TABLE OF CONTENTS After studying this chapter you should be able to:
critically evaluate the distinctive features of timeshare services.
contrast and compare approaches to service quality management.
discuss Total Quality Management approaches to timeshare service management.
define the critical success factors for timeshare service quality delivery.
Visits by timeshare owners, exchangers, or guests to resorts create the total service experience from which each evaluates the quality of both their purchase and each individual visit. Apart from the immediate services associated with the lodge or apartment, the bar, restaurant, leisure, and other services provided at the resort need to match, or even exceed, customer service expectations. It is for this reason that ARDA's Code covering Standards of Practice in Professional Hospitality Management, for example, "is intended to ensure high quality to owners and guests" (ARDA, 2002b: 240). Quality management in hospitality services presents both customers and managers with some problems because of some general features of service quality delivery and because of some unique features of the hospitality relationship.
The nature of services themselves reflects the difficulties of definition, standardization, and control. In timeshare operations, the combination of benefits, and the importance of employee and customer perceptions of service expectations, together with variations in evaluations of successful service encounters, all make for a complexity in managing service quality that is not found in other sectors. Mudie and Cottam (1999: 1) sum up the dilemma for service organizations in general; "For the customer there may be little evidence, in advance,...
