On-campus accommodation service quality: the mediating role of students’ satisfaction on word of mouth

Based on the main studies presented in the literature, this work aims to examine the level of student satisfaction towards the on-campus accommodation service provided by an Italian university. Notably, the objectives of the study are twofold: (1) to examine the mediating role of student satisfaction on the relationship between university on-campus accommodation service quality and word-of-mouth and (2) to determine whether there is any significant difference in students’ satisfaction towards on-campus accommodation in terms of gender and the halls of residence. The study is based on the results of a survey carried out through an online questionnaire by 381 students living on campus at the University of Urbino. The findings revealed that the quality perceived by university students in relation to individual services had a positive impact on their general satisfaction towards the halls of residence experience. The study presents some limitations such as lack of temporal comparisons, a focus on specific service quality items and the fact that it refers to a single Italian university. The findings of this study will help the management of public universities to improve the quality of services in their halls of residence for the satisfaction of their students. To the authors’ knowledge, there have been no previous studies about on-campus accommodation service quality conducted in Italy. The study contributes to enrich the service quality literature confirming both that the sum of the quality of individual elements is not as the overall satisfaction and the outcome intention of positive WOM depends not only on service quality attributes, but also from an overall evaluation of satisfaction.