It is extremely important for service personnel to have high ethical standards, be committed to the business, and be willing to serve customers well, as this can help their employer to gain a competitive advantage. This study adopted the Kano model and proposed a service ethics scale to explore service personnel's cognitive implications toward hotel service attributes and ethics. Based on a literature review and expert interviews, this study summarized 40 service ethics variables. A total of 438 responses from hotel service personnel were collected. Through factor analysis, seven dimensions (factors) of service ethic measurement were confirmed. The analytical results showed that hotel attributes within the “service attitude” and “room facilities” factors are evaluated as attractive and one‐dimensional qualities by the service personnel with high ethical standards. Such attributes should thus be a focus of hotels to increase the level of customer satisfaction. Finally, the limitations and managerial implications of this work, as well as directions for future research, are also provided. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.