RESUMEN
The purposes of this study was to investigate importance and performance for coffee quality attributes in Korean and Chinese university students by 3 types of coffee; coffee in coffee houses, coffee in vending machines and canned/bottled coffee. Survey was done for 360 students in Daejeon with developed questionnaires including general information, favorite type of coffee and 15 quality attributes of coffee. Finally, data from 168 Korean and 126 Chinese university students was used for statistical analysis by SPSS 18.0 package program. Results of this study were as follows: for favorite type of coffee, the rates of coffee in coffee houses, coffee in vending machines and canned/bottled coffee were 43.0% 34.8% and 22.2% in Korean students and 8.7%, 78.0%, and 12.2% in Chinese students, respectively. Comparing Chinese students and Korean students showed higher importance for several quality attributes of coffee in coffee house (p < 0.05), but lower importance for most quality-attributes of coffee in vending machine (p < 0.05) and canned/bottled coffee (p < 0.05). According to importance and performance analysis, strategies for increasing satisfaction were to improve 'price' of canned/bottled coffee in Korean students, and 'taste', 'volume', 'concentration' and 'variety' of canned/bottled coffee and 'freshness' of coffee in vending machine in Chinese students. These results suggested that differentiated marketing plans between Korean and Chinese university students should be needed in coffee industry.