Microeconomies Asia – service quality management (SQM) in Thailand

Abstract

This paper is part of a series on the Microeconomies of Asia that reveals the idiosyncrasies and strange twists of the products and services that are being sold. These goods and services arise out of a desperate need to earn a living by the bootstraps of a village, county, or province. In this presentation, we reveal why the Service Quality Management (SQM) in Thailand is poor. There are many reasons for this pathetic situation. The reasons include (1) lack of training; (2) profit-motivated and greedy owners; (3) Royal Thai Police (RTP) corruption causing high overheads; (4) rent-seeking Royal Thai Armed Forces (RTAF) generals; (5) immoral monks within the larger moral community of the Buddhist Sangha; (6) low wages resulting in unmotivated workers in most industries; and (7) poor communication skills on the part of the farang tourists as well as the local service providers. This paper makes use of a non-participant survey of farang tourists in three major cities to record their perception of SQM between 2021 and 2023. The three cities are Phuket, Bangkok, and Hua Hin.