The great importance that tourism has in the contemporary world motivates me to begin by highlighting some elements of judgment oriented towards a better understanding of the issue of quality in tourist services, especially in food and beverage services in Peru.
The country has been experiencing a period of frank recovery of inbound and domestic tourism, a situation that has motivated singular interest from all the agents involved in the development of tourism, especially the business community linked to this activity.
The stability achieved and the efforts made to improve the country's external image made possible the return of tourists in numbers never before achieved, registering close to one million international arrivals for 2001.
It should be noted that the favorable conditions presented create a real expectation for all those involved in tourism, as it is an activity that generates an important multiplier effect on the country's economy, since it gives it a multisectoral character capable of enabling real dynamism.
From this perspective, Peru has become the focus of world attention, not only because of the climate of stability it currently enjoys, but also because of the efforts made by the government and the private sector to promote this dynamic activity.
We can affirm that the diversity and great potential of resources and attractions make tourism an alternative for economic development for countries like ours. This requires a commitment and effective work by the State, and private business, in accordance with the new role that the economy has assigned to them.
I think it is appropriate to analyze one of the arguments heard lately, that is, international competition creates in tourism companies the need to offer QUALITY services that guarantee the full satisfaction of tourists who visit us OR attend a local establishment. and ensure the loyalty of our customers.
For this purpose, we must understand by tourist service the set of resources or tangible or intangible means always destined to satisfy the needs of tourists, where the former are made up of the attractions, infrastructure, facilities and equipment that make up what we call the tourist product. While intangibles are made up of the attitudes we have and the actions we take, to make our tourists feel that they are really interested in meeting their expectations.
"The increased competitiveness experienced by the Tourism Sector makes quality a permanent objective, if we want to maintain the leadership position" …….
Quality must be understood as a new lens through which we face the business world, which is inspired by values of efficient service, We can affirm that quality is defined by the results, and is measured by the satisfied expectations of the tourist, so that the actions that result from it must be oriented to avoid the emergence of any unpleasant experience, since it is a service tourism and specifically tourism services do not support mistakes or failures.
It should be clear what is quality Quality is a key component of the competitiveness of the tourism business. It should be understood as the ability to respond to tourist expectations, at a specific price. It is measured by the degree of satisfaction achieved by the tourist, therefore the true thermometer of quality is the customer (tourist).
Quality implies "doing things the way the customer wants".
"In the specific case of restaurants, quality is the best argument to compete in the market where they are located, depending on their type and category, and represents a guarantee for the continuity and future of your business."
But let's analyze how this tourist finds a difference between his expectations and reality. The tourist enters a first-class restaurant of a tourist type, then begins to live a tourist experience. As part of it, a series of services and needs are generated; the sum of them is gives us the experience in the establishment of food and the perceptions that the tourist has in relation to their true expectations defines the quality of the tourist product.
We are aware that the Peruvian tourism product is considered too expensive for visitors, in relation to the services that the market offers, and the lack of quality services that truly correspond to international standards is evident.
Despite the actions taken by the government, we still have great difficulties to compete in the world market, especially from the point of view of prices.
Then, the only way is to provide a quality service, so it should be clear that obtaining it should not lead to higher costs.
Rather, the pursuit of quality often leads to eliminating waste, since efforts made in this regard can reduce production costs in an effort to identify unnecessary expenses.
Various management improvements can be introduced relatively easily without increasing costs. Thus, for example, technological innovations in the field of equipment that allow reducing time and costs, improving quality without making the service more expensive, are very important in the food and beverage service.
We should not lose sight of the fact that the objective of every company, including tourism, is not to make money, the objective is actually to serve its customers efficiently, making money is the result. This reasoning should lead us to prioritize the quality of our tourist services first.
Therefore, if we have less facilities to compete on the cost side, we are left as an alternative to fight the battle on the QUALITY front.
How can we achieve a level of quality?
The answer to this question varies according to the situations, since there is no single quality, nor is there a single course of action to achieve it. Quality requirements vary at each level of expectations of the various tourist segments and our actions to achieve them must evaluate and consider these variations.
In this sense, the research work should be deepened by all the institutions related to the tourism issue, in order to better identify the tastes and preferences of the tourists who visit us today.
Quality constitutes more than a goal in itself, a continuous and permanent process that implies a personal style of acting.
To explain why it is said that it is a continuous process, it is enough to consider the case of a dinner in a good category restaurant, where the food could have been excellent, but the receipt of the invoice took about 20 minutes. Then, the experience turns out to be classified by the annoyance that caused such a useless wait, regardless of the quality of the food and the rest of the service. It should be understood that the tourist service is a process that only ends with full customer satisfaction.
It is also necessary to establish quality standards, but considering that these do not have to be the highest, but the best or the most appropriate that the tourist can expect for the price they pay.
One of the most frequent causes of failure of any service improvement effort (total quality or reengineering) is the low commitment of the people involved in it and the lack of adequate leadership by those who lead the companies.
For this reason, it is important to refer to the role of human resources in meeting quality objectives, because the quality of a company is directly proportional to the quality of its staff, in other words the key to success is the human factor.
"Starting a quality program in restaurants means that establishments undertake a path through which they will be able to streamline their processes, operations and tasks, improve communication and information for their customers, with their suppliers and with their employees…"
"The most important aspect is quality, it is where we pay more attention, because a customer dissatisfied with poor services is a customer who does not return."
Quality involves not only aspects such as the restaurant's furniture or the good condition of the food, but above all the attitude of the staff who provide the service. Total Quality must be understood and practiced by all those who participate in the company, we must not make the serious mistake of forgetting that the human factor plays the most important role in the development of the process.
Therefore, we must bear in mind that the training and qualification of the restaurant staff must be continuous and must be carried out efficiently from the beginning, that is, before getting a job and during the stay of the server in the company.
The tourist activity is a chain in which various providers intervene whose services are always evaluated together. The consumer thinks and judges the destination as a whole, even when they have certain particular opinions about certain links in the chain.
Finally, I would like to mention that we are aware that the road is not easy, even more so if we bear in mind the context in which we operate, so this work hopes to have contributed some elements that serve to promote and motivate the change that the achievement of Quality in Tourism and specifically in Food and Beverage Establishments.
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