1 ) DIFFERENT DEFINITION OF QUALITY AND ASSESS THEIR DIFFERENCE
Quality, like beauty, is in the eye of behold. And in business, the only “beholder” who matters is the customer. Generally, quality can be defined to 5 dimensions: 1) Transcendent, 2) Product based, 3) Used based, 4) Manufacturing based and 5) Value based. And I am going to discuss Transcendent, Product based and Value based.

Transcendent : quality is something that is intuitively understood but nearly impossible to communicate, such as beauty or love.
Product based : quality is found in the components and attributes of a product.
Value based: if the product is perceived as providing good value of price, if has good quality.

To illustrate this point, assume you are the customer at a barber shop or beauty salon. What is important to you when you go in for a haircut?
A friendly stylist? A complete set of equipment and facility? (Product based)
A great cut? (Transcendent) Or a reasonable price? (Value based)

To specify their difference, take TV set as an example:

Product Quality Dimensions
Transcendent Product based Value based
A LCD Mon.
Cyber look, trendy, different color outer shell available Acceptable spare part, not bad at all. Can be used for 4 yrs or above normally
$10,000
B
Not palmary pattern
But not out dated Excellent spare part, hard outer shell, newest technology used.
Normally, it can be used for 8 yrs or above
$ 8,000
C Out-dated and obsolete pattern Old but good spare part,
Practical, can be used for 6 yrs

$6,500

Quality is subjective. Customer A convinces this is good quality but customer B does not. It is because different people have their own wants and needs. According the table above, different Product has its own advantages.
Normally, teenagers may choose Product A because the beautiful appearance is the most important for them.
For the thirty-something couples, they’d choose Product B because of the good quality and long shell life, the price is reasonable too.
But for the elderly, they’d choose Product C because of the cheap price and good share part. They do not very concern about the appearance is trendy pr not.

2 RELEVANT QUALITY ATTRIBUTES REQUIRED BY HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY
The five service quality attitudes needed by hotel industry are Tangibles, Empathy, Assurance, Reliability and Responsiveness. Those are the factors affecting quality of service.

Let take ABC Airline Company as example:
Tangibles include the physical appearance of the service, facility, equipment, communication media, else. Those tangible things can be seen by customer. E.g : The computer for reservation, the deportment of staffs, and the promotion booklets of special offer.

Empathy is to provide caring and individualized attention from service provider. Airline arranges staffs to take care of the physically handicapped people in the flights. In addition, airline sometimes may provide free accommodation for whose flight is delay. Otherwise, they may make complain about the bad service, as a result, airline may loss this tourism’s and his/her friends’ business in the future.

Assurance is the knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to inspire trust and confident. All head and assistance pilots are ensure to be well-trained before executing flying operations. Head pilot must be professional and have a long flying experience and able to solve the unexpected problems in correct way.

Responsiveness is the willingness of the service provider to be helpful and prompt in providing service. If Peter the guest falls into a swoon in the flight, do the flight attendants detect him at once? Do they able to take a right action to help him? They need a quick respond.
Reliability is to the propensity for a product to perform consistently over a useful design. In airline industry, it should be reliable for the time to arrive/ departure, the safety of the flights, and the ability to provide transcendent service during the flight journey.

3 SPPROPRIATE DEFINITIONS OF QUALITY TO SUITABLE HOSPITALITY APPLICATIONS :
Quality can be defined to transcendent, product based, user based, manufacturing based and value based.

Global competition and advanced in technology have created market conditions, as the competition is becoming more exciting, each hotel improve quality to gain business as many as they can.

In my opinion, user based is the most important dimension for guest, because hospitality is a face-to-face business service, we need to have a good relation with guests.

According to the mission of Mandarin Oriental Hotel, it is known that ”delight our guests by providing service that is gracious and sincere” is the vision of hotel. We have to meet or exceed the customers’ wants, needs and expectations. To implement it, we should improve quality.

Generally, hotels provide car park, accommodation, fitting centre, swimming facility, F&B services for guest. We can focus on these activities to daily operations.

1) When a guest call the reservation centre to book a room, the staff should hold the phone within ringing over 3 times (responsiveness)
2) When a guest arrives, the doorman open the door sincerely, concierge help the guest to carry the luggage. (responsiveness)
3) When the guest (who has booked a room already) comes in, the front office staff offers a proper room for him/her. (Reliability)
4) When the guest check-in, he/she find that all staffs dressed very clean and tidy. They smile and greet to him/her. The guest feel very happy about that. (Tangibles)
5) In some festivals, such as X’mas Day, hotel staffs will dispose troops in everywhere. Sometimes, they send X’mas cards or X’mas gifts to give guests a surprise. Besides, they offer people for translation and special facilities for disability. (Empathy)
6) All staffs are professional; they speak in polite manner, and have rich knowledge of customers’ needs. They feel confidence when answering guests’ questions. (Assurance)