ABSTRACT
The origins of the U.K. "quality movement" arguably lie in the British Standards Institution's (BSI) definition of quality as the "totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy a need" (British Standards Institution, 1983) and the publication of the British national standard, BS 5750, in 1979. The international equivalent, ISO9000, was launched in 1987 by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). ISO9000 was subsequently adopted as the European standard (EN9000) to promote industry competitiveness throughout the world and to assist development of the European internal market. Nationally and internationally, this approach has therefore provided the key guiding principles for quality management (DETR, 1998). Quality by the original BSI and ISO definitions is explicitly derived from a manufacturing approach which adopts a process control perspective to prevent errors. However, this approach to quality orientation is limited in relation to the complex task of managing tourism services (Maxwell, 1994), because tourism experiences are delivered by a range of suppliers from the public, private, and voluntary sectors and are then purchased, experienced, and evaluated by consumers over time and distance (Augustyn, 1998).
