Managing Quality in Hospitality Tourism and Events Factors

This report gives a brief about concept of the quality management, problems faced by organization, impact of technique for improving quality and recommendations.

Concept of the quality management

Quality management is basically the process and series of methods which are being undertaken for delivering the desired level of excellence as well as providing a high level of quality in each and every product. Quality management is one of the major issue which each and every organization faces whether small or big and is the determining factor for success of organization (Inkson and Minnaert, 2018). Quality management mainly incorporates various systems as well as processes through which an organization ensures that their products as well as services are consistent enough to meet the satisfaction level as well as demands of different market segments. Quality management mainly involves determining the quality policy, designing as well as implementing the quality assurance and quality control along with quality improvement. Quality is predominately the extent to which a product or service has the ability to meet the demands of customers and complies to the standards of degree of the excellence. The service quality is one of the remarkable aspect in quality management which is comparison of the perceived expectation for service together with perceived performance. Quality management plays a crucial role in every organization and hence helps the organization to gain competitive advantage and establish position in market. The importance of the quality management. Ask for assignment help from our experts!

Increases customer base

When organization delivers the quality services as well as products to the customers then their loyalty as well as trust towards that organization eventually increases. This helps the organization to enlarge its customers base by taking the brand message to wider audience.

Competitive advantage

Quality is one of the highly imperative factor which enables organizations to gain an edge over the competitors and hence helps to tap a great market share. By delivering quality in each and every aspect, organizations mainly fulfills the needs and demands of customers which eventually helps them to survive in the cut-throat competition (Dixit, 2017).

The various characteristics of the quality of goods and services which helps the organization to evaluate the effectiveness of their products and services are

Functionality

This is mainly the additional features which enhances and boost up appeal of product as well as service to user.

Appearance

This is the another characteristic of quality which describes aesthetic look and sound feel of the product as well as services.

Reliability

This is likelihood that given product will eventually not fail or distort within the given time period.

Durability

Durability basically measures length of the product life and thus is ability of product to function normally without requirement of excessive maintenance.

In this way, quality management plays an important role within each and every organization and thus helps to achieve the goals as well as objectives.

Evolution of quality as well as quality gurus

In the year 1920, the statistical theory was applied for quality control. In the year 1924, Shewhart was the first person who made first sketch of the control chart. This work was then later modified by famous Deming, Dodge as well as Romig. These three along with Shewhart established theory of the statistical process control (SPC). In 1950's the various practices of quality management was developed within Japanese plants and by the end of 1960, quality management as well as control became the national preoccupation. In 21^st century, the concept of quality management was highly developed and took a great turn in various countries and transformed into the holistic framework where the main objective was to achieve and attain excellent performance.

One of the well-known model as well as framework which being used in the quality management by organization is Gap model. This model mainly is the framework which helps in understanding the customer satisfaction. In short, this model helps to recognize the gaps which organizations mainly faces whole delivering quality services to customers. This model mainly consists of 5 gaps namely gap 1 which is gap between customer expectations and management perception which is customer gap (Buhalis and Leung, 2018). Gap 2 is knowledge gap. Third gap is policy gap while fourth gap is delivery gap. Fifth gap is communication gap. TQM plays an important role within quality management and thus is one of the significant aspect of quality management. Total quality management is basically the approach as well as process wherein organization efforts makes efforts for continuously increasing their performance and achieving customer satisfaction.

llustration 1: Gap model of service quality

Problems faced by organization

The issue of quality management mainly occurs in every organization whether it is big organization or small firm. Airbnb is one from the millions organization which is facing the problems related to the quality and is somewhat affecting their overall revenue ratio and competitiveness. From past few years, customers are constantly complaining about the service quality as well as the quality of their products on Trustpilot which has created a huge chaos for Airbnb. In the year 2017, around millions of the customers as well as holiday makers became the prey of their frauds as well as bad quality by canceling the booking last time and making visitors to roam around in the unknown streets (Ogbeide, 2019). This is one of the major issue which the organization is currently facing and is impacting their brand image in the market. The complaints of the customers regarding canceling tickets at the last time has posed a huge problem for the company and is affecting their overall revenue ratio. Company is continuously receiving a constant stream of grievances from the customers regarding canceling their tickets prior informing them and not arranging any facility to stay. In this way, this company does not meet the criteria of assurance as well as reliability dimension of service quality.

The another issue which the company is currently facing is the improper customer service. Around 32.6% people complaints for the bad customer service of Airbnb and thus is the another major issue which is hindering its overall market position. According to the recent report, it has been found that whenever thing go wrong or awry then their customer service mainly becomes horrifying and around four out of five people have experienced the bad services of Airbnb. The major complaints which the company is receiving is the unresponsive officials. Most of the customers complaints that when they reach out to the officials as well as staff of Airbnb then they either talk rudely or cut the call without giving proper answer. Thus, the bad customer service is one of the major issue which company is currently facing. This has affected the quality as well as market position of the company and has also impacted their customer base. The customers are unhappy with their customers service and is receiving disappointment from them regarding the rude staff and unresponsive officials (Camilleri, 2019). Therefore, company is unable to meet the criteria of responsiveness and empathy dimension of service quality.

The third issue which company is recently facing is the denied refunds by the company as well as lack of support during the emergencies. This is one of the major problem which is being faced by the company. It has been reported that company has canceled the booking of around 1.1 million people traveling through them and did not refund the money. Besides this, most of the customers have complained that they do not receive any assistance or support during the emergency. For example- customers mainly complaints that when they call their staff for seeking any information, the officials do not support and cooperate instead disconnect the phone and thus has happened with the customers more than three times. Thus, this is the another problem which company is facing and this has affected its overall performance and productivity. Customers complaint that when their tickets are canceled without any prior information or without any mistake then company dies not refund the money and deny to return a single penny. Along with this, most of the times, phones and website of company remains unreachable during emergency and the connectivity is lost due to which their problems remains unresolved (Jepson and Clarke, 2016). Want to get Assignment Samples?Talk to our Experts!

Impact of Technique for improving quality

Benchmarking

Benchmarking is basically the process of measuring as well as evaluating the performance of the products as well as services of organization in comparison to the another business operating in same industry. In short, Benchmarking is ongoing procedure for measuring as well as improving the products and services against best. Benchmarking is considered as the most effective strategy as well as technique for improving the performance as well as productivity of the products. Benchmarking is generally the method through which organizations compare themselves with the other organizations who have a good name in the industry and have great brand image (Burke, 2018). By comparing themselves, organizations come to know about the various best practices which they can implement in order to gain an edge over the competitors by improving their services and inculcating quality in each and every aspect. This technique will be highly useful as well as beneficial for Airbnb where this will help them to improve their overall products services and optimize the process. In order to improve its services, company can first find out that in which are they needs improvement like better customer service, uninformed cancellations, better support etc. Once the company has identified the improvement areas, Airbnb can look for the similar organization working in hospitality industry which have great brand awareness and excels in every process like FlipKey, Tripping.com etc. After identifying the required organization for example Tripping.com, Airbnb can study its whole process as well as analyze its functioning. For example- before canceling any booking, the management of Tripping.com prior informs the customer about cancellation along with reason and also provides the alternative hotel to stay without charging extra fees. Besides this, Tripping.com have well-trained and skilled staff and officials who are available 24 hours to provide the assistance as well as support to the customers regarding any query and solve it within given time frame. Thus, after evaluating the benchmark firm which is Tripping.com, Airbnb can improve its overall process as well as implement the various quality standards for delivering the excellence to customers. For example- Firstly Airbnb can solve the issue of uniformed cancellation by properly communicating with the customers that what has gone wrong and why cancellation is taking place. Along with this, company should provide the alternative solution to customers like alternative hotel to stay in the same price (Novello and Fernandez, 2016). Along with this, order to improve its customer services, company can provide an effective training to their staff and officials for responding to the queries of customers effectively. Airbnb can inculcate the necessary skills within their staff to effectively communicate with the customers and effectively solve their problem along with providing the necessary assistance to them.

Along with this, company can develop the new policies as well as measures for the security for ending scourge of the fraudsters who are using their website. Through the use of strict security measures and policies, company can protect the holidaymakers from the various fraudulent activities.

Thus, in this way benchmarking can prove to be one of the most remarkable as well as significant technique for Airbnb for delivering the consistent as well as effective quality to their customers. This will eventually help them to enlarge the customer base and establish position in market.

Advantages

The main advantage of benchmarking is that it helps to improve the standards of company and helps to analyze standards of those of competitors. This eventually facilitates organization to increase its practices and standards of products and services. Another advantage is that it increases the quality of services and products. When organization follows the best practices then this ultimately increases the quality as well as excellence of their production.

Disadvantages

The major disadvantage of this technique is that there is limited information. Sometimes, organization is generally unable to collect relevant and adequate information for the benchmarking. This leads to bad performance of organization. Another disadvantage of this technique is that sometimes the comparison becomes incorrect and ineffective. Organization makes the irrelevant comparison which often leads to poor benchmarks.

Suggested Read- The Contemporary Hospitality Industry

Recommendations

Quality management plays an important role within an organization and thus helps each and every organization to achieve the competitive advantage and gain a great market share. As Airbnb is facing the major problem of quality management thus it becomes highly essential for them to improve their quality in terms of each and every aspect whether customer service, employees etc (Tung and et.al.,2017).

Firstly, the major problem being faced by the company is poor customer service where most of the people complaints about rude and unresponsive behaviour of the officials. One of the major concept of TQM is customer-orientation which states that organization should provide services and products in order to meet the needs of customers and increasing its satisfaction level. In order to resolve this issue, Airbnb should provide an effective training as well as skills development to their employees and staff. This will help company to align to this concept of TQM as providing effective training will help to increase the satisfaction level of customers. For example- company should explain the essentials of effective communication to the staff in order to eliminate their rude behaviour towards customers. Besides this, company should provide necessary training on the skills and capabilities which are required for dealing with customers to their staff. Company should design the strict rules for their employees regarding solving grievances. For example- management of Airbnb should make a thorough policy for the employees that all the complaints of customers should be solved within 24 hours and each and every employee have to be responsive to the customers in calmly manner.

The second problem being faced by the company is increasing complaints of the customers regarding uninformed cancellations. For improving its overall prices, company should maintain the frequent communication with their visitors (Moscardo and et.al.,2017). The main reason behind canceling at the last minute is the ineffective process of Airbnb like sometimes at the last minute, all the rooms in hotel where customers have bookings get pack. Due to the improper analysis of the hotels and other place by Airbnb, cancellation mainly occurs. Thus, Airbnb should improve its overall process of providing hotels and should effectively oversee the various activities in order to eliminate last minute cancellation. Even though, if in case company has to cancel the booking then it should provide an alternative option to the customers in order to prevent any inconvenience. Company should stand on its commitment of offering the required services as promise in the same price in order to gain the trust and loyalty of customers. Take Dissertation Topics from professional experts!

Another problem being faced by the company is increasing frauds which are occurring in the company. The hackers as well as frauders mainly make use of their website for sending the cash to some scam accounts. In order to prevent these fraudulent activities, Airbnb should design the various strict data policies in its organizations and implement various security measures. Besides this, company should provide an effective training to their staff regarding data protection and security measures and internet safety in order to overcome the data issues. Along with this, company should avoid any third party transactions who do not have the authorized access and should avoid making constant with the parties who do not have proper authorization (Grobelna and Dolot, 2018). Along with this, company should protect its website as well as system by using various antivirus and should set up the firewall to overcome sending of cash by some other individual. The main threat in this problem is on the website of its company thus company should protect its website by incorporating various security keyword in it and should continuously update the website for avoiding any fraudulent activity.

CONCLUSION

It has been summarized that quality plays an important role within an organization and is major determining factor in its success. The various problems which the hospitality organizations mainly faced in terms of quality is bad customer service, uninformed cancellations, inefficient staff, etc. These all problems eventually affects then performance of organization. The most efficient technique for delivering the effective quality is benchmarking. The main advantage of this is that it helps organizations to develop the structured processes and measures for improvement.

Read Also - Consultancy Report of Londons visitor economy

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