Measuring Customer Satisfaction in the Tourism Industry (A Case of San Diego Tourism Authority)

Measuring Customer Satisfaction in the Tourism Industry (A Case of San Diego Tourism Authority)

Question: If you were the President of the San Diego Tourism Authority, how would you go about evaluating satisfaction levels of tourists visiting the region? Which technique of satisfaction measurement would be the most adequate? Describe this technique? Why should international tourist complaints not always be used in assessing holiday satisfaction?

Customer satisfaction is regarded as an important concept and goal in all marketplaces. Generally, there is an underlying assumption that satisfied customers tend to develop a habit of repurchasing the services or products offered by an organization. As a result, these customers build loyalty to the service or product of a company. Like other industries and corporate firms, the level of satisfaction of tourists is measured based on their overall attitudes or feelings. Hui, Wan, and Ho (2007) note that the feelings or attitudes of a tourist towards the products and services offered by a tourism-based organization determine their level of satisfaction. Therefore, it is important as a president to ensure that the organization is aware of the expectation of tourists and how tourists measure their respective degrees of satisfaction.

Therefore, the failure of the authority in understanding how tourists assess their experience with the organization will more likely disadvantage the organization’s approach to measuring tourists’ expectations. Ordinarily, evaluating levels of tourists’ satisfaction purposes to help the organization come up with a strategy that can enhance the overall tourists’ experience. For this purpose, it is important to point out that satisfaction is a dependent variable, a concept that originates from the experience of a tourist, which might have matched, exceeded, or defaulted their expectations. As such, it is noteworthy to interrogate tourists to ascertain their expectations before their arrival (Foster, 1999). Doing so helps the organization to compare their findings from the questions with the real experience, to outline the gaps that need to be bridged.

In this study context, the organization’s representatives can be deployed to observe passengers booking their flights to San Diego. Even though this approach poses various challenges such as expenses and logistical issues, it is a relevant approach to measuring tourists’ expectations in this particular discussion. Therefore, the organization needs to develop SERVQUAL surveys and place them in the aircraft’s seat pockets. The SERVQUAL tool comprises of numerous dimensions that can help the organization to measure the perceptions of tourists on the expected services (Pawitra & Tan, 2003). The aircraft in this approach should be those that arrive from major departure airports in San Diego. As such, those trusts with the willingness to take part in the SERVQUAL survey will obtain admission booklets with San Diego-designed coupons. In this booklet, respondents or participant tourists will have an educational device that will inform about San Diego and the things that they can do or see while in their vacation. Upon taking the surveys, the organization will use their email addresses to reach them for a follow-up to allow the authority to understand how best they can meet their expectations based on their experiences.

Understandably, this technique is effective in evaluating levels of satisfaction. However, it is important to realize some of the limitations associated with this approach in determining tourists’ satisfaction levels. First, the responses or results tend to be more subjective due to beliefs and values of specific tourists, their experience with various personalities of the organization, as well as their perception of the value of the tourist services and products they obtain in exchange for money. Hence, even though the SERVQUAL technique offers a deeper understanding of the dissatisfaction or satisfaction of tourists, the method’s subjective nature makes it less sufficient in determining the level of tourists’ satisfaction.

However, from the authority’s viewpoint, the key areas of measuring levels of satisfaction of tourists would include physical components of the tourists’ vacation, where the agency has direct influence, for example, the business center and convention equipment. Additionally, the SERVQUAL survey would include the quality of the tangible equipment that constitutes the physical aspect of the tourists’ stay, including infrastructural elements such as signage and roads, dining venues, tourist attractions, as well as hotel facilities. Another important area in the SERVQUAL survey would include a section that is more subjective to incorporate the quality and standard of services they usually expect and certainly obtained. As opposed to the previous section, this section would generate a lot of information based on individualism because the section delves into more individual dimensions such as empathy, assurance, responsiveness, reliability, and tangibles.

Understandably, this section is of significant importance and benefit to the authority. Therefore, adequate spaces need to be provided in this section of the SERVQUAL survey to allow the participant tourists to make sufficient and detailed comments. Detailed comments would enable the organization to have a deeper understanding of the criteria and principles that tourists use to determine their experience. Also, the agency will understand whether tourists’ dissatisfaction or satisfaction is based on sensible grounds or expectations that are unrealistic or one substandard experience of a tourist that eventually spilled out. In this section, the respondents’ comments will allow the agency to identify other important aspects such as their countries of origin, which ultimately helps to determine the weight of every SERVQUAL survey. Take, for example, a case scenario where tourists from a common origin demonstrate a consistently low level of satisfaction, then it could be that their expectations were influenced by demographic variables such as their culture, values, and so forth. Hence, the organization can devise ways that can assist in improving the experience and expectations of that particular tourist segment. Similarly, the organization can set up ways to iron out potential cultural stereotypes or misperceptions to attain its tourist satisfaction level.

References

Foster, D. (1999). Measuring customer satisfaction in the tourism industry. The Quality Magazine, 8(5), 23-29.

Hui, T. K., Wan, D., & Ho, A. (2007). Tourists’ satisfaction, recommendation and revisiting Singapore. Tourism Management, 28(4), 965-975.

Pawitra, T. A., & Tan, K. C. (2003). Tourist satisfaction in Singapore–a perspective from Indonesian tourists. Managing Service Quality: An International Journal, 13(5), 399-411.