ASSESSMENT OF TRAINING QUALITY IN HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY: AN EXPLORATORY MODEL Ioannis Valachis University of the Aegean Chios, Greece e-mail: i.valachis@chios.aegean.gr Evangelos Christou University of the Aegean Chios, Greece e-mail: e.christou@aegean.gr Leonidas Maroudas University of the Aegean Chios, Greece e-mail: lmarouda@aegean.gr Marianna Sigala University of the Aegean Chios, Greece e-mail: m.sigala@aegean.gr ABSTRACT Research into hospitality training field has been focused on the subjects of training need assessments, training evaluation models, training within organizational frameworks and useful training techniques. Despite the significance of the above aspects, no significant afford has been made in the field of training quality and particularly in defining those service quality related features that the training designers should bare in mind. Although SERVQUAL is a scale applicable to all services, in the case of hospitality industry that consists of complex processes and various ‘moments of truth’ through various encounters to be included in the procedure of service quality evaluation. The present paper proposes a model describing an approach on how services in the hospitality industry could be improved through enhanced targeted training of human resources. Keywords: hospitality industry, training, service quality, SERVQUAL, training design INTRODUCTION The unique nature by which the hospitality product is both supplied and consumed at the same time means that any generalised assertion such as ‘training can improve the quality of the hospitality product’ must be considered with care. The concept of quality has it origins in manufacturing sector back to early 80s where became a part of services literature. Since quality has its routes in tangible products, any application of quality concepts and issues to intangible services or tourist experiences in the hotel sector may be considered up to an extent as a problematic concept. In manufacture industries, employee performance failures end up when the products fail to be produced and are rejected. Customers buy only the “perfect” products while never see these failed products and rejects. However, in the hospitality industry, employee performance-related failures are obvious since most of the mistakes are immediately visible to the customer; each failure directly affects guest fulfilment. The present paper focuses on critically examining service quality related literature in order to identify areas for improvement of hospitality employees’ training; a conceptual model is being developed and tested on a hospitality environment in Greece. Service quality issues in the hospitality industry The service nature of the hospitality product sets down how consumption is required to take place. Services are generally described as having three unique attributes-features, specifically, ‘intangibility’, ‘inseparability’ and ‘heterogeneity’ (Lashley and Taylor, 1998; Schneider, 1994; Regan, 1963). Moreover, there is another attribute of services called ‘perishability’ referring to the fact that services cannot be stored for future