SERVICE MARKETING PROJECT

ON
MAYFAIR (HOTELS & RESORTS)

SUBMITTED BY-

(GROUP-03)
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This present piece of work owes its existence to many

people, without whose help it would not have been possible
to complete the project in time. We the members of group-
3 would like to congratulate and thank each other for the
successful completion of the project.
We would like to thank PROF. SUVAKANT MOHANTY for
his valuable guidance suggestions and constructive
criticism towards the project.
We would like to thank all the respondents for sparing
much of their valuable time for filling up the questionnaire
and sharing their views ,without which the project would
never had been completed.
We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the
managing staff of MAYFAIR to guide us by providing
inputs for our better understanding of the market scenario.
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

2. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

3. OBJECTIVE OF STUDY
4. INTRODUCTION TO MAYFAIR

5. HOTEL INDUSTY IN BHUBANESWAR

 SWOT ANALYSIS
 PORTER’S FIVE FORCES

6. MEASURING SERVICE QUALITY

 SERVQUAL MODEL
 ZONE OF TOLERANCE

7. MESURING SERVICE QUALITY

 METHOD
 SAMPLE
 PROCEDURE

8. DATA ANALYSIS
 EXCEL OUTPUT
 SPSS OUTPUT

9. LIMITATIONS OF STUDY
10. CONCLUSION
 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The project assigned to us was to perform the analysis of

service provided by MYFAIR and study the environment in
which it operates. A comparative study of the customer’s
expectation and perception is conducted to understand the
position of MAYFAIR in the hotel industry operating in
Bhubaneswar.
The customer expectation is measured on the dual parameters
with the desired level and adequate level. Then the
expectations of the customers are compared with that of their
perception after availing the services.
The industry scenario in bhubaneswar is examined with
respect to the SWOT and five forces analysis of MAYFAIR.
SEVQUAL is used to determine the gap existing in the system
and is interpreted in light of company’s performance. The gaps
in understanding the customers and their perceptions are
measured over the service attributes and shown as per the
comparative zone of tolerance of the customers.
 MEASURING THE ZONE OF TOLERANCE FOR SERVICE
QUALITY OF MAYFAIR LAGOON

OBJECTIVE:
1. To find out the dual levels of customer expectation of service
performance.
2. To find out the perceived service levels by the customers.
3. To measure the customer satisfaction level by finding the P‐E gap.

SAMPLING:
1. MAYFAIR (Hotels& Resorts)
2. Sample size of 75 respondents

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
1. Primary research by filling up the designed structured questionnaire.
2. Secondary research from internet, hotel records.

INTRODUCTION TO MAYFAIR (Hotel & Resorts)

MAYFAIR Group of Hotels is into the hospitality industry since 1982.
All the way from being a small hotel at Rourkela to a five star hotel, it
has presently grown as a group with four aristocratic properties in
Eastern India. The MAYFAIR Group is a leading hospitality player in
Eastern India. With astute clientele and industry fraternity, the group
has over the years built its reputation as a high end niche player. 

The flagship company of the group, MAYFAIR Hotels & Resorts

Limited (MHRL) operates four hotel properties located at
Bhubaneswar (MAYFAIR Lagoon), Puri (MAYFAIR Puri), Rourkela
(MAYFAIR Rourkela) and Darjeeling (MAYFAIR Darjeeling), while
its Sikkim property (MAYFAIR Gangtok) is operated through a
subsidiary company MAYFAIR Hotels & Resorts (Sikkim) Pvt. Ltd
(MHRSL). Mayfair Lagoon is the only star deluxe resorts with spa
services in Bhubaneswar. This is the flagship property of Mayfair
Hotels & Resorts Ltd The resort offers a very personalized hospitality
with excellent eco-friendly ambiance. MAYFAIR Group is promoted
by Dilip Ray and his family members. He has a passion for low rise
boutique hotels, with exclusive tropical greenery. Its properties are
the best in each of the locations in proximity to the prime business
and institutional areas. The MAYFAIR group has played host to who’s
& who of the industry, sports and media personalities, senior
bureaucrats and top PSU officials. USP of the group has been “built
around resort theme” and each property has been created with an
ethnic touch and natural greenery. The ambience and eco-friendly
environment attracts top end leisure and business tourists. 
The size of rooms and other support facilities viz. specialty restaurants,
Spa, sports and games infrastructure, banquets facilities made available
to the customers are very luxurious. The furniture and fixtures are
high-end and are sourced from reputed manufactures/ suppliers
globally. Prestigious and indulging, MAYFAIR lavishes business and
leisure travelers with discreet service in plush elegance.

HOTEL INDUSTRY IN BHUBANESWAR:

MAYFAIR operates in the hotel industry in luxury segment. It has its
major competitors as Trident Hilton, Swosti Plaza and Hotels, HHI,
Ginger, Kalinga Ashok, The New Marrion, The Crown, The Triumph
Residency, Suryansh , The presidency, The Royale Midtown etc.

SWOT ANALYSIS:

1. STRENGTHS-
 Mayfair Lagoon is conveniently located at a distance of 9 kms
from the airport.
 Mayfair is an elegant low rise hotel spread on 10 acres of lush
tropical greenery around a lagoon, with intimate courtyards,
fountains and exquisite works of art.
 Mayfair has 102 centrally air-conditioned cottages and suites
which provides luxurious space for working and unwinding.
 Mayfair provides several facilities like SPA, Doctor on call,
personal paper, etc.
 Major cities at an easy distance: Cuttack- 25kms, Puri- 65kms,
Nandankanan- 15kms, Gopalpur-on-Sea- 160kms,
Visakhapattnam- 420kms.

2. WEAKNESSES-
 Positioning-It has projected itself basically a leisure hotel
which is not particularly targeting the business travelers, who
frequent to the city more often on routine basis.

3. OPPORTUNITIES-
 Business Hub- Bhubaneswar is the hub for business in Orissa.
Many new IT Companies have opened their offices in
Bhubaneswar. It is a great opportunity for Mayfair when it
can have tie-ups with these companies and increase its
customer base.
  Increase in the Disposable Income- With the changing times
the economy of India has grown and so has the disposable
income of people. So people are now more readily accepting
the better facilities provided by star hotels though at a high
price.
 People More Class Conscious- As the disposable income of
people has increased, people have become more class
conscious, especially, the upper class, who are most unwilling
to compromise with anything but their class and taste.
 Bhubaneswar’s rich culture: The city has a historical
background of 5000 years, so it is one big package of culture
and legend that never fails to captivate the imagination of the
visitors. There are several beauties that capture the minds of
the visitors, for example- the Lingaraja Temple, Udayagiri-
Rock Cut Caves, Rajarani Temple, Parsurameswar Temple,
Mukteshwar Temple, Svarnajaleswar Temple.

4. THREATS-
 Competitors- Mayfair faces tough competition from its peer
group that is Swosti Plaza, Trident Hilton
 New Entrants- There is also threat from new entrants like
HHI, which has business travelers and Hotel Suryansh.
 Tata Group Hotel Ginger could be price leader in terms of
quality service at low cost, which could potentially decrease
its market base.

MICHAEL PORTER’S FIVE FORCES

The five forces that should be considered to analyze the hotel industry
in Bhubaneswar are:
 1. Rivalry between the firms – The rivalry between the star hotels
of Bhubaneswar is quite high. Although not being a metro, there
are many big star hotels in and around the city like Mayfair
Lagoon, Swosti Plaza, Trident Hilton, HHI, etc. All the hotels
compete with each other using various strategies like pricing,
etc. so as to gain the maximum market share.
2. Bargaining power of buyers – The bargaining power of buyers is
low as there is less number of suppliers in Bhubaneswar like
Mayfair, Swosti plaza, Trident, HHI, etc. Also the switching cost
for buyers is low as the customer retention ratio is high since the
services and products are customized.
3. Bargaining power of suppliers – The bargaining power of
suppliers is high as there are few players in this industry. They
have differentiated products, low number of substitutes and
buyers incur high costs to switch suppliers.
4. Threat of substitute products or services – The threat of
substitutes to products and services is high as the industry has
few competitors. Since the cross-elasticity of demand of a
substitute product is high, therefore, the threat is high.
5. Threat of new entrants – There is high threat of new entrants as
there are only a few players in the star hotel industry in
Bhubaneswar.

SERVICE QUALITY:
Service quality has been recognized as a key factor in differentiating
service products. Customer satisfaction can be secured through high-
quality products and services the concept of service should be
analyzed from the customer’s point of view, since it was his/her
perception of the outcome that constituted the service. Customers
may have different values and different grounds for assessment and
may perceive the same service in different ways. The concept of
service quality has been the subject of concern in variety of service
industries. Today’s tourism business environment and the
multicultural diversity of international tourists points to the
importance of developing a better understanding of the culturally
different tourist. With flourishing hospitality industry, understanding
the customers has off late gained importance.

Measuring Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction of MAYFAIR:

People from different cultures have different preferences, expectations
and so travel consumption patterns. Cultural differences in value
orientations and social behavior have direct impacts on tourist holiday
experiences. The hosts’ ability to respond effectively to a culturally
different tourist was an important element determining positive
tourist holiday experiences and satisfaction poorness or non-existence
of customer satisfaction measuring systems could cause the hotel
companies to be lacking in market orientation. Attributes of the
service and product that add value for the customer and increase his
or her satisfaction might be unknown and that gives no guide to the
hotel operators for improvement projects. Therefore, the purpose of
this study was to assess the expectations and the perceptions of service
quality dimensions towards the hospitality offered by MAYFAIR from
the hotel guests’ perspective by applying a modified version of the
SERVQUAL model.

There were five key discrepancies that can influence customer

evaluations of service quality:
• Gap 1 was the gap between customer expectations and management’s
perceptions of those expectations.
• Gap 2 was the gap between management’s perception of what the
customer wants and specifications of service quality.
• Gap 3 was the gap between service quality specifications and delivery
of the service.
• Gap 4 was the gap between service delivery and what the company
promises to the customer through external communication.
• Gap 5 was the gap between customers’ service expectations and their
perceptions of service performance.

The first gap is the knowledge gap.

It is the result of the differences in managing knowledge and their real
expectations. This gap can lead to other gaps in the process of service
quality and is, among other things, caused by:
 incorrect information in market researches and demand analysis;
 incorrect interpretations of information regarding expectations;
 lack of information about any feedback between the company
and the consumers directed to the management;
 too many organizational layers that hinder or modify parts of
information in their upward movement from those involved in
contact with the consumers.

The second gap is that of service quality design and standard

It is the result of differences in managing knowledge of the client’s
expectations and the process of service provision (delivery).
This gap is the result of:
 mistakes in planning or insufficient planning procedures;
 bad management planning;
 lack of clearly set goals in the organization; and
 Insufficient support of the top management to service quality
planning.

The third gap is service delivery gap

It is the discrepancy between development between development of
customer driven service standards and actual service performance by
service provider and its support staffs.
The reasons are:
 The team activities are not well coordinated
 Ineffective training and poor employee-technology job fit
 Role ambiguity and role conflict
 Difficulty in controlling quality and service standards

The fourth gap is the communication gap

It is arising when there is a difference between the delivered service
and the service that the company promised to the clients via external
communications.
The reasons are:
 the planning of communication with the market is not
integrated with the services;
 lack or insufficient coordination between traditional marketing
and procedures;
 organizational performance not in keeping with the
specifications, while the policy of communication with the
market abides by the given specifications; and
 tendency to exaggerate in accordance with exaggerated promises.

The fifth gap is customer gap

In order to manage service quality, it was important to manage the
gaps between expectations and perceptions on the part of
management, employers and customers. The most important gap (Gap
5) was that between customers’ expectations of service and their
perceptions of the service actually delivered. So by referring to the gap
model, a service marketer must lessen the customer gap (Gap 5). In
order to do so, the service provider must first try to lessen the other
four gaps (Gap 1, 2 3, and 4) within the organization that hinder
delivery of quality service, as each of these elements contribute
towards the expectations and perceptions of customers.
In hotel industry how customers perceive the level of service
performance that meets their expectations will reflect the quality of
service provided by the organization.
Henceforth, SERVQUAL instrument identifies and measure the gap
between customers’ expectations and perceptions of service quality.
Service quality is measured by holding five major dimensions —
reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, and tangibles. The
instrument suggested service quality as the gap between customer’s
expectations (E) and their perception of the service provider’s
performance (P). Hence the service quality scores (Q) can be measured
by subtracting the customer’s perception score from the customer’s
expectations score. This is as denoted by the following equation:
Q=P–E

Definition of Service Quality Dimensions

Service Quality
Dimension Definition

Reliability The ability to perform the service dependably,

consistently and accurately

Responsiveness The willingness to help customers and provide

prompt service

Assurance The knowledge and courtesy of employees and

their ability to convey trust and confidence

Tangible The physical evidence of service including

physical facilities, appearance of personnel, tools,
and equipment used to provide the service
 Empathy Caring, individualized attention to its customers

Expected Service: Dual Customer Expectation Levels

Service delivery is compared against the expectation before delivering

the services, keeping reference points. The level of expectation varies
according to the reference points the customer holds. The level of
expectation range from highest to lowest. The highest is the desired
service: the level of service the customer hopes to receive- the
“wished for” level of performance. It’s a blend of what customer
believes service “can be” and “should be”. The threshold level of
acceptable service, adequate service- the level of service the customer
will accept. Adequate level is the much lower than desired level. It
represents the “minimum tolerable expectation”, the bottom level of
service performance acceptable to the customers. The customer assess
the service performance on the basis f two standard boundaries: what
they desire and what they deem acceptable.

HIGH
Ideal expectations
of desire DESIRED SERVICE
 Normative “should”
expectation

Experience- based
norms

Acceptable
expectations

Minimum tolerable
expectations
ADEQUATE SERVICE
LOW

ZONE OF TOLERANCE:
The extent to which customers recognize and are willing to accept the
variation is known as zone of tolerance. It service drops below
adequate service- the minimum level considered acceptable, then it
becomes difficult to sustain customer loyalty if service recovery is not
done properly on time.
Customer’s tolerance zones also vary for different service attributes or
dimensions. The more important the factor, the narrower the zone of
tolerance is likely to be. Customers are less likely to be less tolerant
about unreliable service (broken promise or service errors) than other
service deficiencies, which mean they have the highest expectation for
this factor. This zone of tolerance is more a function of change in the
adequate service level and dependent upon the individuals.
Level
Of
Expec
-tation
Desired Service

Zone
of
Tolerance
 Adequate Service Desired Service

Zone
of
Tolerance

Adequate Service

Reliability Tangibility

Measuring Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction of MAYFAIR:

Customer satisfaction with housekeeping was found to be the only

significant factor that determined customer loyalty. Reception, food
and beverages, and price were regarded as supporting factors when
deciding to return, recommend or demonstrate loyalty to a particular
hotel. The overall room values were sub-classified into seven different
categories — cleanliness, atmosphere, comfort, quality and sufficiency
of room fixtures, size of a guest room, availability of complimentary
items, and price. Front-office services, on the other hand, were
subdivided into seven attributes.
These include courtesy; recovery from service failures (handling of
complaints); responsiveness, such as convenience of reservation;
promptness of check in/ check-out; hotel/tour guide information;
tangibles such as variety/quality of sports/recreational facilities (e.g.,
swimming pools, spa and aerobic exercise rooms); and efficiency of a
business centre (e.g., fax machines, personal computers, and copiers).
By analyzing the data acquired and interaction with managing staff, it
was found that both cleanliness of a guest room and courtesy of hotel
staff, were among the attributes that were considered most important,
particularly informing impressions of service quality.
Service quality in the hotel industry was mainly represented by three
dimensions: related to employees (behavior and appearance), tangibles
and reliability.
The best predictor of overall service quality was the employees
dimension, and the most important attributes in this dimension was
employee gives individual attention to the customers.
The overall evaluation of service quality in Mayfair hotels was
determined largely by firstly ‘assurance factors’ — such as security and
safety of guests, and effective handling of complaints and problems by
hotel staff, and secondly ‘reliability factors such as hotels perform
tasks that have been promised to guests and resolving problems
encountered by guests. They found that by focusing on only these
factors, hotels in Bhubaneswar would be able to achieve high levels of
satisfaction and service quality.
The hotel industry should consider additional resources to maintain
and improve the quality of hotel rooms, including room set-up,
cleanliness, quietness, and room temperature control. The cultural
differences in service determine expectations of service and the
required standards. Tourism marketers and service providers should
respond to the culturally accepted standards of the market they serve.
Analyzing perceptions of service quality, particularly with respect to
different customer segments, can help hoteliers to develop and
formulate marketing strategies that meet the needs of each specific
segment more effectively. Once customers’ requirements are clearly
identified and understood, hotel managers are more likely to be able
to anticipate and cater for their customers desires and needs, rather
than merely reacting to their dissatisfaction. Hoteliers can plan
effective marketing strategies for satisfying their guests when they
first visit, and then developing customer loyalty for the hotel’s service
and facilities thereafter

Method
The relevant texts and survey developed on major attribute, provided
the basis for the formation of the closed-ended and self-administered
questionnaire for this study. SERVQUAL questionnaire (refer to
Appendix) to identify and analyze the gaps between the expectations
and the perceptions of hotels’ guests. The modification was made to
suit the hospitality industry condition to further analyze the dual
expectation levels in terms of desired; the highest and the adequate
that is the minimum. A 7-point Likert scale was used in this
questionnaire, which comprised four sections. The first section was to
measure the respondents’ expectations regarding service quality in
MAYFAIR by using the five SERVQUAL service quality dimensions.
The second section was to examine the respondents’ perceptions of
service quality actually provided by the MAYFAIR when they stayed.
The last section was to collect the demographic and basic
characteristics of the respondents.

The Sample
The people who stayed in Mayfair (hotel & resorts).
The possible reasons for limited study were that company’s policy
disallowed research studies by external parties, and the issues of
privacy, as well as the security of the guests.

The Sampling Procedure:

In this study, a systematic sampling approach — a type of random
sampling was used. It was a sampling design that involved choosing
every nth element in the population for the sample. In this study,
every third hotel customer passing through the check-in counter of
the hotel was interviewed. A screening question was asked to identify
if they had stayed at least once in the hotel. The further steps only
proceeded to administer the questionnaire to those who had.
Then responses were fed and analyzed, using SPSS 11.0

DATA ANALYSIS:
Data collected from the questionnaire were then analyzed in two
ways, first in excel and then next in SPSS.
The mean and standard deviation of the satisfaction levels of the
respondents towards the hotel stay were also calculated.
Besides using descriptive statistics of means and standard deviations,
gap analysis and excel was used in comparing means between
expectations score and perceptions score of the respondents. Gap
analysis was carried out to find out the service quality gaps.
It computed the differences between the values of these two means
and analyzed tested whether the mean differences were significant.

DATA INTERPRETATION:

Service Quality Perception Relative to Zones of Tolerance by

Dimensions:

0
Reliability Responsiveness Assurance Empathy Tangibles

MAYFAIR ZONE of Tolerance Service Quality Perception

LAGOON

It is analyzed that the data obtained through the questionnaires, the

dual level of expectations of the customers are higher before they
availed the services of MAYFAIR. The circle denoted the perception
of the customers after they experienced the services. In case of most of
the attributes the expectation of the customers are higher than what
they are actually getting in the hotel.
In case of reliability, perception scores are below the boxes, which
implies MAYFAIR’s service performance is lower than the minimum
level, and the customers are dissatisfied in terms of reliability.
In case of assurance and tangibility, the perception of the customers is
within adequate level, hence the customers may compromise to
certain extend in case of service lapse.
Hence, the attributes such se reliability , responsiveness and empathy
needs serious attention of the management to improve on by proper
implementation of service delivery and recovery.

Excel Output:

Service Quality Expectations Perceptions Difference (P-E)

Dimensions

Reliability 6.344 5.629 -0.715

Responsiveness 6.104 5.730 -0.401

Assurance 6.613 5.752 -0.861

Empathy 6.333 5.702 -0.631

Tangibility 6.505 5.719 -0.786

SPSS Output:
FACTOR ANALYSIS:
The technique of factor analysis provides a way of reducing the
number of variables in the study to smaller and more manageable
number by combining related ones into a single factor. It helps in
concentrating onto the factors which needs more attention with
respect to other factors.
 PRINCIPAL COMPONENTS ANALYSIS:
9 major components are identified through the extraction method.

COMPONENTS FACTOR

 Modern looking equipments

 Visually appealing physical facilities CONVENIENCE
 Safety facilities
 Proper check-in & check-out services

 Service performed right at the first time

 Error-free records RECITAL PROCEEDINGS
 Prior information of performance of services
 Consistently courteous staff

 Proper knowledge to answer customer

queries EXPLICIT SERVICE
 Understanding of specific needs

 Prompt Service
 Ready to respond customer queries PUNCUALITY

 Accessibility USER-FRIENDLY
 Comfortable& clean rooms

 Courteous and friendly staffs POLITE

 Dependable in customer handling problems TRUSTWORTHY

 Customer individualized attention PRIORITY

 Service as promised GUARANTEE

Limitations of the Study:

 This study was conducted under several constraints; one major
limitation was limited access to the MAYFAIR’s guests at the time of
survey.
 Due to time and resource constraints, the researcher had limited to
the MAYFAIR LAGOON and not so extensive study of its
competitors.
 A further constraint was subject to the approval of the management of
MAYFAIR.
 There were contextual differences in several factors mainly due to the
background of the respondents. The respondents had different
education backgrounds, different job environments, and different
travelling purposes. These might have contributed towards differences
in the perception of service quality.
 The questionnaire with two respective parts, gradually made the
respondent to loss the interest in the survey and most of them
randomly put the lower perceptions whether genuine or not

CONCLUSION:
There is a huge difference in the service expectation and perception
formed by the customers. Hence, MAYFAIR should re consider its
strategy formulations while operating in the service industry. Because,
it is leaving around a huge space for the competitors, to provide
services as per their expectations.
The gap is really high in terms of understanding the customers and its
service delivery, hence the hotel should consider the major five
service dimensions to understand the customers and the service
provider must first try to lessen the other four gaps (Gap 1, 2 3, and 4)
within the organization that hinder delivery of quality service, as each
of these elements contribute towards building the perceptions of
customers.