Nominal scale as alternative service quality evaluation : study case of hacienda bugambilias hotel, Mexico

Abstract

Service quality is commonly measured with instruments that use the Likert scale corresponding to a qualitative variable (ordinal or nominal) that in turn is associated with a quantitative one (discrete or continuous) as an approximate to be able to carry out operations and comparisons, which has generated controversy over the statistical management and data interpretation. However, it is possible to perform an analysis based only on the nominal scale leaving aside the typical numerical scale. In this work, the measurement and comparison of the quality of the service in a hotel are proposed using two different assessment scales: numerical-interval and nominal. The perception of the quality of the hotel service was measured during three holiday seasons and was contrasted using nonparametric hypothesis tests to observe significant changes when it is valued with a numerical and nominal interval scale. The results show that the quality of the service between holiday seasons contrasts according to the type of stopover. The nominal scale revealed information that the numerical interval could not show, providing some advantages for service quality assessment.