities for its customers who will always enjoy a warm, relaxed yet refined ambience.

Customization has begun to play an important role in the tourism industry. Tourism operators are attempting to gain a competitive edge by catering for the individual needs of clients. The tourist product has thus been transformed over time from being completely dominated by mass tourism to an industry that is quite diversified and caters more to the individual needs of its participants, for example, the niche market has become an important factor in the tourism industry reflecting the need to diversify and customize the industry and ensure the sustainability of the product … the main nich markets such as sports travel, spa and health care, adventure and nature tourism, cultural tourism, theme parks, cruise ships, religious travel and others hold great potential and are developing rapidly. So, suppliers will have to pay more attention to the way people think, feel and behave than they have done hitherto. The increased travel experience, flexibility and independent nature of the new tourists are generating demand for better quality, more value for money and greater flexibility in the travel experience.

In general terms, customer satisfaction is seen as the essential determinant of business success (Moore et al., 1998). On the other hand, as the competition has increased, service quality has been identified as a determinant of market share, return on investment and cost reduction; thus it is seen as critical to corporate success (Burch et al., 1995). There are three essential factors that have forced the firms focusing on quality (Lockwood, 1994). These are: the style of offering the goods and services; technological developments providing new service challenges, although the personal contact is highly valued as an important theme; and, finally, increase in competition and international markets. Within this context, evaluating service quality offered to customers is essential, and several evaluation models have been developed (Parasuraman et al., 1985; Cronin and Taylor, 1992; Cheung and Law, 1998). The most known and used models are SERVQUAL, SERVPERF, TQS and ISQM. The widely used model is SERVQUAL developed by Parasuraman et al. (1985). The SERVQUAL model consists of 22 items on service attributes, which are grouped along the five dimensions of tangibles, reliability, assurance, responsiveness, and empathy. On the other hand, the SERVPERF model developed by Cronin and Taylor (1992) includes these 22 items of SERVQUAL. What are additional in the SERVPERF model are the overall ratings of satisfaction, perceived service quality and purchasing intention. The main difference between SERVQUAL and SERVPERF is the focus of SERVPERF underlying the fact that customer satisfaction is the result of (mostly) service quality. As the case is based on public services and firms/institutions, the current structure – mainly bureaucratic – is not compatible with the implementation of quality. The centralized organizational structure of public firms retains new incentives to be conducted. Thus, the efforts of managers of these firms play important roles in applying service quality incentives.



Tourism product quality


Tourism is a highly competitive industry, and tourism enterprise sector can no longer compete on the basis of cost alone. Quality is, therefore, a key element for the competitiveness of the tourism industry. It is also important for the sustainable tourism development of the industry and for creating and improving jobs. Therefore, promoting quality in tourism and tourist products is a priority in different tourism activities.

However, the main reasons behind the complexity of measuring quality in tourism could be summarized as follows (CEC, 2001):

First there is the continuation of significant growth in tourism demand and the volume of tourism in tourist destinations, along with diverging developments in the various types of tourism. An appropriate response to these changes may be found only through the emergence of new types of tourism and control mass tourism for the sake of quality.
The lack of skilled manpower for certain jobs, mainly because of the working conditions that may not encourage creative and innovation; the development of transport and its effect on flows, service quality, sustainable development and environmental protection; and the adoption and incorporation of new information and communication technologies as a factor of competitiveness.
Tourism is a service sector with a particularly complex product which depends on an extremely fragmented supply. Each link in the tourism value chain (travel agencies, tour operators, carriers, hoteliers, restaurateurs, etc.) offers one element in the overall product. Together, these components determine tourists' experiences and their appreciation of the quality of the service. The tourist destination is the main place of consumption of tourist services and, therefore, the location and place of activity of tourist businesses. Tourists identify the product with both the businesses providing a service and the destination visited.
For a big number of people tourism activity does not meet a vital need, tourist behaviour is particularly volatile and subject to psychological and social influences, personal sensitivities and short-term reactions. If the image of just one link in the chain is affected, it is the whole tourism value chain that suffers the consequences. The foot-and-mouth epidemic and the various oil slicks that have affected European coastlines in the recent past have already shown the negative effect of a current event on the image of a tourist destination or region, to the immediate detriment of the tourism industry.
The tourism product is extremely diverse. Natural and cultural resources, tourist facilities, the communications infrastructure, accommodation and restaurants are the basic resources of a tourist destination. The combination of local tourism resources and the services offered determines the type of tourism to which a destination belongs, such as coastal or mountain tourism, sport or religious tourism, thermal or gastronomic tourism and, of course, business tourism.
In addition, vertical interdependence between tourism businesses is more pronounced than in most other sectors of the economy. Such interdependence, which also exists at world level, results in what are sometimes complex structures and trends in commercial relations. Apart from businesses and their representative organisations, destinations, with their different activities, combining public and private interests, are important stakeholders.
Because of its diversity and fragmented nature, the tourism sector has no clear identity. This may, in part, explain why tourism has featured little at a political level, compared with its economic and social importance.
The diversity of the business environment and the public and private stakeholders involved in tourism, its effect on many other economic activities, its very wide social and emotional dimension and the geographically dispersed and very variable consumption of the product mean that tourism is of a very pronounced horizontal nature. A large number, if not the majority, of political fields may directly affect it considerably, such as those for enterprise, transport and regional development. The annual report on community measures affecting tourism, which the commission drew up at the same time as this communication, provides detailed information on this subject.
For tourism organization, to deal with these challenges successfully and to be able to measure quality in tourism, it is necessary to take the following factors into consideration when deciding tourism quality strategy:
the fundamental role of information, knowledge and its dissemination;
the need for competent human resources motivated by medium and long-term prospects;
the integration of environmental policy and the promotion of sustainable tourism;
recognition of the need for European harmonization of the concept of quality of tourism services and infrastructures, and its assessment and monitoring;
the need to speed up the integration of information society tools and services in all tourism activities and businesses, in particular SMEs;
the need for a network of the stakeholders involved and a generalized partnership, particularly between those in the field to ensure implementation of all the recommendations; and
overall, the quality and satisfaction levels are average. Education for managers and service personnel is the main proposal for the improvement in service quality and consumer satisfaction.



Tourism quality requirements


According to world tourism organization program quality in tourism could be defined as:

… the result of a process which implies the satisfaction of all the legitimate product and service needs, requirements and expectations of the consumer, at an acceptable price, in conformity with the underlying quality determinants such as safety and security, hygiene, accessibility, transparency, authenticity and harmony of the tourism activity concerned with its human and natural environment.


This definition could be summarized in what is called consumer value equation (Fitzsimmons and Fitzsimmons, 2001): Equation 2 The analysis of each term used in this definition suggests concrete actions which can be evaluated from the perspective of quality criteria (Myburgh, 2001; WTO, 1991, 1993, 1995):

“Result” implies that quality is attained and perceived at a given time. It cannot be in place without harmonious and active engagement of all the factors intervening in tourism experience. The “result” can be measured by consumer satisfaction as well as by social, environmental and economic effects of the tourism activity concerned.
“Process” means that a single undertaking is not sufficient to attain quality. Work towards quality always has to be in place, it cannot discontinue because of the temporarily attained quality result. It also implies a seamless or flawless process in which it is possible to identify and do away with the constrains of a supply which spoil the tourism product and are responsible for direct and indirect losses to the company or destination. Also it is necessary to note that because the customer is a participant in the service delivery, improvement in process quality must be acceptable to customers.
“Satisfaction” introduces the elements of subjectivity in quality perception. According to their characteristics, customers have different requirements and expectations. Informed quality-driven marketing caters to these characteristics and attempts to identify consumers according to the different types and levels of perceived quality. This should be achieved with suitable prices levels.
“Legitimate” brings into the analysis the elements of rights and entitlement. Consumers cannot expect to receive more than what they remunerate by payment or what has been determined by social and environmental limits. The role of tourism planners and entrepreneurs is to relate quality types and levels to remuneration and external limitations, taking into consideration the private and social costs relating to providing or offering tourism services.
The notion of “needs” follows on the concern for legitimacy and looks for satisfying people's basic and vital needs which should never be overlooked while bringing into tourism projects and programmes the other aspects with a view to introducing attractions, strengthening experiences, etc. The needs are primarily related to the underlying quality determinants, although over time the expectations related to the type and volume of “basic needs” change and usually increase. Basic needs of the past are not exactly the basic needs of today.
The notion of “product requirements” emphasizes the need to relate a single service and facility use to the whole product and the total tourism experience. One good quality service is not sufficient to give rise to tourism product quality perception, although an excellent service may positively impress the consumer to make him or her close their eyes to shortcomings and defects experienced elsewhere in the tourism product.
The term “service requirements” relates quality to its human, personal and personnel dimensions which are often intangible and apparently difficult to measure, evaluate and quantify in contrast with the physical attributes of tourism facilities which are used primarily in facility classifications or grading. However, certain service elements are quantifiable, for example, waiting time, frequency of service (e.g. cleaning), the number and type of services included in the basic price, etc.
The term “expectations” relates to the requirement of positive communication and perception of the product characteristics to the potential consumer. There should be no negative surprises at the time of delivery of a service or supply of a product, the consumer must receive what has been promised (or even more). Expectations should also be legitimate, there are limits to expectations, some expectations cannot be fulfilled even at a very high price which can be offered.
The term “consumer” relates to individual (end) consumers, who may include groups of people (e.g. a family), corporate consumers (e.g. a company purchasing an incentive trip) and commercial intermediaries (e.g. a tour operator). The latter may request that the product quality be assessed and certified by its own representative or a recognized external third party.
“Acceptable price” suggests that the client's expectations reflected in the price cannot be attained at any cost, and that “positive surprises” should not be too generous, otherwise this may imply excessive allocation of resources which do not receive adequate remuneration. If quality is guaranteed and the product is exceptional, there should be no expectation that it should be sold cheap.
“The underlying quality determinants” suggest that there should be common, irrevocable criteria of quality which are vital for the consumer independently of category or class of the product, establishment, facility or service sophistication. They establish the minimum level of consumer protection under which quality, or total quality, is impossible to achieve, or when failing to meet any of such determinants will significantly reduce the quality of tourism experience.



Tourism quality standards


World Tourism Organisation (WTO, 2003) has designed six standards for tourist product or service that have to be put into consideration when tourism enterprise/destination management is taking decision related to tourism product design and marketing. These standards could be summarized as follows:

Safety and security. A tourism product or service cannot represent danger to life, damage to health and other vital interests and integrity of the consumer (even if we talk about “adventure tourism”). Safety and security standards are normally established by law (e.g. by fire prevention regulations) and should be considered as quality standards per se.
Hygiene. For example, an accommodation facility just has to be safe and clean, one cannot pretend that such requirements are more important to high-class establishments. Food safety standards (often also established by law) must be met and be common to all types of food outlets, from street vendors to luxury gourmet restaurants to airline catering.
Accessibility. This determinant requires that physical, communication and service barriers must be done away with to allow, without discrimination, the use of mainstream tourism products and services by all people irrespective of their natural and acquired differences, including people with disabilities.
Transparency. It is a key element to provide for legitimacy of expectations and consumer protection. It relates to providing and effectively communicating truthful information on the characteristics and coverage of the product and its total price. In includes to state what is covered by the price and what is not in the product on supply.
Authenticity. In a commercial world, authenticity is the hardest and most subjective quality determinant to attain. It also has marketing and competition dimensions. Authenticity is culturally determined and one of its results is making the product markedly distinct from other similar products. Authenticity must meet consumer expectations. It diminishes and eventually terminates when the product loses its links with its cultural and natural background. In this sense, a “genuine” ethnic restaurant can never be entirely authentic in a place distinct from its original setting. This does not mean that such an establishment cannot be an attraction and that it cannot be assessed from the viewpoint of quality with respect to production (content and design), marketing, distribution, sale and delivery of the service concerned. A theme park representing other lands and far away cultures is a good example of an initially artificial tourism product which may create an authenticity and a quality image of its own. On the other hand, an authentic product can also develop and adapt to needs and expectations.
Harmony. Harmony with the human and natural environment pertains to sustainability which is a medium- and long-term concept. “Maintaining the sustainability of tourism requires managing environmental and socio-economic impacts, establishing environmental indicators and maintaining the quality of the tourism products and tourist markets” (WTO Guide for Local Authorities on Developing Sustainable Tourism (WTO, 2003)). There can be no sustainability without quality.
Quality should be implemented through a comprehensive system under the condition of consistency and harmony for the quality system components or its subsystems (value chain components).



Value creation management


The creation of value is managed through what is called supply chain or value chain (Dumond, 2000), which refers to a series of integrated, dependent processes and activities within/outside a tourism business enterprise through which value is transferred to the final customers. This new managerial system for managing the value creation processes concentrates on:

create improvements in the tourism product or service that increase the tourist's sense of its worth; or
reduce operation costs through the chain.
It is necessary to involve the customer in internal operations by incorporating customer feedback into improving tourism product/service or process quality, placing customers on internal teams or linking them into the company's information system. Also involvement of the suppliers in the tourism company's operations is equally essential in value management. These procedures give the tourism enterprise/destination the opportunity to gain a competitive advantage and improve its product/service quality by:
responding quickly to customers' needs and requirements with new ideas and technologies;
anticipating and tailoring product/service according to what exactly customers' demand characteristics are; and
personalizing the tourism product/service provided.
However, meeting customer expectations is not enough to be a world class organizations. A world class organization expands on these expectations to the levels that competitors find difficult to meet. Management is proactive in promoting higher standards of performance and identifying new business opportunities by listening to customers. World class service organization such as Disney, Marriott, and American Airlines define the quality standards by which others are judged.



Quality system management


Quality has become a major interest of public and private tourism business enterprises, according to the tourism market evolution, in terms of both supply of new tourism services and the increasing complexity of tourists' demand. Such a crucial issue requires a comprehensive approach and a more definite integration among all the factors involved in tourism.

Policies improving the quality of tourism services production and delivery should be matched with both the features of the destination and the explicit/implicit customers' expectation. It is only through this synergy that competition, rising from the value of global supply and its perception and evaluation by clients, can be met and challenged.

An integrated approach to quality management is necessary because so many different elements affect the tourist's perception of a destination (such as transport, accommodation, information, attractions, the environment, etc.). Integrated quality management needs to take into account tourist businesses, tourists' interests, the local population and the environment, and to have a positive impact on all of them.

It is not sufficient to inspect, control, or assure quality in order to achieve customer satisfaction. TQM requires the application of quality management rules and principles to every component and at every level of the organization. Everyone should be committed to continuous improvement in their part of the operation. Through this participation and commitment, with the use of different tools and techniques that the TQM concept has adopted or developed, quality can be managed effectively. As a result the quality system will be capable to minimize errors, to ensure continuous improvement leading to excellence and to delight the customer (Augustyn, 1998; Creech, 1994; Juran, 1964). Recent researchers and experts have proved that the concept of TQM is currently the best possible strategy for building quality management system to achieve or gain competitive advantage through achieving customer satisfaction (Wilson et al., 1995; Eraqi, 2002). However, from the view points of relationships between the quality system's subsystems, there are some shortages they are:

Lack of advanced processes as a result they are based on the use of basic quality management methods that have been developed at the lowest level of inspection and quality control by setting basic quality objectives and standards depending on basic statistics. In some cases quality assurance instruments techniques have been applied like certificates and rewards.
Lack of comprehensiveness because quality management techniques are applied in a selective manner without taking TQM concepts as a comprehensive philosophy. These quality-management processes have inadequate tools of monitoring and feedback.
Lack of consistency, inconsistency results from the incompatibility of subsystems' objectives with the quality objectives of the whole system.
For example, a room of top quality standard as a hotel X' objective, is not in a position to compensate the unfriendly and inhospitable behaviour of the hotel staff. Several small tourism enterprises base their processes on the concept of inspection or quality control, independently of the national or regional quality requirements.

In view of the fact that the great majority of public and private tourism organizations are aware of and interested in quality improvement in tourism, the employment of inappropriate tourism quality systems has been associated with the major source of current quality problems in tourism. These problems are reflected in an increasing number of customers dissatisfied with their total tourism experience. The lack and incapability of securing an advanced, comprehensive, and consistent quality-management process constitutes the major weakness of tourism quality systems. Shortcomings in the systems' inputs and its relations with the suppliers make it impossible for the quality systems of individual tourism enterprises to close the quality perception gap and quality control gap. None of the existing tourism quality systems is in a position to introduce the required changes that would enable them to conform to the conditions of tourism quality enhancement. Therefore, a new tourism quality system, based on co-operative links among private, public and voluntary organizations and operating within a tourism destination area, has been proposed. The establishment of a total quality tourism consortium, TQTC, within the framework of this system enables quality enhancement inasmuch as the TQTC is in a position to:

secure adequate inputs and close the tourism quality perception gap;
develop an advanced, comprehensive and consistent quality-management process that converts the inputs into outputs (total quality tourism products); and
manage effectively the relationships with the external environment and the suppliers in particular with the result of bridging the tourism quality control gap.
The conceptual model of service quality (SERVQUAL), developed by Parasuraman et al. (1990), is regarded as an important tool for identifying quality improvement areas within individual service organisations in relation to enhancing customer satisfaction. The model measures tangible and intangible elements of the service and investigates gaps in the customer-supplier chain to highlight target areas where quality may be improved. These gaps include the gap between:
customers' expectations and management's perceptions of customers expectations;
management's perceptions of customers' expectations and service quality specifications;
service quality specifications and service delivery;
service delivery and external communications to customers; and
customers' expectations and perceived services.
The success of SERVQUAL as a concept depends, however, on circumstances in which a tourism destination area attempts to survive, grow and improve the quality of tourist products or services.



Policies for tourism quality continuous improvements


Quality is the perception by the tourist of the extent to which his expectations are met by his experience of the product. Quality is not to be equated to luxury, and must not be exclusive, but must be available to all tourists, including those who are with special needs. The tourist product should be seen as the destination and process resulting in the tourist's overall experience. The key stakeholders are organisations fulfilling the roles of: policy makers, destination management and quality control; suppliers of tourist sub-products; commercial intermediaries; training suppliers; the guests, and the host population.

The assessment of the contribution of relevant community policies and programmes to quality in tourism revealed the following policy areas as particularly relevant to quality development: structural policies; consumer protection; environmental policies; transport and enterprise policies. Of these, the structural funds offered the most potential to directly influence quality improvement in tourism.

There are four priority areas requiring specific efforts, they are:

Indicators for the measurement of the quality improvement process. Quality improvement is a cyclical and continuing process, and as such must be able to be measured and evaluated. A list of appropriate indicators is regarded as a management tool for use by those who are responsible for the different aspects of quality improvement, e.g. destination management.
Benchmarking. Benchmarking of destinations will help to ensure quality improvement and could benefit from common quality indicators. It should be a voluntary exercise, led by the destinations, supported by information-exchange procedures based on networking.
Non-financial support for tourism SMEs implementing quality systems. E.g. consultancy, business advice, flora and fauna, etc. should be improved to encourage adoption of a quality approach, this in preference to direct financial aid, which risks distorting local competition.
More intensive use of structural funds to improve the quality of tourist products. The structural funds should concentrate resources on creating the framework for tourism business development, rather than supporting individual enterprises or destinations, (e.g. through training, infrastructure improvement, non-financial business support). Tourism authorities should be actively integrated into the implementation and operation of structural fund programmes. There is a need for better dissemination of information on the operation of structural funds programmes throughout the tourism industry.



Tourism services quality in Egypt


On the basis of the above analysis, quality can be considered as a philosophy for guiding tourism business' managers in taking their managerial decisions on the level of all tourism enterprise/destination's departments. For achieving tourism services quality (TServQual) tourism organization management has to ensure that fulfilment of three requirements:

internal customer satisfaction;
external customer satisfaction;quality-management process; and
achieving the efficiency of processes.
In the context of this philosophy of quality, this paper depends on the first two factors for evaluating TServQual in Egypt, from the view points of the internal customers (employees) and the external customers (tourists) assuming that the efficiency of processes has been fulfilled.



Research methodology


The research sample frame is based on two groups. The first one is the number of direct employees in the Egyptian tourism sector which amounted to 1.2 million employees in the year 2001 (ETF, 2001). The second is the number of departures at Cairo Airport which amounted to 252,000 in average per month (Egypt, 2001). Sample size of the first group is 500 employees and 700 tourists for the second group. These two samples sizes have been decided according to the outcomes of discussions with tourism experts from the Tourism Training and Research Department (TTRD) of Ministry of Tourism.

There are two questionnaires, one for the employees to measure the internal customer satisfaction indicators (employee satisfaction). The other questionnaire is designed for tourists to measure the external customer satisfaction level (tourist satisfaction). The questions of both questionnaires have been chosen according to the output points of two pilot studies and discussion with ten tourism experts from the tourism experts from the TTRD. Data has been collected through distributing 500 questionnaires among employees from 50 Egyptian tourist companies who have worked in the tourism sector for at least two years. Among tourists at Cairo Airport and the Egyptian Museum, 700 questionnaires have been distributed. The questions of both questionnaires have been designed based on the outcome of reviewing the relevant literature and with the help of the experts of TTRD. The two samples items (employees and tourists) have been chosen randomly.

Likert scale has been used to measure the indicators of employee satisfaction. This scale involves a serious of questions or statements related to the attitude in question. The respondent is required to indicate degree of agreement or disagreement with each of these statements, and responses are given a numerical score that will consistently reflect the direction of the person's attitudes on each question/statement. The respondent's total score is computed by summing scores for all statement and the final measure depends on the percentage of each indicator (Kinnear and Taylor, 1991).

Based on Likert scale it has been suggested three options (good, fair, and weak) for each question/statement to measure the external customer satisfaction.

Questionnaires have been distributed and collected under the supervision of TTRD of the Ministry of Tourism.

The validity and reliability of these processes are based on the outcomes of discussions with the Egyptian tourism experts and the inter- items statistical correlation indicators. The inter-items correlations, according to the results of using SPSS Ver. 10, range from 0.749 to 0.972 for employee satisfaction indicators and from 0.601 to 0.971 for tourists satisfaction indicators. The α value (Cronbach's α coefficient) for the scale of employees satisfaction indicators is 0.9915 and the corrected item – total correlation ranges from 0.9699 to 0.8628. For the scale of tourists satisfaction indicators, the alpha value is 0.9749 and the corrected item – total correlation ranges from 0.9724 to 0.8287. In both two cases the value of alpha is above 0.7000 and the range of corrected item – total correlation is greater than 0.3000. So the scale of satisfaction indicators that both two cases can be considered reliable with the two chosen samples (Pallant, 2001).

However, there is a number of limitations which faced this research as follows:

the sample size is small, compared with the size of total population, that was reflected on the level of reliability of the research results; and
the limited time allowed to the respondents was reflected on the validity of the research outcomes, because they are interviewed at the last time of their journey by the time they are ready for departure.



The internal customer satisfaction


For achieving this task there were 500 questionnaires which have been distributed among employees and managers from 50 tourist companies based on a random technique. The internal customer satisfaction is measured as follows.



The mean of employees satisfaction indicators


Table II demonstrates the statistical mean of employees satisfaction indicators.

It is clear that the statistical mean of the internal customer satisfaction indicators ranges from 2.4 to 3.7. The location of this range is between the scale of “agree” and the scale of “neither agree nor disagree” with standard deviation that ranges from 0.9755 to 1.4121. This result indicates that the level of the internal customer satisfaction is still less than the accepted level from the view points of employee.



Proportional distribution of responses of employees


Table III shows the proportional distribution of responses of employees.

It is clear from the previous table that the internal customer (employees) satisfaction is weak because the average of satisfaction percentage has ranged from 32 per cent for disagree scale and 12 per cent for strongly disagree, and there is only 28 per cent from the total sample (500 employees) who are satisfied (28 per cent for agree). This result does not compatible with total quality requirements. This result is supported by the following criteria:

Tourism organization management towards quality as criterion is relatively weak because there is 36 per cent from the employees agree and 13 per cent strongly agree, however, there is 29 per cent with the scale of disagree and 9 per cent with the scale of strongly disagree.
The health of tourism business environment indicates that 31 per cent from the total sample does not support this criterion (31 per cent disagree) and 15 per cent strongly disagree, and there is 26 per cent support this indicator (26 per cent agree) and 11 per cent is strongly agree.
Offering suitable opportunities for training and a fair mechanism for performance measurements as criterion for internal customer satisfaction is weak because there is only 21 per cent agrees and 13 per cent strongly agree, and there 37 per cent does not support this indicator (37 disagree) and 12 per cent strongly disagree.
Figure 1 shows the percentage of general average of the internal customer satisfaction indicators.



External customer satisfaction


External customer satisfaction as dependent variable of equality, from the viewpoints of tourists, has been measured depending upon a number of criteria such as:

the general evaluation of tourism services in Egypt;
the extent to which tourists are satisfied with hotel's services;
customer value related to tourism services' prices;
level of services at accommodations;
internal transport quality;
the extent to which tourism services prices at suitable levels; and
tourist desire to repeat his/her visit to Egypt.
The next tables explains the tourists' points of view related to these criteria, based on a survey distributed among 700 tourists whom are interviewed at International Cairo Airport and the Egyptian Museum.



The mean of tourists satisfaction indicators


Table IV explains the statistical mean of tourist satisfaction indicators.

According to the previous table the statistical mean is more than 2 (the scale of fair) which means that the level of TServQual in Egypt is accepted from the view points of tourists.



Proportional distribution of responses of tourists


Table V shows the proportional distribution of responses of tourists.

The results show that the average of external customer satisfaction (tourists satisfaction) with tourism services in Egypt ranges from 71 per cent to the scale of good, 18 per cent for the scale of weak to 11 per cent for the scale of fair. However, the general evaluation of tourism services, from the viewpoints of tourists, in Egypt is good.

The weakness point may attributed to the internal transport quality criterion which scored 60 per cent for the scale of good.

There is 22 per cent of tourists do not like to repeat their visit to Egypt for the following reasons (according to the analysis of tourists viewpoints):

the weakness of infrastructure's services levels, 40 per cent;
unsuitable environmental conditions, 30 per cent;
bad behaviour of people, 20 per cent; and
unsuitable safety and security conditions, 10 per cent.
Figure 2 shows the percentage of general average of the external customer satisfaction indicators.



Conclusions


This paper has tried to examine the concept of quality as a philosophy that guides tourism organization management when taking decision related to tourism services as well as determining TServQual improvements' requirements applied to tourism services in Egypt.

The main conclusions of this paper can be summarized as follows:

For improving tourism service quality it is necessary to achieve three requirements:
internal customer satisfaction (employee satisfaction);
external customer satisfaction (tourists satisfaction); and
the efficiency of processes.
For quality improvements it is necessary to be a creative and innovative business environment which support the employee new ideas and their participating in making decision processes.
It is important to be a wide range of empowerment to give the employee the opportunities to behave positively according to the condition he/she faces in tourism competitive markets.
In the case of Egypt it is necessary to restructure tourism business sector to be a kind of cooperation between tourism enterprises such as strategic alliances in the field of information technology, strategic marketing, etc.
Business environment in the Egyptian tourism sector still has a number of weaknesses that do not support the internal customer satisfaction for the following reasons:
there is no suitable system for encouraging people to be creative (or to be innovative) and participate in decision making processes;
the weakness of empowerment levels within tourism business enterprises; and
the style of family business management overwhelmed tourism business sector in Egypt and this put obstacles in the way of creativity and innovation.
Tourism services levels are quite suitable, in general, from the viewpoints of tourists (external customers).
There is a lot of efforts need to be done for TServQual improvement in Egypt in areas of infrastructure services, the environmental conditions, the safety and security conditions, increasing people awareness, and the internal transport quality.
It is necessary to be an effective system for designing and implementing more efficient quality control measures in the areas of food safety, security and the environmental tourism activities.
It is necessary to be a kind of co-operation between tourism government institutions and tourism private sector in the fields of tourism product safety and tourism crisis management for improving TServQual in Egypt.


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Equation 1
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Equation 2
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Figure 1 Likert scale indicators of the internal customer attitudes
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Figure 2 The grade of the external customer satisfaction indicators
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Table I Quality definitions and implications
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Table II Internal customer satisfaction indicators descriptive statistics
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Table III Internal customer satisfaction indicators
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Table IV External customer satisfaction indicators descriptive statistics
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Table V External customer satisfaction indicators

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