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RESEARCH PROPOSAL

A critical evaluation of service quality and impact of this over the

occupancy rate of the Hotel Four Seasons in Canary wharf, London, UK(during 2007-2009)

CONTEXT

Title...................................................................................2Aims and Objectives.........................................................2Introduction......................................................................3Company Background......................................................4Literature Review.............................................................5-10Justification.......................................................................11

Hypothesis.........................................................................11Methodology......................................................................11Inductive Approach ..........................................................12Deductive Approach .........................................................13Onion research...................................................................14Secondary Methods............................................................14


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Advantages And DisadvantagesPrimary Methods................................................................16Advantages And DisadvantagesQualitative Approach ........................................................17

Quantitative Approach........................................................17Selection Of Method............................................................18Ethics...................................................................................18Scope ..................................................................................18Limitations .........................................................................19Conclusion..........................................................................19References..........................................................................20

TITLE

A critical evaluation of service quality and impact of this over the

occupancy rate of the Hotel Four Seasons in Canary wharf, London, UK(during 2007-2009)

AIMS


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This dissertation aims to review the effect of service quality in the HotelFour Seasons in London.

OBJECTIVES

1. Critical Review of Theory

2. Current Position of the company

3. Evaluation of Company using Theory

4. Conclusion and Recommendations

INTRODUCTION

In the present environment study of service quality is considered as veryimportant strategy for the hotels. As service quality is regarded as themain determinant of the success of a hotel in running their business.Every hotel tries to put their best of services to their customers for thesake of satisfaction of their customer. Through service quality they triedto make the considerable degree of satisfaction. As the evolution of


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economies of worldwide organisations clears the fact that at present thearea of service quality is at the top of and is growing faster than otherarea in the industry. But it seems that the productivity of quality is seemsto deteriorating. So in this area there is need to design the service quality

which is now days become the major challenge for the hospitalityindustry. It is clear that today is era of competition. For survival and getsuccessfully in the industry the area of service quality is expandingglobally it is very .It is very complex task and even it is not easy tomeasure and design the service equality objectivity.

For the sake of this many overseas programs has been conducted which

are mainly focus on the measuring customers satisfaction regarding the

service quality The research seem to be beneficial for the most of thecompanies and provide guidelines to them therefore services firms are

trying to pay more attention over the area of service quality as it is

significant for the success hotel the concept of service quality cover the

meeting and the expectations of the customers and to make the customer

happy regarding services provide to them. In service quality the

objective measurement I snot possible because it is very intangible in

nature. It is considered as the important factor for successful businessthe excellent service of quality refers to the competitive advantage.

COMPANY BACKGROUND

Among the famous hotels in UK the Four Seasons Hotel has itsembarked on the hotel industry the company of four seasons has about83 hotels in 35 different countries. The first hotel of Four Season openedin Canada. The four Season Hotel, Inc. Is an international luxury hotelmanagement company origin in Canada? It enjoys the privilege of one ofthe hundred best companies to work since 1988. The fact is that the


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company has strategy to operate their properties not on the basis ofbuying them but operate them on the behave of real estate agents anddevelopers( www.wikipedis.org) the deals with estate agents are suchthat the company took all the control over the property and run it

according to their needs and requirements. The percentage distribution islike that 3% of gross income and 5% of profits from properties. So thecompany runs with the fractional ownership division. This company wasfounded by Isadore Sharp in 1960.girst four Season Hotel was opened in1961 in Toronto. After that the company expand to the London.Effect of downturn over company

Due to attack on September 11 there was collapse in Tourism industryand this affects the company as they have to cut their prices in order to

maintain the value of brand of the company this cause the tension withthe property owner who lost their money. Then in 2007 the companyrecovered again. Then again during the financial crisis of 2007 -2010 thecompany has challenges to face. As I am going to have the Four Seasonhotel as my project at Canary Wharf, London.The hotel is built in the historic side of the London in the busy centre.

The hotel is situated near at the riverfront location. As in hotel the

visitors come from all over the world. It is only 15 minutes from the

centre London under grounds jubilee line and line. As in 2012 inLondon Olympics are going to be held and the hotel is at the 10 minutes

walk from the Olympics park .the company have their own magazine

which is published quarterly and need to subscriber with $65 US the

hotel has 142 guest rooms and suites . The infrastructure of the hotel is

marvellous. The hotel is fully equipped with business suits

For the price policy the hotel start from 167GBP per night and after 2

nights there is more packages like rooms available at 190GBP, 250 GBP

also.

The weekend and holiday the rates are from 150GBP .for weekend

celebration packages start from 330GBP for the river roamer the

package there is 225GBP. the additional facility b at hotel are fitness
http://www.wikipedis.org/http://www.wikipedis.org/


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centre , 24hrs service , cardiovascular machines , free weights and apple

water, energy and energy drinks and workout clothes are available.

PROBLEM BAC KGROUND

LITERATURE REVIEW

As my research topic is regarding there is main features of servicequality given by the different authors and Side by side critical evaluationof their views regarding service quality.

Various views about service qualityService quality In general is the gap between the consumers perception nof services performances ( William , 1999 ,Gronroos,1984 )thesewriters have view that service quality is a gap between consumerssatisfaction and service providers. Most of the organisation for thesuccessful business there must be excellent service quality.

As mention by ( Webb2000) about the increase in the interest in service

quality area there is rich literature from the various studies to signify thiscrucial issue by looking at various dimension of services quality someexamples are( Briggdstet al,2007,Mohsin2007,Parket et al,2006,Pyo2005,Parasurasuraman, Zeithmal and Berry 1985,1988 and 1994 ,Gronroos1982).

There is greater need of the improvement of the product and qualitywhich are necessary for the competitive advantage viewed by(Morgan&Plercy1996) (Wilds and parks2004) also agree with thisconcept.

As the customer satisfaction is improved. Service quality is must(Kimetal,2005) .This will help to retain the customers and will promoteto make the more and will promote to make the more customers


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(Rahman2006,according to Lee and Lin2005) this improvement inservice and to leads to market expansion and gain profit in the market .(Mohsin,2007)From the above writer they said that service quality is important to

satisfy the customers and it is main area which affects the profitability ofthe business.

(Shepherd,1999) viewed in favour of above that the excellence in theservice quality is like a profit strategy adopted by the company whichresult in new customers and to retain existing customers lost of customeris fewer and good price competition.

Porter in 1987 said that to there must understand of competitiveimplication of service quality in order to improve it. Due to this manyfirm differentiate themselves by pursing service quality from theircompetitions, which result in gaining the competitive advantage(Clerketal, 1994) .then there is issue that how these strategies can beimplemented for the attainment of the competitive advantages (Hill

andWikisons, 1995)

As the implementation strategies has to consider at the large scaledepend upon the middle manager (Harrington & Akehurst 2000, Olyan&Rypes, 1991) also mention importance of middle manager.

Dimension of service quality

There are many discussions regarding the dimension of service quality.As Gornross in 2000 identify the two dimension of service qualitynamed technical dimension and functional dimension. Technicaldimension is a service production process and in functional there is


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perception of services according to hi m technical quality is mostly samein all firms the competitive advantages should be achieved by thefunctional quality as it has different level in the organisation.

According to Zeithaml & Bitner 2002 there are five main service qualitydimensions which has to be considered during the analysis of servicequality these dimension are Responsiveness, Reliability, Assurance,Tangible and EmpathyThe dimension consider at the time of service quality.

There is a conflict regarding the service quality in the manufacturing andindustrial area. In manufacturing when there is no defect in the product it

is quality( Foley et al, 1999) but in industry three main factors given bythe ( Cooper ,2006) which clear the difference of service quality inmanufacturing and industry area. These factors are intangibility,

perishability and inseperability (Foley and Williams, 2003).

Further there is one important thing which has to be considered is that itis mandatory to clear the difference between the service quality andcustomer satisfaction (Gabott & Hogg, 1997). According to them service

quality is the part of the customer satisfaction. When there is fulfilmentof customers expectations then the customer is satisfied. And to makethe customer satisfied there must be good service quality. (Zeithaml-2000).

But there is a controversy according to the Zeithaml(2006)and Johnsonand Clark (2005).there are other factors which influence the customersatisfaction are price, customer mood, word to mouth and personal needsetc. According to them for the good service quality the customer has to

go through the five dimensions of service quality i.e. Reliability,Tangibility, Responsiveness, Empathy and Assurance.

Further according to the views of Kunst and Lemink (1997), earlier therewere ten dimensions of quality given by Parasuraman, Zeithaml andBerry (PZB) in 1985, and then they cut down these dimensions to only


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five as given above. On the other hand According to Gronroos who giveonly two dimensions for the service quality measurement by which theservice quality can be measured subjectively.

Mainly to measure the service quality the SERQUAL method is usedwhich shows the gap between the expectations and perceptions there areother methods for measuring the service quality too like qualitative andquantitative ways. but qualitative are difficult to measure than to thequantitative in which there is numeric data analyse.(Hollins et al, 2006,Williams And Bswell,2003)the SERVQUAL model used to measure theservice quality is of quantitative type .Some other methods are used bothqualitative and quantitative like surveys , emails, questionnaires etc.

It is difficult t measure the service quality. As qualitative methods aremore difficult to conduct on the other hand surveys are very expensiveand time consuming. One other problem is that there is change in theneeds of the customers as the time changed therefore the evaluationshould be done time by time to get the up-to-date information.

As I am going to research on the service quality and its impact over the

occupancy rate in the Hotel Four Seasons London. The issue of theservice quality is very important part of the hotel management.

There are some News regarding the service quality from thewww.hospitality.net

1. Hospitality leaders call for the Standardization of Services andMetrics6 Oct. 2009

At the inaugural HSMAI Asia Pacific there is a group of sales andmarketing leaders of hospitality industry. A round table discussion was
http://opt/scribd/conversion/tmp/scratch20223/www.hospitality.nethttp://opt/scribd/conversion/tmp/scratch20223/www.hospitality.net


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there to focus on the standardisation of services in the hospitalityindustry. They discussed that how to improve the customer servicequality and the customer s have to be realised that someone cares aboutthem.

2. Another news from Cornell round table is that there must bedevelopment of a strong service culture in the hospitality industry. Theemployees should be explained by the employers to maintain the serviceculture in the hotels.

Journals

Analysing Service Quality in the Hospitality IndustryIndian Journal of Economics and Business, December, 2008By Mohammed Almossaw

In this journal importance and the value of service quality in thehospitality industry is discussed. This article tells that how the servicequality become focus of many hotel Industries. There is combined effectof economic recession and development in the technology which

increase the competitive pressure over the firms. (Harrington, 2000).And due to these pressures the area of service quality is now concernedmore seriously. The reason behind is that the service quality becomemore influential factor which attract to repeat the business for the hotels.(Saleh and Ryan 1991).

Government statistical

Methodology of monthly Index of Services

Hotel and Restaurant Industry review (www.statistics.gov.uk)

As the launch of IoS in Dec. 2000 there is commitment made to
http://opt/scribd/conversion/tmp/scratch20223/www.statistics.gov.ukhttp://opt/scribd/conversion/tmp/scratch20223/www.statistics.gov.uk


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improve the service sector in the Hotels and RestaurantsIndustry Review Recommendations

1. To replace VAT with ONS Monthly Inquiry into

Distribution and Service Sector(MIDSS)2. Introduction to corporate Service Price IndicesAs the term of gross value added to 2000, represents data4.7% of IoS3.3% of total GVA

Company web site

As doing research on the Hotel Four Seasons for the researchpurpose I will use the company website i.e.www.fourseason.com and www.thefourseasons.co.uk/ these arethe companys own websites these websites are very useful inproviding data. Also the company has its own magazine whichcovers all the main features of the company.

JUSTIFICATION

From the study of literature review it is clear that how much isthe area of Service Quality is important in the hospitalityIndustry. This is the main issue after the recession period .Ichooses this topic because it has future advantages in the hotelindustry and this is the main area which is responsible for thesuccess of the company .moreover this is challenging to work in
http://www.fourseason.com/http://opt/scribd/conversion/tmp/scratch20223/www.thefourseasons.co.uk/http://www.fourseason.com/http://opt/scribd/conversion/tmp/scratch20223/www.thefourseasons.co.uk/


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this area .I can explore my knowledge and experience byconsidering this topic for dissertation.

HYPOTHESIS

In this dissertation the is critical education of service quality indepth for the increasing of occupancy rate in the hotel.

1. Service quality as main determinant for the successfulrunning or organisation or hotel. How to provide quality

efficient service.2. Profit for the hotel due to effective services quality. For this

section It will be consider to increase the profitably for thehotel due to the good service quality.

3. Service quality emphasis over the customer satisfaction.4. Service quality as main key factor for growing industry and

raise up from reaction effects.

5. Competitive advantage.

METHODOLOGY

Research methodology is defined as the systematic method ofdata collection and the analysis of collected data in order to takethe necessary information. (Jankowicz, 2000). According toJankowicz research method is a time consuming concept and itshould be managed carefully for the sake of collecting thevaluable data from the available sources. The researchapproaches are multi type process which has step by stepprogress toward the problem to discuss the main objectives of


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research designs (Saunders and thornhill, 1997).researchmethodology is used to evaluate the service quality for thepurpose to identify the future needs and development with

regards to the occupancy rate in the hotel. For researchmethodology following type of approaches can be discussed.

1. Deductive approach2. Inductive approach3. Research onion

DEDUCTIVE APPROACH

In the deductive reasoning there is work from the general tospecific type. Informally this approach is also called as the TopDown approach. In deductive approach first step is to thinkabout the theory of the problem or topic of interest. (Saunders &Thornhill, 1997).After that we have to go down for more

specific and to the point of hypothesis which has to be tested.Then we do further down to get the observations regarding tothe hypothesis. This is a confirmation of our original theory.


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THEORY

HYPOTHESIS

CONFIRMATION

OBSERVATION

THEORY

HYPOTHESIS

PATTERN

OBSERVATION

INDUCTIVE APPROACHThe process of inductive reasoning is opposite to the deductivereasoning. Here have to move from the specific observation tothe broader one for our research i.e. from generalization and

theories. This reasoning is informally called as the Bottom Upapproach. In this type of reasoning there is start with specificobservations and measurement and then formulate thehypothesis and finally goes to develop the general conclusionfor the theories.ONION RESEARCH


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Source Saunders and Thornhill, 2000

DATA COLLECTION METHODS

There are mainly two type of data collection method in researchmethodology.

1. Secondary data collection2. Primary data collection

SECONDARY METHOD

Secondary data is that form of data which is already exist and iscollected by some other sources for another purpose. In secondary


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research there is investigation of secondary data sources (Saunders, et al,2000).

Secondary data sources are further classified into two types i.e.

Internal sources

External sources

1. Internal sources are the data which come from within company. Aseach and every department have their own records which are used forvaluable data collection. This data may be out of date or may be incomplete.

External sourcesThis is that type of data which is published by another organisation.

The Government (www.satistics.gov.uk)

Trade publications

Internet

Informal contact

Census data

Libraries etc.

Advantages and Disadvantages

Time saving.

Secondary data can be used by any firm which is going toconduct research.

The advantages and disadvantages some time depend uponthe data type for example government data is always free toaccess and cheap.

Moreover it is always accurate.

The main disadvantage of secondary data is that iscollected over past time and due to this data may be out of
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date.

Another thing is that data may be in the other format.

The data of this type is mostly general as it is available to

all and free to use there is no competitive edge for theorganisation (Ghauri and Gronhaug2002)

PRIMARY METHODS

Primary research is that type of data which is directly collectedfrom the sources that is about the problem exists before. Thisdata collection method is designed to collect the answer of aparticular question regarding problem or topic of research .Inorder to collect the primary data field research is required.Following are the main methods of primary research.

Face to face interview

Telephone interview

On line survey

Posted survey

Focus groups

QuestionnairesAdvantages and Disadvantages

Data is always up to date.

Data collected specific to the purpose.

Data collected is always confidential

Data can be collect quickly through on line survey andtelephone interview.

There is time for respondent to response.Disadvantages


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Time consuming.

Difficult to collect the data.

Respondent some time rude.

Expensive misleading result may be provided ifquestionnaires are not proper.

Some time interview and appointments may cancel.

QUALITATIVE APPROACHThis data is used for exploratory purpose the information is innon numeric for subjective data is collected .This research is

used for the case studies and action researches (white 2002)

QUANTITATIVE APPROACHQuantitative data is from of secondary research method in whichdata is in the system from of number and used as systematic, andstatistical (Blaster2001).In quantitative research the results are given in to the form ofnumerical values and there is mathematical and statistical

treatment for research and analyse the data (white2000).

SELECTION OF METHOD

For my research I will go though the mixture of both methods isprimary and secondary as I have topic to evaluate the servicequality of hotel four season it is necessary to collect both

qualitative and qualitative data. For this I will concern bothapproaches for that by considering approach of the onionresearch given by (Saunders and Thornhill in 2000).


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ETHICSThe main resources of data collection for my research arequalitative for this I will contact my supervisor and go for the

interviews and telephone talk to collect the data.I will also concert secondary data sources from I can got therequired information regarding account and profit loss of thecompany.Consult the supervisor for making the qualitative andquantitative question for research.Hopefully in conclusion, I will follow the ethics rule during myresearch process and try to contact my supervisor in case of any

problem.

SCOPEThe area of service quality has and wider scope and it iscontrollable during the researches. The area of is very importantand these area lots of researches regarding this which willuseful for my research .I will evaluate of theory of service

quality critically and try to develop the effective results from theresearches.

LIMITATIONSIn the research in proposal is limited .There is no detailed searchyet. During the research I faced the problem regarding the onlinedata. It is difficult to interpret this data because this is availablein large amount.Secondly I found difficulty to collect the data from the govtstatistical web site. How to find the related topic regarding myresearch.

REFERENCES


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Gill J. & Johnson P. (2002) Research Methods for Managers(3rdedition), London, SAGE Publications.

Zikmund, W. (2000) Business Research Methods (6thedition),

USA, Harcount, Inc.Saunders, M. Lewis, P. and Thornhill, A. (2003) ResearchMethods for Business Students (3rdedition), UK, Prentice Hall.

Fitzsimmons, JA and Fitzsimmons, MJ (2008)ServiceManagement: Operations, Strategy, Information andTechnology6thedition. New York: McGraw-Hill

Foley, M. Lennon, J.and Maxwell G (1997)Hospitality, tourismand Leisure ManagementLondon: Cassell

Gabbott, M and Hogg, G (1997)Contemporary ServicesMarketing ManagementLondon: Dryden Press

Hollins, B and Shinkins, S (2006)Managing ServiceOperationsLondon: Sage

Johnston, R and Clark, G (2005)Service Operations Managementinproving Service Delivery2ndEdition. Essex: Pearson EducationLtd

Kunst, P and Lemmink, J (1997)Managing servicequalityVolume 3. London: Paul Chapman Publishing Ltd


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Williams, C and Buswell, J (2003)Service quality in Leisure andTourismCambridge: CABI Publishing

Zeithaml, VA. Bitner, MJ and Gremler, DD (2006)ServicesMarketing: Integrating Customer Focus Accross theFirm4thEdition. New York: McGraw-Hill

Web sources

www.fourseasons.com www.thefourseasons.co.uk/

News

www.hospitality.netjournalswww.hospitality.net
http://www.fourseasons.com/http://www.thefourseasons.co.uk/http://www.hospitality.net/http://opt/scribd/conversion/tmp/scratch20223/www.hospitality.nethttp://www.fourseasons.com/http://www.thefourseasons.co.uk/http://www.hospitality.net/http://opt/scribd/conversion/tmp/scratch20223/www.hospitality.net

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