PhD.Thodhori Puleri( Lecturer at the Department of Finance, Faculty of Economy, University of Tirana (Saranda branch) - thodhoripuleri@yahoo.com)
Abstract The tourism industry is an industry of service delivery and every service is offered by people to people. Hotels face increasing competition from other hospitality units. This increased competition has forced hotels to find ways to keep current customers and attract competitive customers. It is very important for hotels to know how to measure these consumer outlook constructions in order to better understand their needs and so satisfy them. Quality of service is considered very important because it leads to higher customer satisfaction, profitability, cost reduction, customer loyalty and keeping it. The aim of this work is to investigate how SERVQUAL model applied in hotels in southern Albania, thus describe how hotel customers perceive the quality of services and how satisfied they were with the quality of services offered in these hotels. Thirty hotels from the Saranda region, the Ksamil region and Himara region served as subjects in our study to investigate the quality of services provided. The survey was conducted in the period May 2016 - September 2017. Questionnaires were distributed by hotel customers. To measure the quality of services provided, we use the SERVQUAL model, which is a strategic marketing tool. Based on the results of this research, the OSQ gap was positive. This shows that the quality of the services offered at the hotels of the South Region in Albania is high, so the perceptions of the clients are greater than their expectations