EVALUATING THE NEXUS BETWEEN GUEST SATISFACTION AND SERVICE QUALITY IN THE HOTEL INDUSTRY

The hospitality industry is a key contributor to its GDP. Hotel subsector benefits directly from growth of tourism but sustainable customer base would require polished customer service. Domestic hotel guests to play an important role in bridging the seasonality gap that is the core of the international tourism business model. The ability to harness this capacity is dependent on the extent to which they perceive the services provided as being worth their money value. This study therefore aimed at determining the guest actual experience and evaluation from the stay hence assess how the hotel performed against perceived quality and the effect on guest satisfaction operationalised as emotional satisfaction. Descriptive Survey design was adopted for the study. Cluster sampling was applied to select the hotels from which customers were derived. The study self-administered questionnaires to 182 guests. 26 items were used to measure perceived service quality on using a seven-point Likert-type scale for their responses. The study found out that tangibility as a service is rated highly. However confidence and communication dimensions of quality scored low means hence low rating. The path leading from “service quality” to “emotional satisfaction” had a coefficient of 0.701, with a p-value of 3.621.