Service Failure and Service Recovery in Tourism: A Review Christine Ennew, Christel DeHaan Tourism and Travel Research Institute University of Nottingham 1 and Klaus Schoefer, Christel DeHaan Tourism and Travel Research Institute University of Nottingham ABSTRACT Although tourism organisations may have customer satisfaction as a major goal, not all tourism experiences are satisfactory from the consumer perspective. Service failures can and do occur. Tourism may be particularly susceptible to the problem of service failure because of the number of different service providers involved and that fact that it is an important and heavily people-based service. If service failures cannot be avoided then organisations must have clear strategies for responding to service failures and minimising the adverse impact of customer complaints. This paper reviews existing literature on service failure in relation to travel and tourism and identifies the strategies that organisations can use to manage the outcomes of dissatisfying service experiences. Keywords: complaint handling, tourism, perceived justice, service failure, service recovery. INTRODUCTION One of the most basic principles in marketing is that organizational performance is enhanced by satisfying customers. Consequently, organizations involved in the delivery of tourism and tourism-related services might reasonably be expected to have customer satisfaction as a key target. In practice, not all customers will be satisfied and few organizations can guarantee to deliver ‘zero defects’ service every time. Some service failures and customer dissatisfaction may be inevitable, particularly in tourism. The susceptibility of tourism to service failure arises from three main sources. First, in most cases, delivery of the service relies on inputs from a number of different parties (eg airline, hotel, tour operator) which must be co-ordinated to deliver the tourist experience. The involvement of a number of different organizations and the challenges of co-ordination can increase the potential for failure. Second, tourism is very much a people-based service; a 1 Send correspondence to Christine Ennew, The Christel DeHaan Tourism and Travel Research Institute, Nottingham University Business School, University of Nottingham, Jubilee Campus, Wollaton Road, Nottingham, NG8 1BB, UK; Tel: +44 115 9515259 (direct line); Fax: + 44 115 8466686; Email: Christine.ennew@nottingham.ac.uk