'Examining Customer-Relating Capability of Front-Line Levels in the Tourism and Hospitality Sector.'

This proposal concentrates on the major competitive challenges faced by the tourism and hospitality sector through a focus on the achievement of key organizational capabilities that will lead to competitive advantage for this sector’s firms; specifically, how a customer-relating capability (CRC) can be realized. This capability centralizes the interpersonal interaction between employees and customers. Despite the positive association between customer-relating capabilities and competitive advantage (Harmsen and Jensen, 2004) and the numerous calls for more research, empirical examination of the phenomenon has been limited in scope and represents an emergent field of study. Indeed, the Irish tourism industry has suffered a significant loss in competitiveness from a relative lack of attention from academics in the critical area of relationship capability development (Fáilte Ireland Human Resource Development Strategy, 2005-2010). The overarching objective of this work is to gain substantial insights into the CRC of front-line staff in the tourism and hospitality sector. It is intended that a combined qualitative and quantitative methodology will be utilized in order to investigate the dynamic nature of customer-relating capabilities and to examine the current state of the attitudes and competences of customer-interfacing employees and their interconnectedness. It is also expected that this project will establish a basis for informing national tourism policy on the development of the customer-relating capability of front-line employees.