Introduction:
Wagen(1996) notes that housekeeping is one of the departments within the rooms division of a
hotel that maintains the public areas and the guest rooms. A hotel is defined by Medlik(1994) as
an establishment providing for reward accommodation, food and drink for travelers and
temporary residents and usually also meals and refreshments and sometimes other facilities for
other users. Jones (1998) notes that customers are only concerned that the service is of the
standard that they expect. Guests expect the quality of service, which is in conformance to
customer specifications, service that is in line with the promise to perform set by the hotel
organization in all its marketing efforts. Hogan (1994) asserts that service quality is a measure of
how well the organization service level matches customer expectations. Johns (1995) notes that it
is how the customer perceives the hotel service provider that determines whether the level of
service you provide is acceptable. Wagen (1991) describes perception as a person‟s way of
looking at the world. This means one guest‟s perception may lead to negative word that has
remarkable contribution to reduction of hotel or lodge occupancy rate. Housekeeping department
is an important department in the rooms division of a hotel. The researcher sought to carry out a
study on service delivery in the housekeeping department of the rooms division, because it is an
area which has not been researched on in Zimbabwe. Most researches done by Zimbabwe
Tourism Authority on hotels, as revealed through the documentary study, focused mainly on
room occupancy, bed occupancy and tourist visits in Zimbabwe as a tourist destination.