Introduction: Service excellence in Asian tourism and hospitality

Today, hardly anyone would deny the relevance of customer satisfaction for businesses. Customer satisfaction can lead to customer loyalty, and loyal customers contribute to business success. In fact, the cost of keeping a customer is only a fraction of the cost of acquiring a new one, and customers become more profitable for a business the longer they remain customers. However, the relationship between satisfaction and loyalty is getting weaker. Customers are willing to switch more quickly, especially due to the easy availability of information on alternative providers via the Internet. As many businesses achieve customer satisfaction, it ceases to be a differentiator. Sometimes, customer loyalty is purely calculative—for example, because of low prices—and there is no deeper emotional bond with the provider. Therefore, businesses are increasingly adopting an orientation towards not just satisfying, but delighting their customers (Gouthier 2013). This introductory chapter identifies the current stage of scholarship regarding service excellence in the tourism and hospitality field. The primary drivers for creating customer experiences are drawn on, to conceptualize a management system for achieving customer delight as the definition of service excellence. A number of existing studies are reviewed, before presenting the highlights of the various chapter contributions of this book. The concluding chapter toward the end of the book addresses the future practice of service excellence in the industry, drawn from the themes found in the chapters. Future research areas are also identified, to benefit scholars and practitioners