The relationship among tourist satisfaction, tourism service quality and tourists loyalty

RESEARCH PROJECT
(BMBR5103)

THE RELATIONSHIPS AMONG TOURIST
SATISFACTION, TOURISM SERVICE
QUALITY AND TOURISTS LOYALTY

STUDENT’S FULL NAME
STUDENT ID
INTAKE
ADVISOR’S NAME & TITLE

: NGUYEN THI HA MY TRAM
: CGS00018498
: SEP 2014
: ASSOC.PROF.DR. PHAN DINH NGUYEN

December 2015


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ABSTRACT

This paper aims to examine the relationship between tourism service quality,
tourism loyalty and tourism satisfaction expectations in hotel industry. In this paper,
the service quality standard model has been used for evaluation of service quality,
Parasuraman, Zeithaml, & Berry (1985, 1988). Fornell et al. (1996) and Oh (2000)
models with revision was used for evaluating the loyalty, and the instrument
presented by Cauana, Money, and Berthon (2000) was used for evaluation of
customer satisfaction. The focus of this research is five stars hotels in Vietnam, and
300 customers of these hotels were sampled. The results of this paper demonstrate
that in all aspects, customers’ expectation, are higher than their perceptions of the
hotels services. In addition, this research findings show that customer satisfaction
plays the role of a mediator in the effects of service quality on service loyalty.

Moreover, the findings of this study provide tourism professionals in Vietnam with
more insight about the idea of TSQ and help them improve the quality of their
services. Finally, there are some suggestions for further research.

Key words: service quality, tourism, customer satisfaction, loyalty.

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ACKNOWLEDMENTS
Firstly, I would like to acknowledge my supervisor Dr. Khai Nguyen at
Open University Malaysia, for his valuable guidance and support while I undertook
this research. I was very fortunate to be under his supervision, as he embraced every
responsibility of a principal supervisor to guide my research.
Besides, there were many teachers at the International Business
Management Department through the course of the last year who offered me
friendship and knowledge also experience in life. I want to convey my thanks to all
of you for helping me along the way. To my classmates, my friends and other
people whom I had chance to meet in Taiwan thanks for your help, interest, and
valuable hints.
I would like to take this opportunity to express my special thanks to my
family who sitting patiently in the shadows, waiting, and hoping for a happy ending
for their love, their encouragement and their support to me.
With all your support, my thesis would be possible so that I could close one of
amazing chapter in my life and start to write new one.
Nguyen Thi Ha My Tram

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................. iii
ACKNOWLEDMENTS ............................................................................................. iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................ v
LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................... vii
LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................... viii
Chapter I: Introduction............................................................................................... 1
1.1 Background and Motivation ................................................................................ 1
1.2 Purpose................................................................................................................. 3
1.3 Scope Of Research ............................................................................................... 3
1.4 Research Process .................................................................................................. 3
Chapter II: Literature Review.................................................................................... 5
2.1 Tourism Service Quality in the Hotel Industry .................................................... 5
2.2 Tourists Loyalty in the Hotel Industry ................................................................. 8
2.3 Tourist Satisfaction in the Hotel Industry .......................................................... 10
Chapter III: Research Methodology ........................................................................ 13
3.1 Research Framework ......................................................................................... 13
3.2 Research Hypothesis .......................................................................................... 13
3.2.1 Relationship among Service Quality and Tourist Satisfaction ................... 13
3.2.2 Relationship among Tourists Satisfaction and Tourists Loyalty ................ 14
3.2.3 Relationship among Tourism Service Quality and Tourists Loyalty ......... 15
3.2.4 Relationship among Customer Satisfaction, Tourism Service Quality and
Tourists Loyalty .......................................................................................... 16
3.3 Measurements and Scale .................................................................................... 17
3.3.1 Socio-Demographic Data Of The Tourists ................................................. 17
3.3.2 Tourism Service Quality ............................................................................. 18

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3.3.3 Tourist Satisfaction ..................................................................................... 20
3.3.4 Tourist Loyalty ........................................................................................... 21
3.4 Scope Of Research ............................................................................................. 23
Chapter IV: Analysis Results.................................................................................... 24
4.1 Respond Data ..................................................................................................... 24
4.2 Descriptive Statistic Analysis ............................................................................ 24
4.3 Reliability test .................................................................................................... 26
4.3.1 Tourism service quality variable................................................................. 26
4.3.2 Tourist Satisfaction variable ....................................................................... 27
4.4 Tourist loyalty .................................................................................................... 28
4.5 Regression analysis ............................................................................................ 29
4.5.1 Correlation test ............................................................................................ 29
4.5.2 Hypothesis test ............................................................................................ 30
Chapter V: Conclusions ............................................................................................ 34
5.1 Conclusion and Implication ............................................................................... 34
5.1.1 Conclusion .................................................................................................. 34
5.1.2 Implication .................................................................................................. 35
5.2 Limitation........................................................................................................... 35
5.3 Suggestion for future research ........................................................................... 36
References ................................................................................................................... 38
APPENDIX: ENGLISH VERSION OF QUESTIONAIRE ................................. 45

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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. Research Process of this Study........................................................................ 4
Figure 2. Research Framework ..................................................................................... 13
Figure 3. The mediation of tourist satisfaction on the relationship between tourism service
quality and tourist loyalty ............................................................................. 32

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. The Items of Socio-Domographic Data Of The Tourists ............................... 17
Table 2. The Items Tourism Service Quality................................................................ 19
Table 3. The Items Tourist Satisfaction ........................................................................ 20
Table 4. The Items Tourists Loyalty............................................................................. 22
Table 5. Characteristics of respondents ........................................................................ 25
Table 6. Reliability of Tourism service quality ............................................................ 26
Table 7. Reliability of Tourist satisfaction ................................................................... 27
Table 8. Reliability of Tourist loyalty .......................................................................... 28
Table 9. Correlation Matrix .......................................................................................... 29
Table 10. Regression results on tourism service quality and tourist satisfaction ......... 30
Table 11. Regression results on tourism service quality and tourist loyalty ................ 30
Table 12. Regression results on tourist satisfaction and tourist loyalty........................ 31
Table 13. Multiple regression results of tourism service quality, customer satisfaction and
customer loyalty ........................................................................................... 32

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Chapter I: Introduction
1.1 Background and Motivation
Vietnam is situated to the east of the Indo-Chinese peninsula. Its long
narrow territory stretches 1700 km from north to south and in the center a mere 50
km from east to west. Vietnam has common borders with Cambodia in the west,
Laos and China in the north. Typified by very hilly terrain, the country covers an

area of some 327 500 km2. Its varied land- scape ranges from forests and mountain
areas (three-quarters of the land surface) to rivers, delta areas, and beaches. The
coastline, which extends for 3260 kin, has fine beaches and archipelagos, stretching
from the Tonkin Gulf to the Gulf of Thailand. Vietnam's landscape represents in
many respects, a basic resource for the development of tourism products. The hotel
industry of Vietnam is expanding rapidly with increasing international arrivals and
domestic tourists. Vietnam’s economy has been transferred from Communism to
Capitalism. Vietnam has opened more markets to foreign countries. Open market
policy of Vietnam brought the investment of foreign companies to Vietnam and
contributed to the development of the hotel industry in Vietnam.
Despite economic challenges, global tourism grew by 4% year-on-year
(YoY) in 2012, reaching 1.035 billion for the first time according to the World
Tourism Organization, while the Asia Pacific region, with 233 million international
arrivals, recorded the strongest growth of 7% YoY. Accordingly, international
visitors to Viet Nam in 2012 increased by 14% YoY, with approximately 7 million
arrivals or 3% of the total for the entire region. International visitors arriving in Ho
Chi Minh City (HCMC) in 2012 reached 3.8 million, or 55% of Viet Nam’s total,
while Ha Noi’s visitors accounted for 30%, Da Nang for 9% and Nha Trang for 7%.
Although the GDP growth rate in Viet Nam has fluctuated from 5% to 7% over the
last five years, the total number of domestic visitors has increasedover the last five

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years, the total number of domestic visitors has increased continuously, with an
average annual growth of 12%, from 21 million arrivals in 2008 to 33 million in
2012. Viet Nam’s tourism turnover totaled VND160,000 billion (US$7.7 million) in
2012, an increase of 23% YoY.
The importance of tourism is highlighted through its role via revenue and
foreign exchange, a preserver of cultures and historical heritage, a promoter of

national development and a vital and crucial factor of employment opportunities.
Where tourism is concerned, hotels are the first concern of all tourists. In Vietnam
tourism is ever growing and customers are becoming more demanding (Alrousan,
2010). They demand for better services. This is because Hotel service quality has
been attracting the attention of customers and stakeholders in the face of global
warming and increasing awareness towards the importance of protecting the global
environment. The link between service actions and service quality has verified its
importance in marketing (Heskett & Sasser, 2010; Hutchinson, Lai & Wang, 2009).
In the past decades, the notions of service quality and service satisfaction have been
greatly regarded and broadly used in marketing texts and activities. The benefits of
satisfaction and quality have been admired by marketing researchers, who have
viewed them as indices of an organization competitive benefit (Ruyter, 1997).
Service loyalty, on the other hand, is one significant structure in service marketing,
whose significance stems from its last effect on customers’ repeated purchases. In
fact, those loyal customers who purchase frequently are considered the starting
point of any business (Caruana, 2002). Even though these concepts have been used
in the marketing literature, but the link between these three concepts still remain
unclear. Therefore, this research intends to study the relation of these three concepts.

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1.2 Purpose
The following important questions would be solved:
(1)

What are the critical factors that influence the tourism in Vietnam?

(2)

How do these factors affect to hotel manager (positive or negative)?

According to the research background and motivation of this study, the
objectives of this research are as follows:
The study tests the relationship among service quality, customer
satisfaction, and customer loyalty.
Assistance to hotel managers in further improving their hotels.
Explore the appropriate methods for help hotel managers develop strategies
that enable them to remain competitive in the hotel industry.
1.3 Scope Of Research
The present study will be carried out in different branches of the five stars
hotel chain located at Ho Chi Minh city in Vietnam . The population of this study
comprised tourists who stayed in all five stars hotel at Ho Chi Minh city in Vietnam.
I design the pre-test questionnaires manually to make sure that questionnaire
has reasonable reliability and validity. After all the testee finish their questionnaires,
I will ask them whether the content of the questionnaire is clear enough or not. I
will distribute 300 questionnaires, and then we will run the program SPSS to
examine the questionnaire.
1.4 Research Process
The process of this study is that we identify the motivation and objectives
of this study at first, then we start to accumulate the literatures from domestic or
foreign countries, establish research framework and draw up the research methods.
After these actions, we design the questionnaires, collect the data of the

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investigation,

analyze

the

data,

and

then

address

the

conclusion

and

recommendation of this study according to the result of the analysis.
Each of stages in our research process is described below:
Identify research background - motivation and purpose

Collect domestic and foreign literatures

Establish the research framework

Develop the research hypothesis

Design Questionnaires

Determine statistical analysis method

Pre-test the questionnaires

Collect questionnaires and analyze data

Identify research implications

Draw up conclusions and recommendations

Figure 1. Research Process of this Study
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Chapter II: Literature Review
2.1 Tourism Service Quality in the Hotel Industry
According to the Viet Nam National Administration of Tourism, there are
currently 13,500 tourist accommodation premises with 285,000 rooms – including
57 five- star, 147 four-star and 335 three-star hotels – in Viet Nam. Ha Noi, Ho Chi
Minh city, Da Nang and Nha Trang have the largest volume of three- to five-star
hotels in the country, totalling 227 with 28,500 rooms. HCMC has the largest
supplyof three- to five-star hotels (89), providing approximately 12,000 rooms,
150% more than in Ha Noi, 250% more than Nha Trang and 300% more than Da
Nang. As HCMC and Ha Noi are the key political and economic cities in Viet Nam,
as well as tourism and transit hubs thanks to cultural and historical sites, their
market share offive-star rooms is the largest across the three grades, at 40% and
50% respectively.Three-star rooms dominate Nha Trang and Da Nang with a 56%
and 50% market share of total three- to five-star rooms respectively. These two
cities are key economic areas and well-known beach destinations for both local and
international visitors.
Services are one of the variable in customer loyalty studies because of the

consistent and high standards of service that provided by the hotel. Customers are
also assured of the hotel being familiar with the specific of their needs. The hotel
will also offer substantial discounts according to the need of the customers. The
delivery of service as promised was identified as the factor, which is the most
important in developing loyalty to a hotel (Weber, 2001). Due to the dynamic
changes of customer preference at all the time, research into customer satisfaction in
the service industry has increased dramatically in recent years (Peterson & Wilson,
1992). The increase has been aggravated by the increasing growth of the service
industries (Danaher & Haddrell, 1996). According to Kivela (1996) customers are

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likely to view the services as bundle of attributes which may differ in their
contributions from the service evaluations and choice. With a very good service
offer to customers, it may establish loyalty (Cronin and Taylor, 1992), resulting in
repeat purchases (Fornell, 1992), and favorable word-of–mouth advertising
(Halstead & Page, 1992). Teas (1994) states that there are five dimensions of hotel
service quality: Tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy.
Tangibility means the physical facilities, equipment, appearance of employees, and
other customers. Reliability involves the consistency of performance and
dependability which means the hotel performs the service correctly for the first time
and honours its promise to customers. While responsiveness concerns the
willingness or readiness of employees to provide services. Assurance defined as
knowledge, courtesy of employers and their ability to convey trust and confidence.
Empathy means offering caring and individual attention to customers provided by
the staff.
Providing a high-quality service has become an increasingly important
issue to hotel service providers. An excellent quality of service that offered by a
hotel can achieve competitive advantage, differentiate itself from competitors,

increase customer loyalty, enhance corporate image, increase business performance,
retain existing customers, as well as attract new customers (Watson et al., 1992).
According to Tat and Raymond (2000), which says that “Staff Service Quality”,
“Room Qualities” and “Value” were the three most influential factors in
determining travellers’ overall satisfaction levels and their likelihood of returning to
the same hotel. Staff service quality has been identified as the most influential
component in determining customers’ overall satisfaction levels and their likelihood
of returning. Various research studies show that quality of service is considered
being one of the top priorities in evaluating service quality (Oberoi & Hales, 1990).
Cronin and Taylor (1992) suggest that service quality is likely to have a significant

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effect on purchase intention, but they also reported that customer satisfaction has a
stronger and more consistent causal relationship with purchase intention than
service quality. Another unique aspect of service is the importance of face-to-face
contact with customers (James, 2006). A successful hotel will recruit employees
who display flexible personalities and willingness to do what it takes to satisfy the
customers. The hotel’s training and socialization processes should encourage
employees to care emotionally about their customers.
Even though SERVQUAL (Parasuraman et al., 1985; 1988) has been
established for more than 10 years, it is puzzling that tourists satisfaction research
and service quality measurement research in the hotel industry are still lacking both
in depth and width (Tsang & Qu, 2000; Akababa, 2006; Wilkins, Merrilees &
Herington, 2007). Getty and Thompson (1994) developed a specific application for
quality research in the hotel industry, named LODGQUAL as a derivative of
SERVQUAL and they used similar dimensions in their study. It focused on
45percent of overall quality using a sample of hospitality students and the authors
are confident that their findings could be used as a benchmark for measuring hotel

performance.
Tsang and Qu (2000) evaluated service quality in China from tourist and
hotel manager’s perspective. They employed a modified version of the
SERVQUAL model and they consistently identified the underperformance of hotels
(except for one out of 35 questions), with the most significant aspects relating to
cleanliness, room quality, staff performance, and prices. Two extremes were noted
where the hotel managers consistently overestimated the tourists' expectations but
generally underestimated the tourists' perception of service quality.
In summary, the limited amount of literature on service quality in the hotel
industry hinders the development ofmany generalizations (Briggs, Sutherland &
Drummond, 2007; Tsaur & Lin, 2004; Hudson, Hudson & Miller, 2004). With

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regard to service quality, three studies that utilized some derivations of
SERVQUAL were identified. In their study, Saleh and Ryan (1991) maintained that
the SERVQUAL dimensions did not apply to the hotel industry. Consequently,
Getty (1994) proposed an amended version of SERVQUAL, called LODGQUAL,
and alternately. Tsang and Qu (2000) applied SERVQUAL but avoided any
comment on the use of the measure, and instead believed that "the study attempted
neither to test existing theory nor to develop new research instruments" (Tsang &
Qu, 2000. pg. 323). Other studies on service quality in the hotel industry compared
business travelers in two locations, but only focused on a small number of
respondents (Callan & Kyndt, 2001), and mature travelers (Callan & Bowman,
2000). Therefore, the lack of previous research on service quality in hotels, even
when combined with the work on customer satisfaction, results in many aspects of
hotel performance being left behind, unanswered.
2.2 Tourists Loyalty in the Hotel Industry
Loyalty represents one dimension of behavioral intentions (Zeithaml et al.,

1996). It shows the customer’s willingness to pay more for a firm’s services. The
higher level of loyalty means the customer will unlikely to change or switch to other
hotels that is available. For a customer, on the other end, loyalty to one organization
reduces the risk of service variability, allows for the development of a social rapport
with the provider, and the customization of services to his/her specification (Berry,
1995).The study of customer loyalty towards hotel industry is increasingly
interesting among many researchers. It had become a competitive marketplace for
this leisure industry where the customers enjoy unprecedented alternatives. In order
to remain as the best option of hotel to their potential customers, different efforts
had been taken by hotels to preserve customer’s loyalty. Understanding the
customer preferences in choosing a hotel could determine the customer loyalty in

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the hotel industry. It is known that hotelier’s main responsibilities are to deliver
their quality services to customers (Su, 2004) as this industry is a highly
competitive and being able to deliver quality services determines success in this
industry.
Typically, customers choose hotel based on their own primary instinct and
satisfaction. These factors are causing occurrence of varieties of preferences within
hotel customers. Since the hotel industry is highly competitive in nature, while there
is a lack of substantive differentiation within any hotel quality grading, it is
imperative that the issue of consumer loyalty is significant. More recently, in the
broader marketing arena, the issues associated with consumer loyalty in a
hospitality context have received an increased attention and focus both by related
researchers and industry players bent on capturing a bigger slice of the industry.
Despite the increased attention, specifically research on loyalty within a service
context is still comparatively low (Javalgi & Moberg, 1997; Kandompully &
Suhartanto, 2003; Chen McCain, Jang & Hu, 2005), and the number of specific

research on consumer choice and loyalty in the hospitality context are equally
lacking in number and depths (Slattery, 2003).Many researchers often assumed that
loyalty is inferred from assessments of the factors consumers rated as important in
selection. As such, it is implied that the main factor encouraging customer loyalty
depends on resourcing those attributes that influences customers’ choices (Slattery,
2003). However, despite the limited number of research in the area of customer
loyalty (Kandompully & Suhartanto, 2003), the importance of loyalty (Bowen &
Chen, 2001; Tepeci, 1999). An analysis of current hospitality research undertaken
has shown inconsistencies in the focus and findings, with some researchers
discovering no significant relationship between service quality and repurchase
intentions (Cronin & Taylor, 1992; Skogland & Siguaw, 2004). In contrast,
Boulding, Kaira, Staelin and Zeitham (1993) found a significant relationship

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between service qualities and repurchase intentions. Another research has indicated
a threshold relationship with very high levels of satisfaction having a substantial
impact on the levels of loyalty (Bowen & Chen, 2001). This is with implications
about the need for customers to enjoy the service provided so as to generate loyalty
(Finn, 2005).Of the existing studies in the hotel industry which looked at customer
satisfaction, only a limited number have extended beyond this and studied the
impact on loyalty. Of these, three studies were carried out in the United States and
one in New Zealand. The findings of all three studies showed some substantial
difference in results. In one of the studies conducted in the United States the
findings included the importance of the quality of on-site services, personnel, guest
room design and amenities (Dube & Renaghan, 1999a), room upgrades, flexible
check in-out and customized services (Bowen & Shoemaker, 1998). In the other
study, Barsky and Nash (2002) found distinct groups of affective emotions
influencing loyalty. Alternatively, the New Zealand study discovered that the

factors influencing loyalty included hotel image and customer satisfaction with
reception, housekeeping, food and beverage and price but only housekeeping
showed significance. Other researchers opined that housekeeping and hotel image
were the most important factors in determining loyalty (Kandampully & Suhartanto,
2000). In addition, the use of loyalty schemes has also prompted other researchers
to suggest hotels generate spurious rather than true loyalty (Baloglu, 2002; Javalgi
& Moberg, 1997).
2.3 Tourist Satisfaction in the Hotel Industry
To obtain loyalty and to outweigh other competitors, hotel providers must
be able to obtain high levels of customer satisfaction for the service supplied. There
are several studies analyze the needs and the desires of tourists. A research by
Wuest et al. (1996) defined the perception of hotel attributes as the degree to which

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guests may find various services and facilities critical for their stay in a hotel.
Hotel's attributes such as cleanliness, price, location, security, personal service, and
physical attractiveness, opportunities for relaxation, standard of services, appealing
image, and reputation are recognized as decisive by travelers to assess the quality of
the hote. Studies pertaining to customer satisfaction in hotels (Barsky & Labagh,
1992; Choi & Chu, 2000; Gunderson, Heide & Olsson, 1996) show much variety in
their focus and findings. Two studies from the United States, one Norwegian and
another from Hong Kong showed much variance in their results. The Norwegian
study initiated by Gunderson et al. (1996) reported that both the intangible elements
of reception and food and beverage, and the tangible aspect of housekeeping were
significant, explaining eighty percent of the variance in satisfaction. They also
discovered that the combined model of tangible and intangible aspects provided less
clarity, as there was an overlap between the non-significance of the tangible
elements of food and beverage and reception, and the intangible aspects of

housekeeping (Luck & Lancaster, 2003). Weber (1996) has proposed consumer
satisfaction as a fundamental pillar of marketing theory and as a key influence over
future purchase intentions, market share, and word- of-mouth (WOM)
communication. She argues that product competitiveness is strengthened when
consumers are satisfied. Based on these perspectives, tourist expectations and
experiences may be expected to influence satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Given that
satisfaction is a multifaceted concept, it is important to undertake an evaluation that
takes account of the multiple dimensions of the holiday encounter, including
products, services, and facilities.
In a US based study, Barsky and Labagh (1992) concluded that employee
attitude was the most important contributor of customer satisfaction, followed by
locations, room, price, facilities, reception, services, parking and food and beverage.
The study based on a survey of restaurant and hotel managers pertaining to the

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causes of compliments and complaints. On the other hand, price, speed, and quality
of service, parking and poor employee knowledge resulted in negative feedbacks
(Lewis & McCann 2004). In Hong-Kong, Choi and Chu (2000) and Torres and
Kline (2006) researched on a comparison of the satisfaction levels between Asian
and Western travelers. Using a regression analysis of Asian and Western travelers’
overall satisfaction, they discovered that in terms of customer satisfaction, Asian
travelers placed the most importance on value as compared to Western travelers
who considered room quality as the most important criteria for their satisfaction.
Overall, the numbers of researches, which have addressed customer
satisfaction in the hotel industry in isolation, are rather limited (Choi & Chu 2001).
There are existing researches which have incorporated different research approaches
and, although there some elements of similarity in the findings. Akababa (2006)
found in the hotel in turkey, the substantive differences between the approaches

used would reduce the possibility of similarity.

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Chapter III: Research Methodology
3.1 Research Framework
According to the discussion and variables of Chapter 2, I extend previous
research and establish our own research framework in Error! Reference source
ot found.. This research is based on several variables from previous researches:
tourist satisfaction, tourist loyalty, tourism service quality.

Tourism

H1

H2
Tourists
Tourists Loyalty

Service Quality

Satisfaction

H3

Figure 2. Research Framework
3.2 Research Hypothesis
3.2.1 Relationship among Service Quality and Tourist Satisfaction

Several studies illustrated a positive relation between service quality and
customer satisfaction. The findings of previous studies have shown that service
quality often leads to customer satisfaction (Bitner & Hubert, 1994; Fornel et al.,
1996; Sivadas & Bakereprewit, 2000; Zenithal, Berry, & Parasuraman, 1996;
Mentzer, Flint, & Hunt, 2001). Oliver (1997) claims that when tourists experience
service attributes of high quality, they are likely to experience higher levels of
satisfaction with the service. On the other hand, if a customer was to experience any
service quality which is lower than expected, then the satisfaction level will drop.

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Therefore, this hypothesis proposed that and increase or decrease in service quality
would increase or decrease customer satisfaction in tandem with the changes.
In the case of the chain of five stars hotels in Vietnam, international tourist
often demand or request for high levels of service quality. This suggests that when
excellent service quality is provided, the involved international hotel guests will
surely be satisfied. That is, once their desires and needs for high level service
quality are met, then it may lead to customer satisfaction. Thus, the first hypothesis
reads as:
Hypothesis 1: There is a positive relationship between service quality
provided by five stars Hotels chains in Vietnam and its tourist’s satisfaction.
3.2.2 Relationship among Tourists Satisfaction and Tourists Loyalty
It has been argued that a positive service encounter would lead to the
building of customer service relationship. A series of positive encounters will
definitely improve customer satisfaction, trust and relation commitment (Morgan &
Hunt, 1994). In practice, satisfaction is an outcome of a purchase or a consumption
of a service. As such, satisfaction is expected to influence loyalty at an increasing
rate. However, some opposing studies suggested that the relationship between
satisfaction and loyalty is non-linear (Oliva, Oliver, & MacMillan, 1992) and

consequently satisfaction does not ensure customer loyalty (Jones & Sasser, 1995).
Therefore, this research tests whether there is a positive relationship between
customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.
When the international guests at the five stars hotel in Vietnam have any
needs, they usually forward their request to the front desk. Here, the responsibility
of the officers at the front desk is very crucial as the type of service encounter by
the international guests will have a bearing on their satisfaction. By ensuring that
the international guests experience a series of positive encounters, the guests will

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trust the hotel and this leads to an increase in the satisfaction. As their satisfaction is
enhanced, the result will be a high level of customer loyalty. Therefore, the first
hypothesis is as follows.
Hypothesis 2: There is a positive relationship between Tourists satisfaction
of guests at the five stars hotel in Vietnam and their loyalty to the hotel.
3.2.3 Relationship among Tourism Service Quality and Tourists
Loyalty
In the tourism sector, service quality has two aspects (Maltz & Maltz, 1998)
in the form of vital service quality and responsiveness. The first is vital service
quality, and it involves cycle time, on-time delivery, and inventory availability. The
second aspect is responsiveness, which is how an individual customer’s needs are
solved beyond traditional service measure (Davis & Mandrodt, 1996). Service
quality measures the extent to which delivered services match customers’
expectations. Delivery service quality refers to meeting and satisfying customers’
expectation every time and completely. Thus, this study examines whether a
positive relationship between service quality and tourists loyalty exists or not.
Normally the international guests expect a high level of service quality.
Here, the managers at five stars hotels in Vietnam and hoteliers must remember that

what the guests seek for might also be offered by other adjacent hotels. As such, by
being aware of the competition, the hotel concerned must ensure that the service
quality is not only the best at all times but also must be consistently provided for all
its guests. As a result from this best service quality guarantee, the international
guests are likely to become loyal customers.
Consequently, this leads to the second hypothesis as illustrated below.
Hypothesis 3: There is a positive relationship between Tourism Service
Quality provided by five stars Hotels chains in Vietnam and its Tourists Loyalty.

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3.2.4 Relationship among Customer Satisfaction, Tourism Service
Quality and Tourists Loyalty
The literature discussed above has confirmed that service quality strongly
influence customer loyalty by providing and maintaining customer satisfaction
(Caruana, 2002; Fornell, Johnson, Anderson, Cha, & Bryant, 1996). On the contrary,
some researches were of the opinion that perceived service quality can pose a direct
impact on behavioral outcomes in the absence of the satisfaction factor (Zethaml,
1998). Oliver (1997) disagreed with this satisfaction absence theory and instead
suggested that satisfaction is “potentially all salient dimensions” and found that
quality is the antecedent of satisfaction instead. A study done by Andreas and
Wolfgang (2002) supported the idea posited by Oliver (1997) as they found that
perceived value is a complement and not a substitute of satisfaction. They even
claimed that customer satisfaction could strongly predict customer loyalty since
customer satisfaction is ultimately measured against how far the perceived value is
provided or offered to them. Hence, this study proposed that the relationship of
tourism service quality is mediated by satisfaction.
With regard to international guests staying at the Marriott hotels in Jordan,
it is evident that customer satisfaction is influenced by service quality. In the

views of the international guests, they would prefer to continue using or to repeat
the use of the same hotel’s services when they are satisfied with the service quality
offered or delivered by the hotel. This notion of delivering the perceived value is a
true measure of the satisfaction which ultimately leads to customer loyalty. Hence,
the fourth and last hypothesis is:
Hypothesis 4: Satisfaction among five stars Hotels chains in Vietnam
Mediates the Effect of Tourism Service Quality on Tourists Loyalty.

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3.3 Measurements and Scale
In my research, I consider three variables in our model. These variables are:
tourist satisfaction, tourist loyalty, tourism service quality.
In this study, a self-administered questionnaire, which is an adapted version
of SERVQUAL scale, was used to measure TSQ of the hotel guests. The
questionnaire consisted of four parts. The first part contained questions about sociodemographic data of the respondents. The second part was designed to measure the
respondents’ perceptions about the quality of services offered by the hotels. Based
on questionnaire instruments developed in previous studies, 21 service quality items
were developed. The third part of the questionnaire focused on assessing the
respondents’ perceptions regarding satisfaction on the same five-point scale, where
seven tourists’ satisfaction items were developed. The final part of the questionnaire
assessed the tourist’s perceptions regarding their loyalty. The instrument of
measurement was introduced in a way that the topic of the study and procedures of
response were briefly illustrated.
The measurement grades were used according to the five-point Likert scale
(Malhotra, 2003). The grades were ordered regressively as follows: strongly agree
(5), agree (4), neutral (3), disagree (2) and strongly disagree (1).
3.3.1 Socio-Demographic Data Of The Tourists
Table 1. The Items of Socio-Domographic Data Of The Tourists

Measurements

Questionnaires

Sex

1. Male
2. Famale

Age group

1. Under 20 years
2. 21-30 years

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