INTRODUCTION Recently , a number of researchers in the hotel industry have identified and emphasised the importance of service quality from a variety of aspects . Although the importance of hotel service quality has been recognised (Min, Min, & Chung, 2002; Callan & Kyndt , 2001; Callan & Bowman, 2000; Danaher & Mattsson, 1994; Saleh & Ryan, 1991), limited research has addressed the structure and antecedents of the concept of service quality (Wilkins et al., 2006a). In addition, there is considerable debate in the literature on how best to conceptualise service quality as this construct is intrinsically an elusive concept in the hotel industry (Akbaba, 2006). Though service quality has received more attention recently, few studies have focused on how to establish a reasonable framework of assessing service quality for hotels, specifically for five-star hotels (Hsieh et al., 2008; Carneiro & Costa, 2001).Several comparison standards have been introduced into the literature using different perspectives such as expectations, equity, experience-based-norms, and desires. However, their use often triggers conceptual and methodological problems in the evaluation of services, mainly because of vague conceptualization and misinterpretation.