QUALITY MANAGEMENT AND FIRM PERFORMANCE IN THE HOTEL INDUSTRY: EVIDENCE FROM MURES COUNTY

Tourism represents a basic component within economy of a country but within the human social assembly as well. Over the course of time, tourist services have become the central component of tourist activity, therefore a special attention has been provided to tourist service firms, but especially hotel units and factors that can influence competitiveness of these units. One of characteristic elements that contribute to getting the competitive advantage is represented by tourist service quality management. Under the circumstances, this research shows the importance of implementing quality management for managers as well as relationship between the factors defining quality management in hotel units in the Mureş county and economic performance through parametric statistics tools. The research method used is enquiry, and the working tool is questionnaire, the latter being provided to all hotel managers in the Mureş county. The main objective of this research is to show the importance of quality management as regards the management point of view and to analyse the influence of quality management over the performance indicators in hotels in the Mureş county (Romania) and in order to accomplish this objective, data has been gathered through providing a number of 42 questionnaires to managers and owners that work within hospitability industry. The results show a part acknowledge of research hypothesis, therefore the hotel sector in the Mureş county should take into consideration the improvement of quality managements regarding the services they supply. The study conclusions show a significant importance for hotel managers that want to get the customer satisfaction and implicitly auspicious economic results.