Comparison of zones of tolerance in terms of service quality dimensions affecting behavioral intention: A study on hotel management

Comprehensive theoretical and experimental studies have always been conducted in order to understand and explain the relation between the concepts of service quality and behavioural intention, and research findings have been focused on whether service quality and other related concepts are dependent on the realization of the service initially expected by the customer. In this regard, different models and dimensions have been developed for explaining the relation between the service quality detected during service quality measurements and different levels of expectation. ?Tangibles?, ?Reliability?, ?Responsiveness?, ?Assurance? and ?Empathy? dimensions developed by Parasuraman et al. in the studies conducted in 1991 and later and called ?Dimensions of Service Quality" and the Servqual Scale were taken as basis and the goal was to improve the service quality in accommodation services. Another model offering insight to the study is the Zone of Tolerance (ZOT) model (Zeithaml et al., 1993) defined as the difference between the highest service level desired by customers and the lowest level they find sufficient. The research conducted in connection with both models drew the attention of both the academic and the business circles and became the centre of focus and went on to become an important concept in the service sector and especially in the tourism sector. Therefore, it is a subject worth studying.The main goal of the study is to reveal the service quality factors that are planned to be developed specially for accommodation services and affect the behavioural intents of customers. The sub-goal of the study is to compare customers? zones of tolerance (ZOT) in connection with these factors. German and Russian customers staying at the hotels in Antalya offering services with the ?all inclusive? marketing strategy constitute the main target group of the study. That is because the ?all inclusive? marketing strategy, which has improved to a significant extent, is preferred most by these two nations and Antalya is chosen as the destination point. We hope that the findings of the study will make original contributions to the tourism and marketing literature. The thesis study can be summarized under two topics as the comparison of ?Structural Equation Modelling Results? and ?Range of Tolerance Zones of German and Russian Tourists? according to different criteria. When the resulting structural model was reviewed, it was found out that the ?Tangibles?, ?Responsiveness? and ?Reliability" dimensions affected behavioural intentions with relation to the service quality in accommodation services. Furthermore, it is clear that Zones of Tolerance of customer profiles, which have different characteristics in terms of nationality, gender, the number of starts of a hotel and accommodation experience variables, differ from one another and German tourists have a narrower zone of tolerance in general on the dimension basis. As the study findings revealed that ?Tangibles?, ?Responsiveness? and ?Reliability? factors of service quality affect the behavioural intentions of customers such as preferring the accommodation service again, sharing the experience with others and recommending the service to other people etc., it becomes apparent that enterprises need to make more painstaking and planned efforts in order to improve these factors. Thanks to the findings obtained by comparing the zones of tolerance, the narrower and wider tolerance range of various customer profiles with relation to various service quality factors can be determined, the factors with narrower zones of tolerance can be given priority and developed further compared to the other factors as well as improving them constantly.