Service Quality Measurement from Customer Perception Based on Services Science, Management and Engineering

Service quality perceived by customers plays a critical role in the success of a tourism destination management, where it acts as a determinant for visitor satisfaction, royalty and revisit in the tourism market. This paper is aimed at measuring tourist-perceived quality for three tourist attractions in Xi'an to find out countermeasures for increasing customer revisit and improving tourism management performance. The study reviews and reflects on research arguments in service quality measurement of a tourist attraction. Based on services science, management and engineering, the study offers a framework with five dimensions and twenty one indexes to gauge perceptive service quality for three landscapes at Xi'an. The paper then employs AHP to calculate the value of each parameter, and scale the index for the perceived service value in the three sceneries empirically from customer valuation. One main finding is that Tang Paradise offers a very satisfactory service quality, with the global score being 4.35 as this attraction creates an impressive experience for each visitor through integrating everything representative of Tang Dynasty, such as the poetry, the dance, lifestyles, and sciences, and movies shown on a water film. It concludes with strategies for achieving customer satisfaction, royalty and revisit for the sampling tourist attractions, and future research directions. One important countermeasure is to deal with customer expectations, needs and talents, particularly in creating an exhilarating experience for sightseers. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier B.V. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of the Organising Committee of The International Conference of Risk and Engineering Management.