Tourism education in higher education institutions and service quality.

To supply qualified manpower that is necessary in tourism sector, ?quality ofeducation? is one of the most important factors in higher education institutions. In thisstudy, expectations on tourism education and level of satisfaction of the students thatare the most important customers of higher education institutions have beenresearched.In the research, service quality measurement models that are listed in theliterature have been used to measure service quality in higher education institutions.By using the servqual model, the level of meeting the expectations of students abouttourism education served by higher education institutions has been measured andimportant aspects of service quality according to students have been showed. Theresults of this study that is focuced on tourism education and service quality showthat the students, one of the major customer groups of higher education institutions,have a very low level of satisfaction about their education.Tourism departments should aim to achieve an increased quality of serviceand higher level of satisfaction of students. To be able to achieve this target, the wayof understanding of management is important. The implementation of Total QualityManagement, ISO 9000 Quality Insurance System, Customer Based Marketing,Relationship Marketing, Internal Marketing, Benchmarking, Accreditation, QFDTechnology aproaches that are developing service quality in higher educationinstitutions and continious efforts at management level will result in increased qualityof service. The efforts on increasing the quality of education in undergraduate tourismprogrammes in higher education institutions will result in the increase of the quality ofeducation in tourism sector.Key Words: Expectation, Satisfaction, Service Quality, Tourism Education