ABSTRACT
As the world economy continues to grow, the proportions and interrelations among its basic sectors – agriculture, industry and services – are also changing (World Bank 2009). The service sector has grown in importance in the world economy and has outweighed the agriculture and industry sectors in middle-income and high-income countries (Figure 12.1). The service industry comprises businesses whose principal activity is to provide service products (Jones 2013). The service industry produces ‘intangible’ goods rather than products. Service itself has three unique characteristics distinguishing it from goods, including intangibility (e.g. Bateson 1977; Lovelock 1981) heterogeneity (Booms and Bitner 1981) and inseparability (Carmen and Langeard 1980) of production and consumption. Intangibility refers to services having no specific shape or weight (Bateson 1977). Heterogeneity refers to service lacking consistency because the service experience is greatly influenced by the service skills and attitude of service providers as well as the interaction between service providers and receivers (Booms and Bitner 1981). Inseparability refers to the simultaneous production and consumption process. Therefore the quality of a service experience is influenced by both service providers and customers (Carmen and Langeard 1980).
