Study on the Indicators of Taiwanese Tour Guides’ Service Quality

doi:10.4236/ib.2013.53B013

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iBusiness, 2013, 5, 59-62

http: //dx.doi.org/10.4236/ib.201 3.53B013 Published Online September 2013 (http://www.scirp.org/journal/ib) 59

Study on the Indicators of Taiwanese Tour Guides’

Service Quality

Jennifer Chen-Hua Min, Shu-Hua Chen, Mou-Yi Kao, Fu-Nan Hsu

Department of International Business, Ming Chuan University

Email: [email protected]w, [email protected], mykao@mail.mcu.edu.tw, [email protected]

Received June, 2013

ABSTRACT

The tourism industry is considered a typical service industry, one in which the involvement of service components is

relatively high. Serv ing and satisfying cu stomers are fundamental goals of the tourism business, with service pro viders

being part of the product itself. Given tour guides’ roles as intermediaries between tourists and an unfamiliar environ-

ment, special attention sh ould be paid to the service qu ality of tour guides, as it has th e potential to increase tourist sat-

isfaction and produce measurable benefits in profits and market share. The aim of the study is therefore to build the

quality indicators of tour gu ide services. In terms of research methodologies, a combination of qualitative an d quantita-

tive approaches was conducted to reach the objectives. After both in-depth interviews and two rounds of focus group

sessions, six dimensions (reliability, response, physical environment, guarantee, care and culture) and 30 indicators

were obtained. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was applied to determine the weighting of various evaluation criteria

on the indicators of Taiwanese tou r guides’ service quality. Among the criteria, “The tour guides hav e a precise service

attitude and executio n ability.” was found to be the most important, while “During the trip, the tour guides dress prop-

erly.” ranked as the least important.

Keywords: Tour Guides; PZB Model; Focus Group; AHP

1. Introduction

The significant role of service quality for business success

has been well acknowledged. Delivery of high service

quality can help organization s gain a co mpetitive advan tage

and differentiate themselves more effectively in the

marketplace [1]. How ever, service quality is rather difficu lt

to measure because of the complex nature of services and

unique qualiti es of a service tran sactio n (i.e. h eterog enei ty,

intangibility, and inseparability of production and

consumption), while the quality of a physical good is

relatively straightforward [2].

As an industry, the tourism industry is considered a

typical service industry, one in which the involvement of

service components is relatively high. Serving and

satisfying customers are fundamental goals of the

tourism business [3], with service providers being part of

the product itself [4].

However, although extensive literature has been de-

voted to the service quality in the tourism field, there has

been relatively little discussion of the service quality of

the tour guide population, nor has there been any as-

sessment of their quality of performance. The reason for

this gap may be the lack of appropriate service quality

indicators for tour guides. This is a worthwhile area of

research, as tour guides play an important role in the

success or failure of a tour experience and often crucially

influence tourists’ perceptions of the host destinatio n [5].

Given tour guides’ roles as intermediaries between tour-

ists and an unfamiliar environment, special attention

should be paid to the service quality of tour guides,

which has the potential to increase tourist satisfaction

and produce measurable benefits in profits and market

share [6]. A combination of qualitative and quantitative

approaches was conducted to reach the objectives. Since

the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method systema-

tizes complicated problems, is easy to operate, and inte-

grates most of the experts’ and evaluators’ opinions,

AHP method was therefore applied to determine the

weighting of various evaluation criteria [7].

Hence, the purpose of this study is threefold:

1) Build the dimensions on the quality indicators of

tour guide servi ces

2) Construct related evaluation indicators on tour

guide service quality

3) Evaluate the applicability of the quality indicators

of tour guide services in the tourism industry.

2. Methodology

In terms of research methodologies of the current study,

Study on the Indicators of Taiwanese Tour Guides’ Service Quality

a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches

was conducted to reach the objectives. In terms of quail-

tative method, both in-depth interviews and two rounds

of focus group sessions were carried out to ensure the

inclusion of an adequate and representative set of indica-

tors. Besides reviewing, comparing and contrasting rele-

vant research literature, one-on-one interviews of tour

guides were conducted to obtain information from their

different points of view using open-ended questions.

Both the interviews and focus group sessions were audio

tape-recorded, and a content analytic approach was em-

ployed which provides the researchers with the opportu-

nity to double check the answers and avoid missing any

important information [8]. Then, a panel of experts in-

cluding tour guides, practitio ners, travel agents, and gov-

ernment officials in charge of tourism affairs were ex-

amine the generated list of service quality dimensions

and criteria of tour guides to ensure that they adequately

cover the most important aspects.

In the current study, indicators of tour guides’ service

quality involve many complex aspects and could be

viewed as a multi-criteria decision-making problem.

Therefore a systematic measurement was adapted to

simplify the complexity and incorporate correlative crite-

ria for analysis of issues. Since AHP method has the

characteristics that is systematizes complicated problems,

is relatively easy to operate, and integrates most of the

experts’ and evaluators’ opinions, this study therefore

adopted AHP for the contrivance of weights. For the

quantitative method of the study, AHP was therefore

applied to determine the weighting of various evaluation

criteria on the indicators of Taiwanese tour guides’ ser-

vice quality.

AHP was first developed by Thomas L. Saaty in 1980

[7], and now has been applied in many diverse areas of

social management sciences. In the 1990’s, the tourism

scholars also applied in tourism planning , evaluation , and

decision making [9]. The method decomposes compli-

cated problems from higher hierarchies to lower ones.

Furthermore, it also systematizes the problem by utilize-

ing the subsystem perspective endowed in the system

that can be easily comprehended and evaluated. Finally,

it determines the priorities of the elements at each level

of the decision hierarchy an d synthesizes the priorities to

determine the overall priorities of the decision alterna-

tives. To apply AHP in prioritizing indicators of tour

guides’ service quality in this stud y, all indicato r s hav e to

be structured into different hierarchical levels. This study

shows the three-level hierarchy for indicators based on

the hierarchical structures of AHP.

3. Basic Concept of AHP

3.1. Hierarchical Structures

Suppose there is a hierarchical structure showed in Fig-

ure 1. Nodes in the hierarchy represent criteria, sub-cri-

teria, or alternatives to be prioritized, and arcs reflect

relationships between the nodes in different levels. Each

relationship (arc) represents a relative weight or impor-

tance of a node at Level L relating to a node at Level L-1,

where L = 2, 3, …, N-1, N. The nodes at Level L do not

necessarily connect to all the nodes at Level L-1, where

L = 2, 3, …, N-1, N.

The computation of weights is performed in the fol-

lowing way. Suppose there is a set of n criteria





nLLL ,2,1, located at a hierarchical Level L.

Assuming that all the criteria at Level L are comparable

with each other, n (n-1)/2 paired comparisons of the n

criteria at Level L are performed. For each pair of com-

parisons, a decision maker (individual or group) uses the

nine-point scale to reflect the degree of preference. The

final AHP result is an assignment of weights to the crite-

ria or alternatives at the lowest Level N.

cccC ,,,

For the research, the word “criteria” may represent any

one of three conceptual levels: identified usability di-

mensions, sub-dimensions, and individual questionnaire

items. For example, in the lowest level (Level N), criteria

can represent the set of individual questionnaire items,

and criteria can represent the set of sub-dimensions in the

Level N-1. The top level node represents construct of

overall usability which should ultimately be measured

3.2. Pairwise Comparison

In terms of the scales for quantifying pairwise compare-

sons, several approaches are available; although Saaty’s

[10] linear scale was the first proposed and has been used

pervasively. Based on the fact that most humans cannot

simultaneously compare more than seven objects (plus or

minus two), Saaty [10] established 9 as the upper limit of

the scale and 1 as the lower limit.

3.3. AHP Data Analysis Procedure

Using any of the scales the preference or dominance

measures of paired comparisons are placed in a matrix

form in the following manner:

Figure 1. AHP structure.

Study on the Indicators of Taiwanese Tour Guides’ Service Quality 61















112







Each of the matrix represents the ratio by which

criteriaidominates criteria j. As mentioned in the previ-

ous section, criteria can be usability dimensions, sub-

dimensions, or questionnaire items. Since M is a recip-

rocal matrix, in which each element of the lower-left

diagonal part is the inverse of each element of upper-

right diagonal part, each follows the specifications

such as

1 ij

ji m

m (1)

,1

m for

i and (2)

.,,2,1, nji 

To calculate weights based on the pairwise judgments,

it is assumed that exact measurement was made so that

each element can be decomposed into a ratio of weights

as follows:

ij w

m (3)

Then the matri x M is expressed as















nnn







Since

ij w

m

as defined above, For all j,

can take the general form of

iji mw 

jiji wm

w



1, which

leads to . This expression can be denoted

in matrix form as

jiji wmmw 



ji Awnw(or xAx



) (4)

where n (or



) is the eigenvalue and w is the eigenvec-

tors. However, this is not solvable since there exist mul-

tiple eigenvalues and eigenvectors. Since 1



m for all

i, then . If M is a consistent matrix (see the

ii



1



next paragraph), small variations ofij keep the largest

eigenvalue close to n, and the remaining eigenvalues

close to zero. Therefore, the priority vector can be ob-

tained from a vector w that satisfies

wAw max





(5)

The vector w is the eigenvector corresponding to the

maximum eigenvalue. Where Saaty’s (1995) provided 4

types of methods to solve eigenvalue

1,1,2,,

nij

wij

njaij









n

(6)

,1,2,,

inn

wij









n

(7)

,1,2,,

wij























n

(8)

,1,2,,

jij

wij





















n

(9)

To obtain relative weights, the sum of which is equal

to one, the eigenvector should be normalized in the fol-

lowing manner:

ii















1

,1 (10)

4. Results and Conclusions

After interviewing and two round focus groups, six di-

mensions (reliability, response, physical environment,

guarantee, care and culture) and 30 indicators were ob-

tained. A panel of 25 experts including tour guides, prac-

Study on the Indicators of Taiwanese Tour Guides’ Service Quality

titioners, and tourism professors were collected. The re-

sults from the questionnaires were calculated in sequence

to derive the weightings and then the various weight al-

ternatives were evaluated. The outcomes were then pri-

oritized by weight, and the expert opinions were com-

bined to form the tour guides’ service quality. Each

weighting mode derived from this research was consis-

tent as all CI’s (Consistency Indicators) and CR’s (Con-

sistency Rates) were below 0.1. Among the six dimen-

sions, reliability (28.2%) is the most important evaluation

framework, and the culture (7.5 %) is the least important.

Among the criteria, “The tour guides have a precise ser-

vice attitude and execution ability.” was found to be the

most important, while “During the trip, the tour guides

dress properly.” ranked as the least important.

The present study contributes to the field of knowl-

edge about the importance of service quality in the tour-

ism industry, specifically in regards to tour guides. It is

helpful if future work can build upon this study’s

framework and develop scales of service quality of tour

guides from different tourists’ perspectives. The results

of the current stud y also can help travel practitioners and

tour guides properly allocate resources, improving and

tailor-making services to meet the expectations of Tai-

wan inbound tourists.

5. Acknowledgements

This research was funded by a research grant from the

National Science Council in Taiwan (NSC 101-2410-

H-130-061-).

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