過去對服務失誤之研究，大多從顧客角度研究且集中在百貨零售業、餐飲服務業、航空業探討，對於旅館事業之服務失誤，則少有觸及。基於國際觀光旅館的特殊屬性，服務失誤通常是顧客主觀的判定，若服務失誤單以定量方式研究，所得之結果較缺乏深層意義；且服務失誤可能發生在顧客與員工的任何一個服務接觸時點，僅以顧客角度探討，忽略員工的觀點，結論將無法完整呈現出影響服務失誤之因素，且客觀性不足。故本研究首先回顧服務接觸及其相關理念，與服務失誤本身之意涵；以定性研究之關鍵事件法，蒐集國際觀光旅館第一線服務人員對服務失誤之觀點及案例，綜合歸納出服務失誤之因素，藉由專家意見之調查，建立整體因素層級架構，運用分析層級程序法，評定各因素問的相對權重，以確認其爲服務失誤關鍵因素。

Past Studies on service failure were mostly from the customer's perspective and concentrated on general "enterprises"; but seldom, were any studies done on service failure with different industry nature. Based on the special nature of international tourist hotel where service failure is usually a subjective judgment by customers, if one only studies quantitatively results lack deep meaning. Furthermore, service failure may happen at any service encounter point between customers and staff. If only discussed from the customer's perspective, but neglecting staff, the conclusions reached cannot completely show factors that have influence on service failure with sufficient objectivity. This study plans to use "critical incidents technique", (C.I.T.) of qualitative research, for example, at international tourist hotels collecting viewpoints and cases about service failure by the frontline service staff, aided with in-depth interviews of experts to analyze and to discover key factors and independency among each factor's structure and further establish complete factors hierarchy structure. An Experts questionnaire about key factors that affect service lapse in international tourist hotels was designed, and the weight of each factor was calculated by an analytic hierarchy process (AHP), to discover these key factors.