Assessment of the quality of service in the catering industry as an important determinant in escalating the level of consumer confidence

Internationalization of modern enterprises in service industry, turbulent environment in which they operate and constant expansion of the competition in the catering industry force enterprises to seek more innovative ways to remain on the market. Quality is the key factor in the development strategy of entities in the catering industry, the objective of which is to achieve long-term competitive advantage, both on domestic and foreign catering market. Enterprises, applying consumer-oriented approach as the key factor in their development strategy, seek to shape an ideal level of services provided which will help to distinguish their services from among similar competitive services. The aim of such actions is, first of all, to satisfy the customer providing the appropriate level of service. The aim of this study is to try to identify the impact of service quality on the level of consumer confidence in the catering industry and to identify factors determining the essence of the quality of catering services, in the opinion of respondents. The basis of the analysis was results of the author’s surveys carried out on a sample of 300 consumers from hotel restaurants (four-star hotels) located in the area of Silesian region.