This paper presents the results of a study of hotels that are certified for
quality management to identify the reasons for seeking quality certification.
The authors analyze whether internal or external drivers for seeking
certification have different impacts on benefits and the use of quality tools in
the hotel industry. The analysis groups hotels according to the importance of
their internal reasons for certification, and uses cluster analysis to identify
the significant differences between groups of hotels. The findings for the 32
hotels analysed show that hotels that pursued certification for internal
reasons develop better quality tools and have increased levels of benefits
