Total quality management in hospitality: an application of the EFQM model

Abstract

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.