Effects of tour leader's service quality on agency's reputation and customers' word-of-mouth

This article reports the findings of a study on tour leaders' service quality and their impact on a travel agency's reputation and word-of-mouth publicity. A survey was conducted with 431 tourists who joined package tours with a large travel agency in Hong Kong. Four factors with 16 attributes were identified. These factors were `Professional attitude and ability', `Presentation and communication ability', `Professional knowledge' and `Personal integrity'. Positive relationships were found between the tour leader's service quality factors and reputation, tour leader's service factors and word-of-mouth publicity. Implications of the findings are discussed and future research directions are included.