Effects of Total Quality Management Principles on Customer Satisfaction in Hotels: A Case Study of Merica Hotel in Nakuru County, Kenya
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Significant knowledge gaps exist on Organisational performance and organisational excellence which are the main two focuses of the management of any organisation. Resources of an organisation, both tangible and intangible can determine the level of performance of one organisation from its rivals. The question is always to identify the key success factors that can enhance the organisational strategy implementation initiatives that can produce value and create the competitive advantage. In today’s changing business environment, improvement and development of internal resources are very crucial to compete externally and globally. Today, Quality issues and dynamic institutions and companies are working hard to achieve quality and continuous improvement. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of TQM principles on customer satisfaction in Hotels, Case of Merica Hotel in Nakuru County. The specific Objectives of the study were: To determine the effect of Customer Focus on customer satisfaction in the hotel industry, to determine the impact of Process Improvement on customer satisfaction in Kenya, and to evaluate the effect of Total Involvement by all employees on customer satisfaction in the hotel industry in Kenya. The research design used was descriptive study involving survey method. Target population consisted of 2950 customers and 50 hotel attendants in Merica Hotel, Nakuru.Based on the population size, a sample size of 341 respondents was selected. Data was collected using questionnaires. A pilot study was done to ensure
reliability and validity of research instruments. The data was analysed using regression analysis. The model generated from the study is: CS= 2.435 + .323X1 + .230X2 + .159X3. The Adjusted R2 statistic was 0.558. The results were presented in graphs, charts, tables and figures. The correlation between Customer Focus and Customer satisfaction was 0.582, the correlation between Process Improvement and Customer satisfaction was 0.504, the correlation between Total Involvement by all Employees and Customer satisfaction was 0.460, this indicates that there was a strong positive relationship between selected variables and Customer satisfaction. The FTable(3,297) value of 2.6802 is lower than the Fcalculatedvalue of 29.356 hence we fail to reject the null hypothesis at α=0.05 significance level. The study concluded that Merica Hotel applies TQM principles in its operations. The study recommends that management and employees should strive to work together in order to create a strong value environment where people will have the primal role and thus attract more customers. The study will assist the hotel industry to come up with strategies of improving customer satisfaction thereby boosting their income. The study will boost government efforts of promoting tourism because hotel industry plays a key role. The study recommends that further research be carried out on how the hotel industry carries out their strategic planning processes because this is an area that if managed well may help them in benchmarking of their competitors. The study forms a basis on future research on same subject.
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