The results show that the hotels that develop higher levels of internalization achieve
more benefits and employ QM tools in a more advanced way, and that internal motives
lead to a greater internalization of the Q Certificate in hotels. These results support
previous findings by other authors on the ISO 9001 standard in other sectors and
highlight the importance of internal motivation for an increased commitment to the
QM system. When internal motives are more important, managers use the quality
documents in their day-to-day work and the requirements of the Q Certificate become
part of hotel routines, that is, they internalize the requirements of the Q Certificate
to a greater extent. Consequently, the managers develop quality practices and tools
more fully and this, in turn, may lead to increased benefits. Those hotels with a higher
degree of internalization will achieve better internal and external benefits