Measuring Service Quality In Convention And Exhibition Industry: Design And Application

As the economic globalization further deepens, the exhibition industry, as the newly rising modern service trade-oriented industry, has become one of the important markings for measuring the degree of the urban internationalization as well as the level of economic development. The exhibition industry with yearly rising economic benefits has served as the propeller and new bright spot for our national economy. At present, the exhibition industry development in foreign countries is relatively refined, compared with which the exhibition industry in our nation still remains at a developing stage in terms of both venue construction and exhibition service. Therefore, the exhibition industry in our country is in urgent need of a scientific and practical evaluation system of service quality in order to control and perfect its operations and management.This article establishes the evaluation system of the service quality of the exhibition industry based upon SERVQUAL Model and its general application in various service fields. Taking into consideration the features of the exhibition industry, the thesis designs twenty second-grade indexes under five dimensions. Finally, the model is adjusted and tested, taking for example the Fourth Northeast Asia Investment and Trade Exposition held in Jilin Province. Starting from the exhibitors, the application of the system assesses the service quality of the exhibition industry in a relatively complete and systematic way, which provides reliable basis for improvement in service quality of the exhibition industry. Therefore it bears certain application value.The evaluation system is direct to the exhibitors of China Jilin-Northeast Asia Investment and Trade Expo. According to the five dimensions of SERVQUAL Model (tangible, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy), we build up a 20-item scale, and all the items are described positively. Tangible:the distributions of the exhibition areas and seats are reasonably designed with fine facilities and environment;employees and volunteers are well dressed and appear neat;delivery service are up-to-date;trip service is convenient with good conditions;the web site is simple and easy to use. Reliability: no losses during the exhibition ; improvement of the security inspection facilities ;the pattern of the exhibition seats is devised with a high safety coefficient ;no damage to the articles occurs during the exhibition. Assurance: the credibility of the holders is high ; employees and volunteers are professional ;employees and volunteers are polite ;capability to promptly handle the demands and difficulties of the exhibitors. Responsiveness: the hot line is expedited ;short period of waiting time for service for the exhibitors ;ability to offer fast and efficient service ;attending staff and volunteers can precisely satisfy the needs of the exhibitors. Empathy: Able to communicate well with the exhibitors ;the employees and volunteers give exhibitors individual attention ;Reasonable handling exhibitors complaints.Service quality, as perceived by consumers, stems from a comparison of what they feel service firms should offer (from their expectation) with their perceptions of the performance of firms providing the services. When Perception exceeded expectations, the services were considered of special quality, or services that can not satisfy the exhibitor's quality requirements. The gap between expectation and perception is the service gap. In this paper, the service quality evaluation system based on the service gap. With Wj (j = 1,2,3,4,5) the weight of each dimension, as follows is the evaluation model. SQ: the total service quality Pji : the perception score of the i item of the j dimension Eji : the expectation score of the i item of the j dimension Wj: the weight of the j dimension n : the number of items under the j dimensionWe can get average service quality by adoption of the following formula: AVSQ: average service quality; SQi : the SQ of the No.i exhibitor; N: the number of exhibitors.Analyzing of the results, there are three categories of the result:(1) AVSQ=0This result is due to the formation of Pi = Ei. Customer perception is the same as expectation.(2) AVSQ﹥0There are two situations of the result:①Pi﹥﹥Ei. This means that customer expectation is much higher than perception. Service quality is quite high. Higher service quality not always means higher profits. Excessive high level of service quality would cause unnecessary costs and affect corporate profits.②Pi﹥Ei. This shows that customer perception slightly higher than expectation will not only satisfy the customers, and also not to bring too much business cost pressures. Giving a first-class impression of the quality of service to the customers is the purpose of the service corporations.(3) AVSQ﹤0. This result should be avoided. Because the perception can not meet the expectation, customers would apperceive poor quality. The model can evaluate scores of the five dimensions and by further analysis we can identify the specific gaps in the quality chain as a basis for management improvements.In this paper, we invited several service managers of China Jilin-Northeast Asia Investment and Trade Expo to decide the order of the five dimensions. Then we decide the weight of each dimension by product-scale law.①Send questionnaire to managers. Conclude the order of the five dimensions.②Determining the dimension of the lowest importance mark 1.Then compare each two dimensions. For instance, compare the importance of K1 and K2 to decide which one is"larger". If they are the same, W_k1:W_k2=0.5:0.5; If the importance of K₂ is"larger", W_k2:W_k1=1.354:1=0.58:0.42; If the importance of K2 is"larger"than"larger", W_K1:W_K2=(1.354×1.354):1=0.65:0.35. Repeat the step, and get the final weight of each dimension.In this paper, we take the 4^th jilin-northeast asia investment and trade for instance, measuring service quality by the evaluation system. We sent questionnaires to the companies, collected a total of 132 valid questionnaires. The final AVSQ is -1.25, showing the total service quality of exhibition industry service cannot meet the exhibitor expectation. In addition, each of the items is negative score, especially the assurance, responsiveness, and empathy. Exhibition Industry Service must focus on these areas to improve service quality.By testing the reliability and validity of the scale, we find that the scale has good reliability and validity. The results of the research are reliable. But the service quality evaluation system still needs more applications in the express exhibitions and further research to make sure it is industry-wide adaptability.