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At least three distinct components of the total
quality concept can be recognised in all tourism
sector activities: a technical or physical quality
�what is delivered), a functional or interactive
quality �how it is delivered), and a corporate
quality or image. To use as an example the
services carried out in an hotel �Saleh and Ryan
1992), the technical characteristics would include
the tangible elements of the hotel's reception area
�check-in desk, seats, brochures), rooms �beds,
television, toilets), restaurants �food, drink, tableware),
and the like. The functional dimension
would relate to courtesy, speed, empathy and so on,
and would in essence result from the interaction
between the clients and the tangible elements, the
clients and the service providers, or the clients and
other clients. Furthermore, the third component
would be the image that the client has of this type
of hotel establishment, which is fundamental given
the intangible nature of the service. To guarantee
high levels of quality in this service, the clients'
expectations of the previously mentioned elements
must be converted into standards; that is, converted
into specific norms, and that will depend on the
extent to which the executable work or tasks can be
standardised and converted into routine activities
�Zeithaml et al. 1990).
Standardisation is a basic mainstay in the theory
of daily work improvement, and forms the central
axis of the shift towards improvement. Levitt �1976:
66±8) indicates three possibilities for standardisation
or industrialisation of service which are
applicable to the tourism sector. One, with hard
technology, substituting those systems with more
personal contact and human effort for machines
and equipment, allows the effort to be concentrated
on those tasks which require a higher level of
personal service �principally those tasks related to
`how it is delivered' or functional quality). The
tourism industry has a large number of activities
that can be standardised in this way, thus the
standards are effectively established and fulfilled,
and the service is improved. Second, with soft
technology, work procedures are modified and
perfected. Although this often implies some sort of
modification to tools, the essential characteristic is
within the system itself, where routines are
specifically designed to produce the desired effect.
In tourism, it is possible to standardise some
aspects of the service, for example, the package
deals offered by tour operators. Third, there are
hybrid methods which allow the simultaneous use
of both technologies.
Both the automation required to maintain a
high level of consistency in the tourism industry
and the development of programmes that allow
improvement to operational processes constitute
the basis for structuring important elements in the
service provision. Despite the inherent difficulties
in the industry, standardisation is essential given
that only in this way will it be possible to establish
objectives that must meet or surpass such standards
with the aim of achieving client satisfaction.
References
Horovitz, J. �1986) `La non-qualite tue', Harvard-
L'Expansion 53±61.
Levitt, T. �1976) `The industrialisation of service',
Harvard Business Review September±October: 63±
74.
Saleh, F. and Ryan, C. �1992) `Conviviality ± a
source of satisfaction for hotel guests? An
application of the servqual model', in P. Johnson
and B. Thomas �eds), Choice and Demand in
Tourism, New York: Mansell, 107±22.
Zeithaml, V.A., Parasuraman, A. and Berry, L.L.
�1990) Delivering Quality Service, New York: The
Free Press.
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statistics
IRENE GIL SAURA, SPAIN
Formally, `statistics' describes both a field of study
in mathematics, and certain quantitative characteristics
of a sample. The former sense includes
descriptive statistics, the organisation and summary
of quantitative information from a collection of
actual observations of a phenomenon, such as
tourism demand, and inferential statistics, the
generalising from a sample of actual observations
to a larger population. Statistics in the latter sense
is used to describe a sample of observations