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Asks which product qualities are decisive for the satisfaction of the customer and which features merely prevent dissatisfaction. Proposes Kano’s model of customer satisfaction for answering these questions and for drawing conclusions for the management of product development. In his model, Kano distinguishes between three types of product requirement which influence customer satisfaction in different ways when met: must‐be requirements, which are basic criteria of a product ‐ if these requirements are not fulfilled, the customer will be extremely dissatisfied; one‐dimensional requirements, where customer satisfaction is proportional to the level of fulfillment, the higher the customer’s satisfaction and vice versa; and attractive requirements, which are the product criteria which have the greatest influence on how satisfied a customer will be with a given product. Attractive requirements are neither explicitly expressed nor expected by the customer.

There is growing evidence that service quality attributes fall into three categories of factors that have a different impact on the formation of customer satisfaction. However, it is not clear which analytical procedure best identifies these factors. Vavra proposed a two‐dimensional importance grid based on customers’ self‐stated importance and derived importance using regression analysis. It is based on the assumption that there is a difference between self‐stated and derived importance and that by combining these importance weights, three groups of product or service attributes can be identified. Using data collected to measure customer satisfaction with the service of the IT department of a hospital, the authors test the underlying assumptions of the importance grid. They seem to be correct. When the results are compared with the penalty‐reward contrast analysis developed by Brandt, the two methods do not yield the same results. Therefore, the convergent validity of the importance grid has to be questioned. The paper closes with a discussion of the implications for research and practice.

Tourist regions with long tradition and years of experience often have a hard time implementing strategic management concepts. This is due to decision‐making and management processes at the level of tourism policy and the different levels of the tourism organization. These levels were bogged down for many years and aggravated the task of carrying out the required modifications. With the example of the Alpine region South Tyrol, this paper explains the errors that are likely to happen in the formulation and implementation of strategic concepts. The idea was to use a concrete example to explain the interdependence of the individual elements of strategic management from vision to implementation while, at the same time, elucidating the barriers and the sources of resistance to change at tourism organizations.