Tourism Management, Vol. 17, No. 3, pp.

191-201, 1996
Copyright 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd
Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved
0261-5177/96 $15.00 + ILOi)

/ Pergamon
S026 I-5 ! 77(96)00006-4

Total quality management in

hospitality: an application of the
EFQM model
C6sar Camis6n
Jaume l University, Department of Business Management and Marketing, Campus Riu Sec, 12071
Castelldn, Spain
The importance of total quality management (TQM) in the tourist industry has risen to an
extraordinary level because of the change in preferences of tourists' behaviour and the growth
of competitiveness of new tourist destinations. The application of existing, well-tested ideas on
quality improvement is an important issue to tourist enterprises. This paper researches, first,
the process of cultural change in Valencian hospitality organizations originated by these
environment transformations. Among the available models of TQM, we selected the model
proposed by the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM), as support for the
European Quality Award, to make a cross-analysis of the views of quality from the standpoint of
management and external customers in Valencia's hotel industry. This study presents empirical
evidence on the extent to which the EFQM quality model might assist Valencian hoteliers to
know and to close the gap between perceptions of quality and self-assessed ratings of quality
performance. Copyright 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd
Kcywords: total quality m a n a g e m e n t , service quality, quality grading systems, European Quality Award, V a l e n c i m
hospitality industry

and those concerning the organizational structures, attitudes and behaviour of all the members
of the organization. The size of the transformation necessary reveals that the lasting organizational change in total quality implies a change in
the culture of the organization, which should
necessarily be brought in by the management.
Changing the organizational structure towards
total quality means providing all the members of
an organization with a shared values system, and
implementing a powerful and commonly accepted
method for keeping this alive by means of continuous practice, centred on top management
action and socialization work, amongst which
training and recycling play an essential role.

Quality is shaped at present as a fundamental

strategy for the support and improvement of competitiveness. Even though the germ of most techniques and methods of total quality management
(TQM) is located in the industry, and especially in
the automobile industry, many other sectors are
introducing similar practices. The general applicability of TQM ideas, systems and procedures has
generated its spreading into an increasing number of
service companies, tourist companies amongst them.
Consequently, research focused on TQM implementation in tourist firms has grown in an important
way. i ~,
The available literature and wide empirical evidence show the crucial role that the application of
ideas on and well-tested approaches to quality improvement plays in the successful diffusion of TQM
in the tourist business and, specifically, in hotel
services. Two factors seem particularly decisive:

To insert the system of values into the organization

cultural fabric and transform its members' ways of
perceiving, thinking and acting, requires a method
of implementation. The method, conceived as the
set of systems and procedures that keep up the daily
practice of the essential values of total quality in the

The introduction of a TQM system requires largescale changes, both of the management tools used
191

Total quality management in hospitality: C Cam&On

I

LEADERSHIP
i0 %

8%

9%

PROCESSES
14 %

PNOPI~ ON ~_. ~

CIISTOMER~

..
R
50 %
r

[ IsMP
~

ON

J
Figure 1 The total quality management model of the
EFQM
entire organization, varies broadly, since each company has its own version adapted to its culture and
competitive strategy.
Nonetheless, there is a series of broad ideas,
based on a relevant number of successful experiences, that enables us to contrast them empirically.
Amongst these, one might mention methods such as
those of Crosby, 7 Deming, ~ or Juran and Gryna, 9 as
well as the approaches that stem from the different
quality prizes which were started to encourage the
implementation of total quality plans in companies.
These plans are used with increasing frequency as
tools for evaluating and improving the quality
system of a company. The first award was established in 1951 in Japan. It was called 'Deming' as a
tribute to the main who, with his teachings about
quality, played a decisive role in the Japanese
economic recovery. In 1987, the 'Malcolm Baldrige'
award was created in the USA. This initiative was
followed in Europe in 1991, when the European
Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM),
together with the European Organization for Quality (EOQ) and the European Commission, created
the 'European Quality Award' in order to improve
the quality and reliability of products and services. It
takes two forms:
The 'European Quality Award', which rewards
the company that is the maximum exponent of
TQM in Western Europe;
The 'European Quality Prize', which rewards a
certain number of companies that show the
excellence of their quality management as a basic
process of continuous improvement.
The European quality model allows strengths and
weaknesses to be distinguished clearly, focusing on
the relationship among personnel, processes and
results. Processes are the means through which a
company guides and liberates its staff's aptitudes
with the aim of getting results. Therefore, processes
and people are the 'agents' that provide 'results'.

192

The model that serves as a basis for the European

Quality Award, represented in Figure 1, forms a
management system that emphasizes maintaining
leadership for achieving quality, formulating a policy
and strategy to follow, developing the appropriate
personnel and resources management and guiding
the design of all the processes in the company
towards customers, in order to attain excellence in
results: customer satisfaction, personnel satisfaction,
a positive social impact and some economic results
that allow the achievement of a competitive advantage. Each of the nine elements that appear in the
model matches the criteria used by the EFQM to
evaluate the level of excellence of a company, and
the percentage is the weight given to the element in
question in the self-evaluation (on a total of 1.000
points). J0
The diffusion of these ideas and methods of tested
efficacy in the tourist firm have been scarce. The
example of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company can
give us an important lesson in this respect. Even
though the reputation of this chain has always rested
on taking care of the high-quality consumer, the
recession at the end of the 1980s led to this firm's
taking a further step along the path to total quality,
in order to cut costs and reduce the variability of the
service. The commitment of its management (which
spends around a quarter of its time on matters
connected with quality) and the staff (on the basis of
empowerment systems) led to the Ritz-Carlton
being awarded the qualification of best company in
the hotel business in 1991 by the three big 'hotelrating' concerns, and to winning the Malcolm
Baldrige National Quality Award in 1992.11
In the European tourist business, we believe that
the model supporting the European Quality Award
is a valuable contribution to improving total quality
in tourist services organizations. Embracing the
dynamic of using it would enable comparative
analysis and benchmarking with competing European companies in the future (when a wider database is available).

Valencian tourist company: an analysis of its

challenges according to the EFQM model
This stocktaking of lessons learnt has led to an
interest in research designed to find out whether
tourist businesses in the Valencian community have
proper and suitable TQM plans implemented, with
sufficient consistency to be compared with competitive European or worldwide tourist firms.
The specific choice of the Valencian hotel industry
as the subject for empirical analysis was not only due
to our experience and knowledge of this field, but
also to the intensity of the quality problems which
this reveals. Several studies t~-'4 on the evolution of
the tourist sector during the 1980s and early 1990s
have revealed a series of factors directly responsible

Fotal quality management in hospitality: (" Camis6n

for the deterioration of the traditional competitive

advantage of the Valencian community's tourism
product.
The main problem of Valencian hotel firms is
related to the first criterion in the European model
for quality: leadership. Management and businessmen showed little interest in undertaking quality
improvement, also ignoring their fundamental role
to inspire and guide in the necessary cultural change
towards total quality. Their lack of conviction concerning total quality as a main method for continuous company improvement has become evident
in their absence of commitment, important mistakes
in recognition of efforts and achievements of individuals and groups, no provision of necessary resources, little participation with customers and suppliers in improvement projects, and their almost
non-existent involvement in promoting quality in
their environment.
Diagnosis of the problems has also confirmed the
intensity of the challenges raised at the strategic
level, the second criterion in the European model:
policy and strategy. On the one hand, external
strategic analysis places Valencian hotel companies
in the context of the tourist industry in the
M e d i t e r r a n e a n area, which, as the millennium
approaches is facing up to a number of changes
which could seriously detract from its traditional
competitive advantages. Most of these challenges
are connected with the changes observed in tourists"
behaviour, combined with the heightening of efforts
to appropriate tourist flows. One of the most important of these is the upswing of tourist destinations far
from the world's main demographic and economic
centres (Western Europe and North America).
Although the main recipient countries (United
States, France, Spain and Italy) still continue to
draw the largest number of visitors, the spectrum of
aiternative tourist products can be seen to be
broadening, with the appearance of new destinations
such as China or Santo Domingo (in general, Far
Eastern and Central American/Caribbean areas)
which have risen to extraordinary levels (such as the
Western Pacific's 9.4% of the yearly average between 1990 and 1993). This change in travellers'
preferences on their holiday trips accompanies the
saturation found as a whole on the European continent as recipient and the downward trend of trips to
places in Africa, Eastern Europe and the Near East.
~Ihis fact reflects another important change in behaviour: the deviation of tourist flows to regions
and/or tourist resorts which offer greater real or
apparent safety for travellers.
Another key factor in the change in tourists'
behaviour, connected with the customer satisfaction
criterion, has been the swing in their preferences,
more and more towards tourist products with a
better quality/price ratio. Is 22 This trend has often
been misunderstood as meaning that tourists were

beginning to want more luxurious installations with

high prices, as a result of confusing the concept of
quality with 'the most ostentatious' or 'the most
luxurious" in tourist guidelines. This fallacy should
be set to rights, since quality does not necessarily
mean luxury or sophistication, if the client does not
request this. 7 If a Ritz hotel complies with all the
specifications of the Ritz product as this is determined on the basis of its customers" needs and
requirements, then this is a quality hotel; if a mountain hostel complies with all the specifications that
the users demand of such premises, then this is
quality a c c o m m o d a t i o n , whatever the 'official"
category in both cases. Luxury or lack of this comes
to mean in practice particular specifications such as
fur rugs or oilcloth tablecloths, original pictures by
top artists or cheap reproductions, but not necessarily a higher quality level.
Internal strategic analysis explains as well some
other origins of the quality problems in the Valenclan hotel industry. Strategic formal management
systems are unusual and, when existing, there is little
incorporation of total quality principles into policies
and strategy. [t is infrequent to find a formal quality
system that sets objectives, action plans and periodic
audits and improvement procedures. T Q M wdue in
encouraging constant improvement means scaling
management decisions on an extended horizon, an
attitude that is not commonly found in the tourist
industry, largely through its problems of seasonality.
Personnel management is another key factor in the
quality dimension. Competitive adwmtage in the
hotel business is closely connected with its organizational ability, including quality in human resources.
Service quality bears a positive relation to resources
availability, a firm's training and recycling policy,
and the retention of its valuable staff in an effort to
decrease the typical high turnover rate in the hotel
industry. Credibility in the message of quality to be
transmitted to the whole organization will depend
upon a sensible choice in these criteria. The typical
Valencian hotel firm is characterized precisely by the
opposite: the staff are predominantly temporary,
being the seasonal labour force expanded by workers with no specific experience in the hotel business;
there is a minimum effort at training and recycling
and only slightly participative human resources management systems that generate little involvement of
the worker in the company and hinder any TQM
project. Therefore, the absence of either systems for
measuring staff needs, expectations and level of
satisfaction, or programmes designed to increase this
satisfaction should not cause surprise; in the same
way, external studies researching staff's perceptions
of their company report serious conflicts.
Resources management is not characterized by the
continuous search for improvement through the
optimization of financial, material, infi~rmative and
technological resources in support of company poli-

193

Total quality management in hospitality: C CamisOn

cy and strategy. Under a total quality approach, the

hotel firm should focus its material resources on the
improvement of its infrastructure for quality; instead, there is a minimum effort at maintenance and
modernization of installations which, together with
many hotels being old, leads to obsolete and poorly
maintained hotel plant requiring high investment to
fulfil both technical norms set by current legislation
and market requirements. In the same way, technological resources should be assigned to generate
advantages in differentiation or costs; and the information system should provide quick, suitable and
safe data for the continuous improvement process,
whereas, in reality, Valencian hotel firms suffer
from notorious technological delay. Examples of this
are the high number of non-computerized hotels, the
concentration of computing in applications generating little value or the delay in the introduction of
computerized reservation systems. The concept of
'strategic computing' as a competitive advantage has
not been applied and may accentuate problems of
lack of competitiveness, particularly as contrasted
with hotel chains working fruitfully for decades with
these innovations. 23
Another basic criterion in the European model is
process management. Critical processes (or generating added-value activities) must be identified, revised and optimized in order to better a business in a
continuous way. For this to occur, innovation and
creativity are essential elements. These administrative guidelines are unusual in the Valencian hotel
industry. Service requirements in each key process
for success in guest satisfaction do not stem, as they
should, from any identification of customers' (external and internal) needs, but from traditional procedures, the logic of which few stop to think about.
Process management is rarely aimed at auditing and
control of such critical processes, and opportunities
to address potentially improvable areas are missed.
Even less common are the encouragement of innovation initiatives and creativity in process improvement that either enable conformity with specifications or, by means of redesign of processes,
increase standards to fulfil customers' needs.
Lack of market orientation of Valencian hotel
companies results in poorness or non-existence of
customer satisfaction measuring systems. Attributes
of the product that add value for the customer and
improve his or her satisfaction are unknown, which
gives no guide to agents for improvement projects.
The social impact of tourism is a controversial
issue. Its positive contributions to employment creation and its multiplicative effect upon the economy
are countered by adverse effects on the environment, natural resources and the town-planning situation that usually place the tourist business on the
critical wave of certain social movements. In this
sense, Valencian hotel companies have almost completely failed to make any commitments towards

194

their environment and incorporate these as new

quality attributes.
Economic results reveal that labour productivity is
notably lower than the European average. Organizational efficiency (measured as workers' average per
room) seems higher, but hides an insufficient supply
of staff, an important cause of the low service quality.
These problems and challenges were outlined in
the diagnosis of the situation and perspectives of
tourism in the Valencian community, defined in the
White Book of Tourism in the Valencian Community
(1990). Consequently, programmes and action plans
to try and reach the objective of the Generalitat
Valenciana tourist policy were proposed. This fundamental objective would be specified in Valencian
tourist product redefinition. It would be given differentiating characteristics from those supplied by
competing destinations, improving the positioning of
existing demand segments, taking up new market
niches and adapting them to present and potential
demands; and would be responsible for the communication of a suitable tourist image for the Valencian community, enabling and emphasizing optimum
conditions for diffusion and placing of tourist products. Responsibility for planning and implementing
Generalitat Valenciana tourist policy rested, until
1991, on both the Valencian Tourist Institute (VTI)
and the Conselleria d'Industria, Comer~ i Turisme
and, since 1992, the VTI assumed all the competencies. They had to design action programmes
attempting to increase Valencian tourist product
quality, diversification supply, betterment of promotion and marketing/commercialization systems and
enable effective coordination among different governments and sector agents.
In 1991, the Tourist Government Office of Generalitat Valenciana designed a Quality Improvement
Plan for the tourist industry. Its fundamental objective was to encourage a culture of quality in the
sector, trying to get all implicated agents' commitment: businessmen, employees, customers and government. This work would join the infrastructures of
modernization and training effort. Quality improvement of the tourist offer was considered a dynamic
objective since it implies a process of continuous
adaptation to changing market features; because of
that, the plan was not thought of as closed but was
conceived as a plan open to unforeseen and timely
changes. The message to consolidate would be:
Valencian tourism is a synonym for quality of service.
Plan objectives were concentrated on two points.
The first was creation and promotion amongst all the
agents in the sector of interest in quality as the
essential element of competitiveness, thinking about
it as a cornerstone in the strategic plan of a tourist
company. The second was the introduction into the
tourist businesses of tools, techniques and quality
improvement systems, since only by means of the

Total quality management in hospitality: C Camis6n

introduction and use of demonstrated efficacy could

T Q M benefits be realized.
The proposed strategy rested on four basic mainstays: quality sensitizing and communication, implantation of tools and techniques of quality management, training in respect of quality and plan
monitoring and animation.
Two phases could be distinguished in this policy:
A first stage, initiated with the 1990s sensitizing
campaign whose slogan was 'Things well done
with a smile', was directed at improving the
quality of the service provided and recommending pleasant dealings with new visitors and tourists. This phase was specified in 1991 programmes
and stressed sector mobilization towards the importance of quality. It defined two programmes:
(a) Quality diffusion p r o g r a m m e . This aimed
to create a favourable opinion amongst businessmen and professionals concerning the importance
of and need for quality in tourist firms, both in
terms of the customer service perspective and the
company's own profitability, and to provide the
necessary means to achieve optimum management in this field. Its main fruit was a set of
seminars and conferences on that issue throughout the Valencian community.
(b) Quality m a n a g e m e n t p r o g r a m m e . The purpose of this was to improve quality in management and service provided in hotels by means of
studies and diagnosis of quality management in
companies.
A second stage, undertaken in 1992 and 1993 by
the Valencian Tourist Institute, extended its action setting and offered, in the same way, subsidies for elaborating Quality Improvement Plans
that had necessarily been preceded by a quality
audit.
Beneficiaries of these quality management programmes were hotel establishments, tourist camps, restoration businesses and travel agencies. Subsidies
could amount to 100% of the audit costs and 50% of
the plan costs, bearing in mind limits set every year
for maximum levels.
During the 1991-93 period, 209 companies of the
Valencian community benefited from this assistance.
Of this, 93% was for carrying out quality audits and
the remaining 7% was for elaborating improvement
plans. The scheme received Ptas 79 million support
from the government, 77% of it assigned to audits.
These figures show the interest raised by the quality
topic among a wide group/body of Valencian tourist
companies. Nonetheless, they also reveal the minority character of improvement plans since interest was
mainly focused on auditing. Data on applications for
1994, still to be finalized, confirm this trend: 113
audit projects (26.5% of them are hotel establishments) as opposed to 29 improvement plans (65.5%
relating to hotels).

This brief summary of the policy carried out

enables us to draw two important conclusions:
These actions had a notable impact on the Valencian tourist industry, starting an increasing managerial awakening to both the competitive value
of quality and to external quality audits carried
out by consulting firms.
Nonetheless, it is time to reflect on the actual
impact these quality auditing and improvement
policies has on Valencian tourist companies, and
to wonder whether this effort is big enough to
instil into them a real quality culture, beyond
isolated actions and timely investments. To date,
most attention has been directed to practical
issues of how to improve quality rather than to
understanding its essential nature and how to
assure it.
In this sense, systematic planning of models and
procedures for implementing total quality management is lacking in Valencian tourist companies, as
well as in the improvement plans implemented
under the Public Tourist Administration. This unavoidable task is much more complex than the mere
definition and measurement (whether periodic or
non-periodic) of a set of standards, that, in any
event, forms a stage in the overall quality process, s
Being aware of these malfunctions, the Valencian
Tourist Institute initiated in 1995 a strategic change
with the starting of a 'Program to encourage the
implantation of total quality management in the
Valencian tourist firm'. Its objective is the result of
reflection on the inadequacies of previous plans:
raising the quality of management and service provided by tourist establishments by means of putting
into effect systems and procedures of demonstrated
efficacy for TQM.
Implementation of this programme is established
in two phases. The first is addressed at sensitizing
and training tourist firms" managers through a
course on 'Total Quality in the Tourist Firm', based
on self-evaluation study cases and application of the
E F Q M model for TQM. Companies that show interest and aptitude during this stage enter, at no
additional cost, a second phase, in which they are
assisted by experts to develop self-assessmeni following the criteria of the European model of TQM.
The objective is to place the enterprise on the
threshold of the real implementation of a T Q M
system.

Objectives and methodology of the empirical

study*
As a previous step to the implementation of this
* The results of this empirical analysis are partially based on I
K0ster and S Cruz, The Valencian Hospitality Enterprise and the
European Quali O' Award, Research Paper, Faculty of Economics
and Business Sciences, University of Valencia, 1994.

195

Total quality management in hospitality: C Camis6n

programme, an empirical study was carried out on
the Valencian hotel business. Its main aim was to
analyse the existing gap between the perception of
their quality by their customers and the selfevaluation by their management on their companies'
quality performance on the basis of the European
quality model. A further aim was to make an
attempt to stimulate processes of self-evaluation in
the group examined as to their own quality, to bring
up doubts and areas for possible improvements.
The study was carried out through two 'partially
independent' empirical investigations, since they responded to one and the same model of selfevaluation of total quality and reflected the same
reality, total quality of the Valencian hotel business,
even though this stems from dissimilar approaches:
management and external customers.
The first step in the evaluation process was to
design the questionnaire to obtain accurate data.
Bearing in mind the aims of the research work, it
was necessary to design two different questionnaires, one for the management of the business in
question and another for the external customers of
the said hotels.
To determine the relevant variables to be studied,
each of the nine criteria of the European T Q M
model was divided into sections. Each section was
evaluated through one or several questions, which
were scored from 0 to 100% on a basis of two
combined factors: the degree of excellence of the
method adopted and the degree of implantation of
the method (Table 1). The qualification of each
section was the arithmetic mean of the questions in
it. The evaluation of each criterion was the arithmetic mean of the qualifications of its sections. Scoring
on each criterion was done by weighting its assessment (in %) by the respective factor the model gives
to it and thereby getting the total evaluation in
points. The overall evaluation is the addition of the
points in each criterion.
All in all, the document for the managers' selfevaluation had 33 items to be assessed, whilst the
one for the customers only had 23, as the items
'Policy and strategy' and 'Economic results' were not
included since they were considered not to be
measurable, appreciable or known by the customers
of the respective hotel business. In any event, the
tangible and intangible items that the prior research
showed to be important were includedfl 4-27
Before starting real work on self-assessment, managers of the hotels to be evaluated were trained in a
two-day seminar. During this, they were trained in
the E u r o p e a n T Q M model f u n d a m e n t a l s and
methodology, and an overall self-evaluation case
was studied. Each hotel was assigned a tutor expert
in T Q M from a three-person team that helped the
managers during the complete self-assessment process in the resolution of methodological doubts.
The final sample of companies examined consisted

196

of 38 hotels, which were studied on the basis of two

segmentation criteria: the type of accommodation
business (differentiating between urban, inland and
seaside hotels) and the 'official' quality of the establishment (from one to five stars).
The consumer representative sample was selected
at random and was made up of 250 persons who
were customers of at least one hotel located in the
Valencian community. There was no discrimination
as to age, sex or level of income. It was sufficient for
the people interviewed to have been in any hotel
from the sample being studied. The personal interview was used as a work tool, by means of a closed
structured questionnaire. The samples chosen were
asked about their perception of the structuring and
management of quality at the hotels at which they
stayed. The questionnaire gave information on a
maximum of three different hotels at which each
customer interviewed had stayed. The field work
was carried out during the months of July and
August 1994.

Quality of the Valencian hotel business:

customers vs m a n a g e m e n t
The results of the research (Tables 2 and 3) first
reveal serious disagreements in the evaluation of the
total quality of the Valencian hotel business by its
customers and management. In general, the evaluations by the customers of the total quality of the
hotels studied are less favourable than the quality
assessed by the management.
The most acute differences were found in the
criteria of customer satisfaction and staff satisfaction, showing an assessment by the management of
their performance in quality quite above the quality
perceived by customers. This fact could indicate the
business's ignorance as regards the problems of
attitude, aptitude and integration in the organization
of its own human resources. This point is particularly
serious, since the research has shown the importance
in customer satisfaction of training, motivation, participation and satisfaction of staff. 2s The lowest
qualification was given to resources, both by management and by customers. It can be seen that the
hotels analysed had a problem with the resources
available, which affects the level of equipment and
the range of services offered.
The management's overvaluation of quality can
also be appreciated if we compare the overall representative mark of the organization's total quality
(540.75 points) with the standards of excellence of
the companies that won the E u r o p e a n Quality
Award in earlier years. If we compare the selfassessments in each of the nine criteria with the
distribution of marks obtained by the organizations
which entered for the E F Q M in 1992 (Table 4), we
observe Valencian hotel management placed themselves in the category agents, except for resources,

Total quality management in hospitality: C ('amisdn

"Fable 1 Scoring system of enablers and results in the EFQM model
Approach/results

Score (% ~

Deployment/scope

Enablers
The assessor scores each part of the enablers criteria on the basis of the combination of two factors:
1. Fhe degree of excellence of your approach,
2. The degree of deployment of your approach.
Anecdotal or non-value adding

I)

Linle effective usage

Somc evidence of soundly based approaches and prevention-based

systems. Subjective to occasional review. Some areas of integration into
normal operation

25

Applied to about onc-quartcr of the

potential when considering all
relevant arcas and activitics

Evidcncc of soundly based systematic approaches and prevention-based

systems. Subject to regular review with respect to business
cffcctiveness. Integration into normal operations and planning well
established

5(I

Applied to about hall the potential

when considering all relevant areas
and activities

('lear evidcncc of soundly based systematic approaches and preventionbased systems. Clear evidence of refinement and improved business
cflectivencss through review cycles. Good integration of approach inlo
normal opcrations and planning

75

Applied to about three-quarters of

the potential when considering all
relevant areas and activities

(7lear evidcncc of soundly based systematic approaches and preventionbased systems. Clear evidence of refinement and improved business
cftcctivencss through review cycles. Approach has become totally
integrated into normal working patterns. Could be used a role model for
other organizations

l(ll)

Applied to full potential in all

relevant areas and aetivitics

For both ' A p p r o a c h ' and "Deployment', the assessor may choose one of five levels 0 % , 25%, 50%, 75%, or 100% ;,is presented in the
chart, or interpolate between thcsc values.

Results
The assessor scores each of the results criteria on the basis of the combination of two factors:
I. The degree of excellence of your results.
2. The scope of your results.
Anecdotal

I)

Results address few rclcvant areas

and activities

Some results show positive trends. Some favourable comparisons with

own targets

25

Results address some relevant areas

and aetivites

Many results show positive trends over at least 3 years. Favourable

comparisons with own targets in many areas. Some comparisons with
external organizations. Some results are caused by approach

50

Results address many relevant areas

and activities

Most results show strongly positive trends over at least 3 years.

Favourable comparisons with own targets in m a n y areas. Favourable
comparisons with external organizations in m a n y areas. Many results are
caused by approach

75

Results address most relevant areas

and activities

Strongly positive trends in all areas over at least 5 years. Excellent

colnparisons with own targets and external organizations in most areas.
'Best in Class" in many areas of activity. Results are clearly caused by
approach. Positive indication that leading position will be maintained

lt)l)

Results address ;`ill relevant areas and

facets of the organization

For both 'Rcsults' and 'Scope', the assessor may choose one of five levels 0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, or 100% as presented in thc chart, or
interpolate between these values.
Source: E F Q M (1994).

normally within the top 25% of European companies. In results, the social impact and e c o n o m i c
results also receive high marks, although the most
outstanding factor is this group's conviction that its
staff's satisfaction level is on a par with the 10% of
excellent companies in Europe, and even that customer satisfaction has no comparison with any candidate for said year.
A more segmented analysis of the sample enables
the opinions to be adjusted and to obtain four
relevant conclusions:

Urban hotels emerge as the accommodation business with greater standards of excellence, from
the standpoints of both customers and management.
The widest gap can be observed in coastal hotels,
in which customers' dissatisfaction is evident in all
criteria. These. appear to be the hotels least
adapted to their customers' needs and requirements, They are particularly critical in resources,
revealing their awareness of the obsolescence of
installations and the broad margin of improve197

Total quality management in hospitality: C CamisOn

I

.I

8
~.

._-

6
.,..,

e-

c~

8
n

==
8
:=_

.I
k,

'~=~,

e~
e"G

,,;d

"

,- =

"-G

..0
I

~
,.-t

"5
,fi

L"

~ ~~

"G

"

e~
.~

,'-1
"5

,=_

.,=

r.z.,

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198

. ~

.--

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Total quality management in hospitalit.~ : C ('amisdn

Table 4

Assessment distribution of applicant enterprises for European Quality Award (1992)

Criteria

0-10

11-20

21-30

31-40

% mark
41-50

51-60

61-70

71-80

81-90

Leadership
Pol. and strat.
Pers. manag.
Resources
Processes
Client satisf.
Persn. satisl.
Social impact
Econ. results

0
0
0
5
0
0
0
0
0

(I
5
0
0
0
5
10
5
0

5
10
5
5
5
15
20
10
5

30
25
25
15
25
20
25
30
25

20
20
20
25
35
20
0
15
30

20
15
15
15
1(~
111
2(!
25
1(I

25
10
25
20
10
10
15
5
10

0
5
10
15
15
20
10
10
211

0
10
(I
0
(I
0
11
0
0

Source: European Foundation for Quality Management (1994).

ment in equipment. They are also the ones with a

management team that is the least critical and
ready to recognize areas that can be improved,
probably, as their own customers point out, because their leadership potential and commitment
towards total quality is low.
A clear negative relationship between economic
profitability (stated by the company) and the gap
perceived in self-assessment of quality-quality
performance appears.
Customers' perception of the social impact of the
hotels means a negative valuation of their integration into the environment. This aspect requires
special attention, since the level of social demands on companies is growing considerably and
will be reflected in the scale of attributes which
make up the consumer's purchase decision standards. Specially worrying is the evaluation made
of the coastal hotels, which are severely criticized
and held responsible for the lack of efficiency that
Valencia's anarchic tourist development has
caused along its whole seaboard. In the case of
inhmd hotels, this constitutes an invitation to take
heed of the scale of values of its objective market,
which is highly concerned with environmental
impact and conservation of heritage.

which undergo certain stagnation, because of an

important gap between the specifications
achieved in the rendering of the service and the
customer's perception of quality of the service
rendered. This conclusion is important for the
debate now in progress as to the equivalence of
the
different systems
for hotel
quality
categorization.>'~
One- and two-star hotels form a high-risk group,
owing to their lack of knowledge of the quality
demanded by the market and to their ignorance
of important non-quality areas which must surely
lie at the origins of the unsatisfactory economic
results achieved by these hotels.
An inverse relation between quality of economic
results and the gap can be observed, although this
trend breaks in four-star hotels. A possible explanation of this may lie in the financial repercussions of the specially intense 'pincer effect' suffered by this group, caused by hotels with greater
quality of design and, possibly, greater quality of
conformity and service (mainly five-star hotels),
and hotels with design quality adapted to the
needs and requirements of their customers and
more competitive prices (mostly three-star
hotels).

The analysis according to the 'official' category of

the establishment shows some significant facts:

Conclusions

There is a sustained growth in all the agents'

criteria, both in the quality perceived by the
customer and the quality recognized by management, as the number of stars increases, which
should be attributed to higher quality in human
resources management and to better provision of
assets. Therefore, as the 'official' quality goes up,
so does the agreement between the quality perceived by both customer and management.
This parallel progress is less accentuated in the
results, and particularly in customer satisfaction.
It should be deduced from this data that the
'official" category could be a good indicator of
design quality, but is not necessarily so for the
quality of conformity and the quality of service,

T Q M is seen to be an essential management technology for laying the foundations of competitiveness for
tourist concerns and their search for excellence at
the present time, characterized by an urgent need to
confront the universalization of the economy and a
hostile and turbulent environment in which competitiveness requires more and more management
capacity.
Nevertheless, empirical research developed on the
E F Q M model of T Q M as a support for the European Quality Award and on the two 'partially dependent' stages of the methodology we constructed
reveals great backwardness in Valencia's hotel industry on the road towards total quality, which is
particularly acute in the coastal accommodation
199

Total quality management in hospitality: C Camis6n

sector of low 'official' quality (one to three stars).

On the one hand, the research allowed us to
discover the existence of serious distancing between
the quality perceived by the customer and the quality recognized by management, mainly in customer
satisfaction and personnel satisfaction criteria. The
management of the Valencian tourist business consider they have already implemented reliable and
suitable TQM programmes which will enable them
to catch up with the European companies considered
as excellent, or even surpass them in some criteria.
These views seem to be on an exercise in selfindulgence rather than constituting critical selfevaluation work. There is a worrying lack of consciousness by the hotel management concerning the
improvement possibilities still hidden in their organizations that may impede their actions for continuous betterment.
To surpass the significant gap between the diverging perceptions of tourists and hotel managers, the
Valencian hotel industry must assign ideas of welltested efficacy to improving quality, the EFQM
model among them. Bringing the manager perspective close to the consumer perspective demands
the implementation of a management style orientated to the market, and the introduction of an
organizational change to total quality management.
Valencian hotel managers must emphasize their role
as leaders in this cultural change, and intensify their
efforts to infuse their industry with a value system
designed in favour of the client (which will require
an obsession with customer satisfaction) and the
protagonists in this process (care of front-line personnel, client-supplier focus, commitment and
empowerment, and training at all levels).
Research, therefore, strengthens the importance
of quality self-evaluation by the hotel industry.
Regular and systematic revision by companies of
activities and results may lead to a wide range of
advantages, amongst them:
measuring the degree of matching of customers
needs and expectations, and comparing the resuits with perceived quality;
acting as a basis for the strategic process, identifying improvement activities;
controlling competitiveness in quality with the
help of benchmarking exercises.
On the other hand, the study has provided evidence
of the scant value of the 'official' qualification systems for hotels, owing to their concentration on the
physical standards made material in the quality of
design, and to the fact that they ignore service
standards. The slowing down of the conformity
quality growth as the 'official' quality (a good indicator of design quality) goes up should lead to reflection by hotel management, since it implies an important loss of profitability. We know that costs increase
with quality of design, and that this greater invest-

200

merit is only economically justifiable when it generates company income differentiating this from its
competitors; and, conversely, costs go down as the
conformity of quality rises. Consequently, Valencian
hotel companies with the highest official qualifications could be undervaluing the business opportunities the greater design quality of their establishments
offers, as their conformity and service quality are not
on a par with the design specifications in which the
needs and requirements of their customers are
framed. Both these phenomena involve higher costs
or losses of income which detract from their operating accounts.
The development of new systems of qualification,
able to evaluate the total quality of a hotel business,
is coming forward as a. promising area for research
and is of undoubted usefulness, owing to its contribution to eliminating information asymmetry.

Acknowledgement
This study benefited from a grant from the Spanish
Education and Science Ministry (ref PB93-0692,
DGICYT).

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2() 1