Asymmetric Information, Tourist Satisfaction and Quality in Tourism

Quality is adopted by the market to resolve asymmetric information problems concerning the relationships between sellers and buyers. Also in the tourist market the quality assumes a particular importance, although its measurement needs different identification criterions. Tourism firms invest in quality and use it as mechanism of signalling, because of increasing market competitiveness. Nevertheless, it is argued in this paper that tourist satisfaction cannot depend directly on high quality good/services, but on the relationship between their expectations and satisfactions. This can explain why tourism market is characterized by different quality standard services.