The quality of quality awards: Diminishing information asymmetries in a hotel chain

Services suffer to a great extent from information asymmetries because their attributes are more difficult to grasp in advance. Within services, the tourism industry is an especially notable and interesting case. Akerlof [Akerlof, G. The market for 'lemons': Quality uncertainty and the market mechanism. Quarterly journal of Economics 1970; 84 (3): 488-500.] suggests the applicability of information asymmetries and counteracting institutions to hotel chains. To reduce these asymmetries different strategies have been proposed. Among them, quality certificates have become one of the most popular tools. However, two questions arise: one, are quality certificates effective tools to reduce information asymmetries in the tourism industry, with its inherent uncertainty? and two, are all types of existing quality certificates equally effective? Thus, the objectives of this study include analyzing the market value variation of a hotel chain due to quality certification, and to test the effect by type of award. The method builds from the event study technique and regression analysis. The results show that the stock market reacts positively to certificates, thus implying that quality certification can be a useful tool for reducing information asymmetry; however, this positive reaction is not equal for all kinds of certificates, the ISO 9000 shows the highest impact. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.