Tourism Visitor Experience Not an Add-on

Regardless of the rhetoric around the importance of a visitor focused tourism culture most businesses see a visitor experience strategy as a nice to have rather than a vital part of a successful business plan.

Businesses especially those in tourism industries will struggle in 2013 unless they get to grips with the fact that just meeting visitors expectations is no longer enough to foster growth and profitability both as a individual business and an industry according to Chris Bell Managing Director of Customer Experiences a company that specialises in the development of quality customer experiences.

Bell said that businesses must realise that in today’s highly competitive tourism market the visitor has all the power due to the share amount of choice available. This is resulting in higher expectations and less tolerance of poor service and experience performances.

A customer experience development plan is just as important as a financial plan, a marketing plan and a sales plan in fact because it impacts all areas of a business, is more important. The reason visitors are not having more quality customer experiences is the ad- hock approach to service experiences development.

Inconsistent experiences during a visit to a country does not foster high volumes of visitor recommendation, today’s most powerful form of advertising

We are seeing an increasing focus on customer experience from banks, some of our larger retailers and from some in the hospitality industry but there is still along way to go said Bell.

Part of the reason for the slow progress in this area is the lack of knowledge and expertise and the complacency that comes from an operational focus. The result is businesses think they are delivering a better visitor experience than visitors think they are.

A recent international survey found that 70 percent of online consumers trusted the opinion of other customers online. This is extremely relevant to the tourism industry when prospective visitors are evaluating their many options.

Service is the new sales. Service is the new marketing. The service experience is how business will differentiate in the market. Service is how the next sale will be made.

To make it easier for businesses to develop their customer experience Bell has just released a unique, affordable and fully supported online customer experience development program www.customerexperiences.co.nz

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Customer Experiences is an organisation specialising in the developing of high quality customer experiences. For further information – contact Chris Bell Managing Director Customer Experiences Ltd email chris@customerexperiences.co.nz www.customerexperiences.co.nz               mb 027 2792360