Guiding the guides: developing indicators of tour guides' service quality

摘要

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, with service providers being part of the product itself. Given tour guides' roles as intermediaries between tourists and an unfamiliar environment, special attention should be paid to their service quality, as it can potentially increase tourist satisfaction, profits, and market share. This study therefore aims to develop and prioritise service quality indicators for Taiwanese tour guides using a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches. After conducting a literature review, in-depth interviews, and 2 rounds of modified Delphi sessions, 6 dimensions (tangibles, reliability, assurance, responsiveness, empathy, and culture) and 30 indicators were obtained. Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was then applied to determine the weighting of various evaluation criteria on the indicators of Taiwanese tour guides' service quality. According to the results of the AHP analysis, the most important criterion was 'execution ability', while 'introduction of regional terms' was the least important. The implications and suggestions for further study were then discussed.