Hotel visitor's satisfaction towards service quality: Insights from Semi-Urban City of Madhya Pradesh in India

The Service sector plays an increasingly important role in modern economy. In India the service sector contributes as the dominant component of the economy. A service is an act or performance offered by one party to another. With tremendous pull of opportunity, India is a destination for hotel chains looking for growth. The World Travel and Tourism Council, India, data says, India ranks 18th in business travel and will be among the top 5 in this decade. Sources estimate, demand is going to exceed supply by at least 100% over the next 2 years. This study is limited to the consumers within the limit of Sagar city of Madhya Pradesh, India. The study will be able to reveal the preferences, needs, perception of the customers regarding the service quality in hotels It also help the Hotels to know whether the existing services are really satisfying the customer's needs. This study attempts to examine the relationship between service quality and customer's satisfaction in Hotels by adapting and modifying SERVQUAL and CARTER scales (Parasuraman et al., 1988; Othman and Owen, 2001 & 2002) particularly in semi-urban city of Madhya Pradesh i.e. Sagar. The SERVQUAL scale constitutes an important landmark in the service quality literature and has been extensively applied in different service settings. The findings of this study will highlight the issues of quality of services offered by the hoteliers to their visitors/customers in semi-urban area where very few hotel managers are concerned about to maintain high quality of services.