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European Journal of Management and Marketing Studies ISSN: 2501 - 9988 ISSN-L: 2501 - 9988 Available on-line at: http://www.oapub.org/soc Volume 2 │ Issue 3 │ 2017 doi: 10.5281/zenodo.1066582 MEASURING THE MEDIATING ROLE OF CUSTOMER SATISFACTION BETWEEN SERVICE QUALITY AND CUSTOMER LOYALTY IN UAE HOTEL INDUSTRY Hassan Abbas Dost Mohamadi, Mohd Shukri Ab Yazid, Ali Khatibi, S. M. Ferdous Azam Graduate School of Management, Faculty of Business Management and Professional Studies, Management and Science University (MSU), Section 13, 40100 Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia Abstract: Tourism has become one of the most essential segments of economy for these Asian countries. Rapid economic growth, political stability, and aggressive tourism campaigns by the governments have strongly enhanced the growth of tourism in this region. This study is primarily designed to review the relationship of service quality and customer satisfaction that leads to customer loyalty in UAE hotels. The study focused on the country UAE and in particular UAE’s hotel sector. Thus, this study has attempted to forward more understanding on the subject matter. This study has employed survey method for data collection where a larger population can be covered in a shorter time. For this research, primary data were used to identify the impact of customer satisfaction between service quality and customer loyalty. In this study, the sample consists of customers who are available within Dubai city. A total sample size of 300 was adequate for this study. The samples for this study were the customers who stay minimum one night is hotels in. In order to attract new customers, manager must first focus on their existing customers. It is because, to take care the existing customers will maintain their profit rather than to attract new customers that mostly will incur higher cost. Companies need to retain existing customers with effectively satisfy their needs so that the existing customers become loyal with their businesses Copyright © The Author(s). All Rights Reserved. © 2015 – 2017 Open Access Publishing Group 188 Hassan Abbas Dost Mohamad, Mohd Shukri Ab Yazid, Ali Khatibi, S. M. Ferdous Azam MEASURING THE MEDIATING ROLE OF CUSTOMER SATISFACTION BETWEEN SERVICE QUALITY AND CUSTOMER LOYALTY IN UAE HOTEL INDUSTRY Keywords: service quality, customer loyalty, satisfaction, UAE 1. Introduction In the past decade, tourism has contributed significantly to the economic development of a large number of Asian countries including UAE, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia, Philippines, India, UAE, and Middle East. Due to this growth in the tourism industry, the need for development of adequate hotels and infrastructure has also increased. Thus, service quality has been gathering a lot attention from the researchers because it is very important for a firm’s bottom line. Service quality is the art of creating customer satisfaction that enables an organization to survive in the long run (Hafeez & Muhammad, 2012). It helps to retain as well as attract a new customer base that ensures profitability of the organization (Caruana, 2002). As such, it is imperative that organization be established with the objectives of providing a high level of service quality and combining the activities of various functional areas of the business to achieve business success through customer satisfaction (Brady & Cronin, 2001). The reason for this is the significance of businesses operating on strategic business principles. In the world of business, structuring a thriving business approach involves generating the finest strategy that is competitive (Crosby, Evans & Cowles, 1990). The current growth of hotel industry in the UAE is based on the future targets (Bagaeen, 2015). The current results in the industry indicate that they are on the right track (Chen, 2009). However, the hotel is not just being seen as a place for staying and eating, but also being seen as a place for community development. Other than that, it also becomes a place for conversation and discussion to those who want to be relaxed in a comfortable environment with their friends. In UAE, hotels become one of the most popular places for people for meeting and discussion (Gissing & Wallace, 2014). Besides, hotels that provide good services with reasonable price and offer a variety of facilities are more popular among the customers (Masad, 2015). Therefore, it is clear that besides good quality foods, there is also a need for better services that will help to increase customer satisfaction in the future. Hence, there is a need to understand the role of customer satisfaction between service quality and customer loyalty towards hotel industry in UAE. For viewing / downloading the full article, please access the following link: https://oapub.org/soc/index.php/EJMMS/article/view/265 European Journal of Management and Marketing Studies - Volume 2 │ Issue 3 │ 2017 189