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The purpose of this paper is to see how quality management is carried out in hotels in the Basque Country, a region in the north of Spain with a long tradition in the tourist sector.

The objective of the study was to establish what approaches to quality management are utilised by hotels in the region. The data were collated from information gathered via a survey conducted by e‐mail.

A large percentage of surveyed hotels implement a quality management system that has been designed in‐house. A figure of note, is the fact that 79 per cent of participants claim their quality management system has been introduced successfully. The study also indicated that a significant number of hotels implement a policy of continuous improvement to the system, as hotels believe in the effectiveness of quality management systems and think that such systems have resulted in an increase in customers and profit.

The hotels that responded to the survey could be those that are committed to quality management. That fact could introduce a bias that makes it seem that the situation is better than it really is.

This study offers an understanding on the philosophy of quality management adopted by hotels in the Basque Country. Moreover, it provides empirical evidence on the perceived results of the implementation of quality management in hotels.

The purpose of this paper is to identify features of online content that create engagement amongst consumers by exploring online customer feedback from the world’s leading tourist website (s). This paper also attempts to unveil the factors based on customer reviews, which will be vital for the tourism industry professionals to promote and position India’s tourist destinations.

This paper involves an analysis of customer feedback from TripAdvisor.com. The approach to research is exploratory and attempts to uncover critical factors arising out of rising visitor experience in the digital media sphere.

Key factors are nuanced around service quality of the destination image. Identified factors that need the attention of the policymakers, site management and service professionals at large are fairness of price, distractions/irritants and varied expectations of the international and national tourists.

The findings will have substantial implications for the policymakers, the site management and service professionals. Research outcomes are based on the analysis of real customer reviews hence makes this study vital for decision-makers as well as for academic researchers working in this area.

This study used the real tourist’s data from TripAdvisor.com. The customer’s postings on the website are those of verified visitors. This paper should help in developing a thoughtful discussion around positioning India as a preferred destination in the online arena aiming at future tourists.

The purpose of this study is to examine the development of service quality research in hospitality and tourism from 1984 to 2014, to identify research gaps and to suggest directions for future research.

This review comprised three steps with the first being the generation of a structural map by using the online pathfinder network (PFNET) to identify potential research themes. The second research step involved an online literature search covering 2,211 academic journal articles to obtain basic information for planning an additional content investigation concerning the research themes. The final step was to investigate the content of the articles published in top-tier journals or frequently cited ones in three different stages (1984-1993, 1994-2003 and 2004-2014) to explore potential research topics.

The study identifies 17 research themes that comprise two main research themes, seven sub-stems, six outer-leaves and two little-leaves. The developments of service quality research in each theme are explored. The role of each theme in service quality study is revealed. Finally, this study identifies research opportunities for service quality research within each theme.

This study demonstrates how to use PFNET to effectively perform a systematic literature review. By referring to previous publications reviewed in this study, researchers can contribute by extending existing theories in their further research on the seventeen themes.

This study contributes a systematic literature review method by applying an online PFNET approach, provides a well-researched list of references for researchers conducting service quality research and highlights research gaps for researchers who plan to pursue service quality research.

Satisfaction in the tourism sector is a highly sensitive subject, and customer satisfaction (CS) has a significant impact on the choice of destinations made by tourists and on the decision to recommend them to friends or acquaintances. The purpose of this paper is to give empirical evidence of the dimensions of service quality (technical, functional and company image (CI)) and their connections in the sector of thermal tourism. It also aims at investigating the CI, seeking to understand whether some of the technical and functional service quality variables play a role in determining it.

An empirical survey was conducted by administering a structured research questionnaire in order to collect all necessary data, which was then elaborated to test the hypotheses using factor and multiple regression analyses.

The results of the survey confirm the direct impact of service quality dimensions (technical, functional and CI) on CS also in the thermal sector when considered individually. Moreover, when the CI was analyzed further, relational quality was found to be dependent on thermal employees’ capabilities, abilities, trustworthiness, availability, etc. Finally, when considered together, functional service quality and CI have a stronger effect on CS than technical service quality.

The originality of the present research relies on the following: a further contribution to the so-called “European perspective” of service quality; the study of service quality dimensions (technical, functional and CI) in the thermal sector; and evidencing the link between thermal employee characteristics and the relational quality factor of the CI, demonstrating that many aspects of this construct need further empirical investigation, in the wellness sector.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the impact of institutional quality on the international tourism demand of India. To carry out the analysis, the study first analyses the impact of composite institutional quality index and then proceeds to examine the impact of each of the individual components of institutional quality on the international tourism demand of India. The impact of income of the tourist originating countries, tourism price, trade openness and Human Development Index (HDI) on tourism demand has also been examined.

The study employed panel autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model, with data from top 30 tourist originating countries for India for the period of 1995–2016.

The results indicated that an increase in the income of the tourist originating countries has spillover effects on the development of tourism sector of India. The impact of cost of travel proxied by relative prices between the destination and origin country is found to be negative, however, statistically insignificant. The impact of trade openness and development level of the host country (proxied by HDI) is found to have positive association with the tourism demand. Institutional quality is found to have positive association with international tourism demand of India. Among the individual components of institutional quality, rule of law, regulatory quality, control of corruption and voice and accountability are found to promote the tourism sector development in the economy. Contrarily, the impact of government effectiveness is found to be negative. In the short run, most of the variables were found to support their counterpart results in long run.

This study has practical implication not only in formulating tourism sector policies of the host countries but also for issuing tourist advisories in tourist originating countries. The study holds that policymakers should work for improving institutional environment of the country such as bureaucracy, legislature, regulatory quality, rule of law and for reducing corruption at all levels so as to ensure a sustained rise in tourist inflows to India.

This study validates the link between institutional quality of a country and international demand for its tourism. To the best of the authors' knowledge, the study is the first attempt that has comprehensively analysed the impact of institutional quality on tourism demand in Indian context which has been generally ignored in the tourism literature.

The aim of this paper is to identify reasons for current quality problems in tourism and possible ways of enhancing tourism quality. To attain this goal, recent initiatives directed at quality improvement in tourism are first presented. Primary and secondary data have been utilised to achieve this. Systems theory is utilised in order to recognise the reasons for current quality problems. Evaluation of quality management processes is based on Dale and Plunkett’s model of levels in the evolution of quality management. The SERVQUAL model and the benchmarking technique are critically evaluated. The existence and inability of closing the tourism quality perception gap and the tourism quality control gap have been identified as chief causes of private sector tourism quality systems ineffectiveness. Three conditions of tourism quality enhancement have been formulated and a new tourism quality system that complies with these requirements has been proposed. A need for establishing a Total Quality Tourism Consortium as a formal body is emphasised.

The European Quality Award came into being in 1992. Since then, 42 organizations from various sectors have attained this internationally recognized award. Although the model of the award is considered as a single-generic framework for organizations of all sectors, the question about the situation of the tourism industry arises since this model is not frequent in tourism establishments. With the aim of revealing the situation of tourism industry, this chapter utilized the list of the award winning organizations and identified their economic sectors with reference to The Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Union (NACE). As a consequence, the study revealed the weak participation of the tourism industry, represented by only two hotels and a conference center.

The starting‐point of this article is that it will be essential to give quality a crucial function in the tourism policy of the future. The philosophy of quality management is known. However its application in the tourism sector is hampered by a number of particularities of this sector. This article proposes a possible approach at the level of a tourist municipality or region. Based on an extensive quality audit among tourists it must be possible to draw up a quality plan which should result into a considerable quality improvement of the tourism product.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the causes that have led to a rather fragmented view of quality management among tourism marketing organisations in Germany. The aim is to identify and to interpret the relevant societal cultural factors underpinning German management. The paper examines the influence of culture on the perception and performance of quality management in tourism organisations.

The study is based on a data set which previously explored and analysed the diffusion of total quality management in German public tourism marketing organisations. In this paper, the data set has been re‐analysed and mapped against societal cultural elements. The analysis evaluates cultural factors that influence perceptions among German tourism marketing organisations on quality management.

This paper identifies cultural aspects that influence the perception and performance of quality in tourism organisations. The findings relate cultural antecedents in three identified core issues of quality: underdeveloped training and motivational events for staff; unbalanced strategic positioning in terms of quality; and weak commitment to standards and guidelines.

The implications that can be drawn from the findings of this paper are twofold. First, the results could be integrated into future educational policies in tourism. Second, implications and learning for tourism managers from this paper relate to a holistic, integrative, and systems‐based approach to quality management instead of only implementing individual quality aspects.

This paper is one of the first studies to consider the influences of societal culture on the perception and performance of quality management in the German tourism sector.