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E-Journal of Tourism Vol.4. No.1. (2017): 55-61 

http://ojs.unud.ac.id/index.php/eot  55  e-ISSN: 2407-392X.  p-ISSN: 2541-0857  

The Employees’ Quality of Services based on The Balinese Local Wisdoms  

at Non Star-rated Hotels in Bali  
 

I Nyoman Gede Astina, I Komang Gde Bendesa and  

Agung Suryawan Wiranatha 

 

Doctorate Program in Tourism, Universitas Udayana, Bali 

 

Corresponding author: secretary@stpbi.ac.id 

 

 

ARTICLE INFO 

 

 
Received  

5 December 2016  

Accepted   

28 March 2017 

Available online  

31 March 2017  

 

 

 

 

 

 

ABSTRACT 

 

Indonesia is classified as a country that is still promoting traditional culture in 

seeing service as a profession and business, including in Bali as part of 

Indonesian territory. Based on empirical studies about the cultural-based 

service quality, as well as the expectations of tourists to interact with the 

local knowledge has inspired a new idea to conduct a study on the quality of 

local wisdom-based services at the non-star hotels in Bali. The problems in 

this research are what factors that could explain the quality of services of 

employees based on the Balinese local wisdom at the non-star hotels in Bali. 

The result of the research showed that variables of local wisdom-based 

quality of service that play the most important roles are jemet (industrious), 

tresna (loving), asih (affectionate), and bakti (devotion) or the teaching of the 

Catur Sewaka which is part of the Sad Sewaka. These four factors are the 

positive characteristics of the Balinese which are applied in everyday life 

from generation to generation. 

 

Keywords: employees' quality of service and the Balinese local wisdom. 

 

Introduction 

 

Background 

 

Service is the main product in the 

tourism business which depicting the full 

effort to meet the needs and desires of 

tourists as the main customers in the 

tourism business. To that end, a company 

should be able to build relationships with 

its customers and conduct mutually 

beneficial cooperation with all parties 

involved in the relationship. A company 

that take a more relational strategies will 

turn its attention to build relationships with 

its customers rather than just focus on the 

sales transaction, so that the company can 

understand the needs and desires of 

customers in depth. A relationship that has 

been established with all customers as 

mutually beneficial partners may lead to a 

more complex relationship and grow into 

business networking. 

 

Employees have an extremely 

important role in the tourism business, 

especially in building relationships with 

customers. Marketing activities are 

focused on developing relationships 

through a wide range of services to the 

needs and desires of tourists. The more 

services that satisfy the needs and desires 

of tourists the better the service quality, 

and conversely the quality of services is 

considered to be dissatisfied when the 

services cannot meet the needs and desires 

of tourists.  

 

Providing excellent services in the 

field of tourism requires an understanding 



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of what will be looked for and evaluated 

by tourists. To achieve these objectives we 

need a model that can explain the quality 

of services perceived by the tourists, so the 

service providers can manage and serve 

the customers much better.  

 

Service is mostly an intangible 

product, as well as a subjective process of 

production and consumption that will be 

experienced simultaneously. In this case, 

the frequency of interaction between the 

customers and the service providers is very 

high, so that everything that happens in 

this interaction affects the quality that 

perceived by the customers. The nature of 

the services is related to the expressive 

dimensions, such as politeness, 

friendliness, honesty, and empathy which 

is highly dependent on the employees. 

Thus, the role of employees in service 

delivery is a crucial factor in determining 

the quality of services.  

 

Indonesia is classified as a country 

that is still promoting traditional culture in 

providing service as a profession and in 

business services (Testa and Mueller, 

2009), including Bali as part of Indonesia 

that rely on tourism business as a major 

driver of the regional economy. Compared 

with other tourism destinations in 

Indonesia, there are many places that are 

geographically much more beautiful than 

Bali, but the superiority of the 

characteristics of the Balinese as the 

human resources in the field of tourism 

can hardly be found anywhere else.  

 

At first the concept of development 

of tourism in Bali is a cultural tourism that 

is based on the philosophy of "Tri Hita 

Karana" which is recognized as one of the 

values of local wisdom. The philosophy of 

"Tri Hita Karana" is defined as the three 

causes of welfare, referring to the 

harmonious relationship between man and 

God, man and the natural world, and man 

with others who are related to one another 

(Peters and Wardana, 2013). Among the 

three values in the philosophy of Tri Hita 

Karana, the relation among human beings 

is a value that is related to providing 

service to tourists. The relations among 

human beings have been taught and 

evolved from generation to generation 

through the teachings of Hinduism and the 

Balinese culture, including Tri Kaya 

Parisuda, Tatwam Asi, Salunglung 

Sabayantaka, Paras Paros Sarpanaya, 

Bhineka Tunggal Ika, and Menyama Braya 

(Wisnumurti, 2010).  

 

During its development, the 

characteristics of the Balinese have 

degraded in the attitudes and behavior, 

where modernization and globalization 

have introduced a new value in the 

traditions of the Balinese (Triguna, 2011). 

The Balinese have to compete for 

economic needs so that the Balinese 

become competitive individuals with very 

different attitudes and behavior with the 

characteristics of humble, naive, patient, 

kind, and honest. Competition affects the 

Balinese perceptions about the values of 

local wisdom, like Tri Kaya Parisuda, 

Tatwam Asi, Salunglung Sabayantaka, 

Paras Paros Sarpanaya, Bhineka Tunggal 

Ika, and Menyama Braya that began to 

change even very rare to find, especially in 

urban areas (Triguna, 2011). These 

changes bear the impression that Bali is 

for tourism and not as originally planned: 

tourism is for Bali.  

 

Perceptions of the change in the 

characteristics of the Balinese are also felt 

by foreign tourists visiting Bali. In 

addition to a sense of comfort and 

uniqueness, tourists also find a bad 

experience in interacting with the 

Balinese. The dynamics in the quality of 

the services proposed by the experts was 

the reason for carrying out this research on 

the impact of service quality of employees 

based on the Balinese local wisdom at 

non-star hotels in Bali. The results of the 

study are expected to contribute in the 

development of hotel services in Bali so as 



E-Journal of Tourism Vol.4. No.1. (2017): 55-61 

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to create a sustainable tourism business, as 

well as to increase knowledge and 

reference for future research. 

 

The problem analyzed in the study 

was the factors that explain the quality of 

service of employees that based on the 

Balinese local wisdom at non-star hotels in 

Bali? The practical benefits of the research 

can be used as a reference in the 

development of human resources in the 

tourism sector, especially in the hospitality 

business. The success of tourism in Bali is 

inseparable from the role of the Balinese, 

who are able to create a harmonious 

relationship with tourists. The Balinese 

people as human resources play an 

important role in the creation of quality 

services to tourists. In the academic field, 

the results of this research will be useful as 

one of the sources of reference for science, 

especially the science of human resource 

management in tourism and tourism 

marketing management. In addition, the 

results of this study can also be used as a 

reference for future research related to the 

issues of quality of services.  

 

Research Objective 

 

Reseach was designed to examine 

factors that explain the quality of service 

of employees that based on the Balinese 

local wisdom at non-star hotels in Bali. 

 

 

Literature Review 

 

According to Grönroos (1984) and  (Gnoth 

et al. (2009) service has four basic 

characteristics, namely: (1) intangible, (2) 

a set of activities, (3) the process of 

production and consumption carried out 

simultaneously, and (4) the existence of 

consumer participation in the production 

process. According to Kotler and 

Armstrong (2003: 368), service has 

characteristics consisting of: (1) 

intangible, (2) inseparable, (3) changeable, 

and (4) not long lasting. Avkiran (1999); 

Chenet, Dagger, & O’Sullivan, (2010); 

Lovelock & Wirtz, (2011), service is a 

series of activities that have the following 

characteristics: (1) intangible, (2) 

perishable, (3) variability, (4) produced 

and consumed simultaneously 

(inseparable), and (5) the customers to 

actively participate in the production 

process.  It can be defined from the three 

notions that service has the characteristics 

of intangible, inseparable, changeable / 

variability, perishable, and customers to 

actively participate in the production 

process, as well as it lacks of ownership 

(Cronin Jr and Taylor, 1992; Curry and 

Sinclair, 2002). 

 

One of the local wisdoms that 

strongly influences the lives of the 

Balinese people is the Tri Hita Karana, 

which implies the three causes of welfare, 

referring to the harmonious relationship 

between man and God, man and the 

natural world, and man with others who 

are related to one another (Peters and 

Wardana, 2013).  

 

Concepts and Research Hypothesis  

 

The study will confirm the factors 

of quality of service of employees that 

adopted the local wisdom of Bali at the 

non-star hotels in Bali. In the concept of 

the study, the attention will be focused on 

the services performed by the Balinese 

employees of non-star hotels in Bali to 

meet the expectations of foreign tourists as 

the hotel guests (customers). In the fierce 

competition among destinations, each 

destination must have a uniqueness that 

can be an attraction for tourists, especially 

the foreign tourists. One of the uniqueness 

is the local wisdom that is preserved from 

generation to generation. The result of 

focus group discussions of academics and 

practitioners identified the superior 

characteristics of the Balinese: polos 

(modest), cucud (meticulous), jemet 

(industrious), tresna (loving), asih 

(affectionate), and bakti (devotion). These 



E-Journal of Tourism Vol.4. No.1. (2017): 55-61 

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six attitudes of the employees in the 

concept of quality of service that based on 

the local wisdom are formulated into the 

concept of Sad Sewaka. Sad means six and 

Sewaka means services (Astra, et al., 

1986: 530). 

 

The local wisdom is believed to be the 

superiority of the Balinese in serving the 

foreign tourists hardly found in other 

tourist destinations in Indonesia. There are 

many tourist destinations in Indonesia that 

are geographically superior to Bali, but the 

characteristics of the Balinese people are 

believed to be the superior factors that get 

the attention of foreign tourists. 

 

Methodology 

 

This study uses a research design 

of confirmatory factor analysis. The data 

collected were cross-sectional; the 

research activities were carried out in a 

given period. Locations of the research 

were done at hotels in the Bali Province. 

The hotels selected as the location of the 

research are the non-star hotels scattered in 

the Province of Bali. The populations in 

this study were foreign tourists stayed in 

non-star hotels in Bali with the criteria that 

have been specified above. The 

populations were mobile, so they could not 

be quantified in real count. 

 

Results and Discussion 

 

 The study consisted of validity and 

reliability tests, using SPSS version 21. 

The results of the focus group discussion 

formulated the positive characteristics of 

the Balinese that reflect the quality of 

service of the Balinese employees namely, 

polos (modest), cucud (meticulous), jemet 

(industrious), tresna (loving), asih 

(affectionate), and bakti (devotion). Those 

six characteristics were used as the basis to 

reflect the quality of service of employees 

that based on the local wisdom of Bali at 

the non-star hotels in Bali. Based on the 

results of the factor analysis, it can be 

confirmed that the four factors that 

consistently able to explain the variables 

of the quality of service of employees that 

based on the local wisdom of Bali, namely 

jemet (industrious), tresna (loving), asih 

(affectionate), and bakti (devotion) or 

better known as the Catur Sewaka. Factors 

of polos and cucud could not show the 

reliability of the construct in accordance 

with the acceptability requirements in the 

factor analysis. Thus, the factors are those 

hotel employees who have the qualities of 

jemet (industrious), tresna (loving), asih 

(affectionate), and bakti (devotion).  

 

Factor of jemet or industrious is the 

services of the hotel employees who are 

willing to work quickly by creativity and 

confidence. The perception of tourists of 

the hard-working hotel employees: always 

cheerful in every interaction with tourists, 

happy to serve tourists, diligent workers, 

and enthusiastic that resolve every demand 

of tourists, and fast enough to work. These 

characters are needed by tourists so that 

the factor analysis confirmed that jemet or 

industrious character as a factor in the 

quality of service of employees that based 

on the local wisdom of Bali. 

 

Tresna or love factor is defined as 

the services of the hotel employees that 

were respectful of others. Balinese 

people's behavior in respect for others led 

to Bali is famous for its hospitality. The 

qualities of tresna includes: friendly, 

always smiling brightly as the hallmark of 

Bali, polite, respect the conditions of the 

guests, and employees who are not too 

busy in serving guests. This character is 

needed by tourists, so the factor analysis 

confirmed tresna character as a factor in 

the quality of service of employees based 

on local wisdom of Bali. 

 

Factor of asih or affectionate is 

defined as a hotel employee service by 

affection. Affection is reflected in the 

behavior of the hotel employees who 

provide a touch of compassion for all 



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beings in the world. Yadnya or sacred 

ceremony held in people's daily life in Bali 

is not only addressed to God and man, but 

the Balinese also perform yadnya or 

sacrifices for animals and plants. This 

behavior reflects that the Balinese have 

qualities of high affection.  

 

Factor of bhakti is an attitude of 

humble hotel employees accompanied by 

measures to convince tourists. Perception 

of tourists of the hotel employee that the 

employee is bhakti or being humble in 

serving tourists, showing no doubt in 

interacting by tourists, employees act 

decisively in serving tourists, and 

employees showed caution over action.  

 

The practical implication that can 

be used by practitioners of hospitality 

business is the development of human 

resources of hospitality can be directed to 

the four factors of quality of service of 

employees that based on the local wisdom 

of Bali, namely: jemet, tresna, asih, and 

bakti that has been proven to meet the 

expectations of tourists and encourage the 

intention of tourists to be faithful to the 

hotels. These factors constitute the 

character of the Balinese who become 

employees of non-star hotels in Balinese, 

so the hotel, can apply it easily in the 

development of human resources. These 

characters are not easily found on other 

employees who are not Balinese, because 

they do not know such Balinese local 

wisdom in their daily lives.  

 

The research results provide 

practical implications for practitioners of 

non-star hotels in competing in the global 

era. Having the competition head to head 

with five-star hotels that obiously have a 

better technological and financial supports 

will not lead to satisfactory results. Non-

star hotels in Bali can apply blue ocean 

strategy by relying on the role of 

employees in providing  unique services 

based on the local wisdom of Bali. 

Services that apply the principles of the 

Balinese characteristics could lead to a 

positive response of foreign tourists to 

interact with the hotel employees, so they 

prefer the non-star hotels rather than five-

star hotels, they feel their mood better 

when they stay in non-star hotels, and they 

love non-star hotel and their services. The 

interactions of the hotel employees who 

give special attention to foreign tourists, 

excellent hotel employees’ attitudes and 

behaviors, efficient services of employees, 

as well as proiding services beyond the 

expectations of foreign tourists are very 

important in realizing better emotion, 

mood, and the positive attitude of foreign 

tourists. Consequently, these attitudes may 

generate the customers’satisfaction on the 

services of non-star hotels in Bali.  

 

Contributions of employees in 

providing services may include a 

presentable appearance of the employees, 

a willingness to apologize for any mistakes 

made, courtesy of employees, special 

attention given to guests, and providing 

services that satisfy the needs of the 

guests, and knowledgeable so that they can 

make the guests feel comfortable, the 

ability to provide information related to 

the hotel, knowledge in hotel equipments, 

and knowledge about the prices on hotel 

services. In this case, the satisfaction of 

hotel guests on the services should be 

more emphasis on the emotional aspect in 

the evaluation of perceived services. The 

foreign tourists believe that the services of 

hotel employees of non-star hotels in Bali 

may lead to a positive feeling. 

 

The uniqueness of this study is the 

satisfaction of foreign tourists on the 

services of non-star hotel employees that 

based on the Balinese local wisdom which 

significantly effect on the behavioral 

intentions. This research has not been done 

before and these findings can be used as a 

reference by practicing hospitality and 

other service companies to create 

customers’ satisfaction for sustainable 

businesses. Hotels must understand what 



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the needs of their guests, even at a higher 

level, they must understand what the 

guests want, and how to meet those needs 

and wants in order to create satisfaction 

and positive behavioral intentions of the 

guests. 

 

Conclusions and Recommendation 

 

Quality of service is not always 

based on financial capital and 

technological factors commonly made by 

hotels. This study found that the Balinese 

local wisdom can be the determining 

factor in creating a good quality of service 

in the non-star hotels in Bali. 

Characteristics of jemet (industrious), 

tresna (loving), asih (affectionate), and 

bakti (devotion) or Catur Sewaka found in 

the attitude and behavior of the Balinese 

hotel employees has very well perceived 

by tourists in meeting their needs and 

wants as hotel guests. This will lead to 

customers’ satisfaction that they can be 

loyal customers or guests. These findings 

should be used by practitioners of the 

hospitality business, particularly the small 

non-star hotels to serve tourists who stay 

in their hotels so that it can maintain the 

existing guests to be repeated guests.  

 

Satisfaction has been found to 

mediate the relationship between the 

quality of serices that based on the 

Balinese local wisdom and the behavioral 

intentions of the tourists at the small non-

star hotels in Bali. Satisfaction of tourists 

is concerned with the expectations of 

tourists, so that the hospitality practitioners 

should pay more attention on the 

expectation or interest of tourists in 

managing the local wisdom of Bali on the 

hotel services. Not all local wisdom of 

Bali that are considered favorable by the 

Balinese may satisfy the the tourists to be 

loyal to the non-star hotels in Bali. Thus, 

the hospitality practitioners should 

consider the needs and wants of the 

tourists in deciding policy to utilize local 

wisdom of Bali on their services. 

It can be recommended to 

academics that the research has found the 

Balinese local wisdom can be a dimension 

of service quality and contribute to the 

development of knowledge, particularly in 

providing services. These findings should 

be used by academics in carrying out 

research in the field of services by 

reference to the factors of service quality 

that based on the local wisdom of Bali. 

Thus, the future research may add insight 

into the quality of service that has so far 

been more emphasized on the servqual 

models. Other suggestion is that the model 

built in this study is not limited to the 

quality of service of employees at small 

non-star hotels in Bali. In the future 

research, it should be studied the quality of 

service that based on the local wisdom of 

Bali which is applied to other areas of the 

tourism services, such as star hotels, 

restaurants, spas, bars, travel agencies, and 

others that provide services. In the broader 

scope of this research, it can be suggested 

for service business outside the tourism 

sector, such as banks, hospitals, 

transportation, and education. The more 

widespread the adoption of services which 

based on the local wisdom of Bali, the 

greater the Balinese cultural maintenance. 

 

 

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differentiation in business 

relationships’, Journal of Services 

Marketing. Emerald Group 

Publishing Limited, 24(5), pp. 

336–346. 

 

 



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