Despite the prevalence of mystery shopping as a quality assurance practice in the U.S. lodging industry, it has not been recognized as a topic for empirical research. This study attempts to explore facts related to current mystery shopping practices in the industry and hotel senior manager's perceptions of the effectiveness of mystery shopping as a tool to monitor service quality. Data were collected from hotel general managers and financial controllers through survey questionnaires. The results suggest that mystery shopping is being widely used in the industry as a tool to monitor service quality. Factor analysis identified three dimensions of service quality that can be effectively assessed by mystery shopping. The research findings provide an analysis of issues related to the implementation of the mystery shopping program that will help marketers develop and conduct mystery shopping programs more effectively.
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Beck et al. (2003) studied this question.
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