A Conceptual Framework for Sustainable Tourism Service Quality Management

This paper proposes a conceptual framework integrating the SERVQUAL service quality model with sustainability principles for the four core tourism segments - accommodation, transport, food service, and guide-excursion services. The framework responds to a recurring disconnect in the tourism literature, where service quality measurement and sustainability assessment have evolved as parallel rather than integrated agendas. Drawing on a structured review of services marketing, sustainability, and tourism certification literatures, the four classical service characteristics are mapped onto the five SERVQUAL dimensions, and each dimension is enriched with sustainability sub-indicators aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The framework is then operationalised through a four-pillar matrix - resource management, service quality management, partnership, and monitoring - embedded in a Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle. The contribution is threefold: how service characteristics relate to SERVQUAL dimensions, a sustainability extension that avoids constructing a parallel instrument, and a segment-specific operational matrix ready for empirical testing.