EXPERIENTIAL TOURISM PRODUCTS ANALYSIS.

EXPERIENTIAL TOURISM PRODUCTS ANALYSIS.

Experiential tourism is where people create meaning by directly experiencing the situation. It is a global movement in achieving the experiential learning process. Tourism nowadays is one of enriching and involving experience. Tourism products have been made in a way that offers valuable experience, and it is unforgettable. Firms must, therefore, offer a physical environment that can favor opportunities to customers in a more unique and subjective experience. They should take account of every customer’s view and put into account their reactions.

Tourists nowadays want to experience tourism differently from the past. They want to grasp every aspect of their destinations, and they want to link the history with who have been there before, the tradition of the land and the culture of the people who stays in those tourist attraction sites. They also want to compare from the past the change of environmental conditions, if there have been any natural changes in the natural resources and if there has been a migration of wild animals who use to be in that place.

Most of these tourists avoid mass holidays and tourism packages. There are innovative products that help them search for unusual situations in the area of high involvement and search for strong emotions. This search helps them in their desire to return to ancient activities and to rediscover scents and tests. With the help of technology and modular supply patterns, it is possible to offer holidays and the newly invented tourism products.

Tourism products are the services that are offered in the market that meets for motivational travels of the tourist. Tourism products are classified into two types is namely experiential products and basic products.

Experiential products are the products that create experiences that make visitors in memorable activities, and it generates feelings and perceptions on an intellectual level, sensorial, emotional, and physical. This kind of experience is classified as recreational experience or tourist experience.

Tourist attraction sites are the destinations that meet the satisfaction of motivational travels by tourists. This does not mean all the products meet the description of tourist attractions. The tourist experience is the feeling or the perception that the visitor has during the interaction with the tourism product.

There are six components, which include sensorial, physical, educational, social, spiritual, and emotional. Physical components include physical activities that are taking place. Educational components are the components that are meant for learning in general knowledge and intellectual stimulation. Sensorial components are meant for enjoyment through wellness, food, aromas, and landscapes. Emotional components are the ones that deal with emotional feelings and empathy—the feeling of feeling for one another. Emotional products can give tourists joy. They can be happy, arousal, fear even aversion. There is also spiritual components, which depends on the thoughts and observation of the tourist. It can also include religious beliefs. Social components are generally meant for the enjoyment of the culture in the sites and the relationship between the people in the tourist attraction sites with other cultures around there. Tourism experience can be determined by physical parts, emotional parts, and intellectual parts.

Distribution and communication of tourism products are done through the commercialization of tourism products. They are normally made by the tourism intermediaries, which include agents and tour operators. The same products can be sold in different forms.

Different forms of commercialization of tourism vary depending on the degree of contact between the tourist service provider and the consumer. There is direct commercialization, which involves the consumer buying the tourism product to the provider. Indirect commercialization is a situation where the consumer buys the product from the intermediary and not directly from the provider.

Standard product is typical tour packages and is among the indirect commercialization. They are organized for a specifically large group of tourists. They are fully arranged before the start of the trip, and those plans cannot be changed. They contain no customization.

Customized products are a form of indirect commercialization and fully customized. There are tour packages that are designed to fit the customer’s specific needs. They are organized for small groups, their departure date is unique, and the agreement is made between the customer and the travel agency.

A la carte product also is a form of indirect commercialization without customization. It is a single tourism product designed for long journeys and is earlier booked, and an extension can be done during the trip. The booking can be made through a website, a phone call, or through email addresses sent to the agent. The service can be bought at the counter of the hotel. Independent products are the direct commercialization and booking can be done on the website, through a phone or emails before the trip or at the destination of the trip. They are bought directly from the service provider.

In this report, I chose this website for my discussion (https://www.chernobyl-tour.com/english/). This website meets the conditions stated for the report, and it is a privately owned company. The company was founded in 2008 by the name Chornobyl tours. It unites companies and self-employed professionals that are well proficient in the fields of Chornobyl accident, ecology, and tourism sector. Their project goal is to pass and educate the society because of the Chornobyl accident; it organizes lectures and pieces of training for both novices and professionals right on the spot of the accident. They teach radiation and survival skills in a condition of anthropogenic catastrophes that have occurred. They are licensed to operate by the national government of Greek under the ministry of Economic Development and Trade. They provide quality and professional services to their clients. They are attentive to their clients and are easy to have easy information presentation.

They have market segmentation where they identify potential customers in the market and puts them in different groups depending on their needs and those that share common interests. This enables the company to target different types of customers who want different types of products and services. They have special features that help them in achieving those goals. Reaction enables them to respond to product features and manage to advertise them on the website—the different distinct features from other segments. Homogeneity helps them in separating common needs in the segment and similarities.

They have segmented the consumers into five categories. Geographic segmentation is the one that is based on the place where the consumer resides, either by region, country, or continent. Demographic segmentation is based on age variables, the gender of the customer, and the family size. Socioeconomics is a segmentation that tries to describe the income level of the customer and their level of education. Psychographic segmentation helps in dividing the market groups in terms of their attitudes, opinions, or their opinions—this entirely the lifestyle of the customer and the characteristics that the customer portrays. The types of things a person purchases it will reflect the kind of person he is and the personality of that individual. It has a motivational segment that is driven by the purpose of the trip. With the help of this segmentation, the customer can be classified into leisure trips or holidays, business trips, or other travel purposes such as health or sport.

In their website, they have a section for customer profiling where the customers fitting characteristics are filled. It gives the attributes to the customer for identifying each market segmentation, and there is no way a segment can contain the same profile segments.

Experiential tourism products should contain five components, which include physical space, service provided, hospitability grounds, freedom of choice, and customer involvement.  This is according to Smith’s model (1994).

Physical space is where tourist visits occur. They are the tangible elements of tourism products. Like for example, the Visiting Chernobyl, the nuclear power plant project, which became the world’s worst radio-ecological disaster in 1986. This place is not permitted unless a tour guide is guiding you. It is a full day trip offered by the Kiev. A hassle-free excursion and the essential commentary needed to understand the site and its catastrophic event. Explore the Chernobyl exclusion zone, and visit abandoned nearby towns, including Pripyat.

Services that are provided to the tourists and are supposed to meet their needs. They require technical competence and are intangible. Some materials are necessary to provide the service. There should be cleanliness that is observed in those areas, and the sale ticketing, which is done in the booking of the touring are among the services provided by this tour company.

Hospitality is the style and attitude, which is provided with the service. This is transmitted by warm reception to the customers at the waiting bay or at the reception. The receptionist should be welcoming and customer friendly. They should be smiley to the customers. At the waiting bay, you are served with your favorite refreshments.

There is also freedom of choice where you got options for what satisfies your needs. They provide tourism products that are if high optionality hence attracts more customers. There is a wider range of options, which satisfies the customer. There various types of tourism options that one can visit. They also got shops where you can have anything comfortable with you for your entire tour.

They involve their customers in every step they take. There is the physical and emotional involvement of customers. The customers are allowed to access the activities going on and are allowed to capture their imagination as they ask several questions. With this, they get unforceful memories and a unique sensation.

Tourism product typologies are products that do not involve accommodation. Experiential tourism products are those products that create experiences that engage visitors in more activities that are unforgettable.

The method Du cross is used in assessing the tourist potentials in their experience with the tourism products. Hillary Du proposed it in 2001. This model assesses the tourist potential of tourism products and its market appeal, and it is robust. This model can be applied to nature-based tourism products. Du analyses the two fundamentals variables that assess the potential of tourism products.

The market appeal is the ability of the tourism product to attract the tourists and how it can satisfy the customer that has purchased the product. When the product is attractive and satisfies, the customer needs when you will receive more customers and more recommendations about the same. Market appeal depends on the services and facilities it provides and the level at which it satisfies the customer needs.

The level of customer satisfaction can be conducted through surveys such as the questionnaire where the customer is given a form of questions where they give their honest opinions. Their opinions are entirely based on their experience with tourism products. They use a Likert chart in conducting the questionnaire, which has scale 1 to 5. Where one means very unsatisfied, and five means the customer found the service as favorable. 5 is the highest valuation of positivity. In scale 1 to 5, the following integers mean the following: 1 means they strongly disagree with the service, two somewhat disagree, three means they neither agree or disagree,4 means they somewhat agree five means they agree.

The services and facilities provided and that is associated with the product is the survey that can be conducted among the tourists after visiting the product. They give their opinion and their perception of the product or the service they have been provided with. They are also analyzed using the Likert scale where the facilities and the services are calculated based on the average of the individual item score product

Robusticity is the measure of how fragile the tourism resource is when associated with the tourism product. It also analyses the space in which the experience takes place. It is also checked on how it can accommodate different types of customers. They take in two dimensions, which include cultural integrity and the impact on the product and its environment.

On the impact of the product and the environment, we try to compare the current physical state of the tourism product and the negative effects that might attract both the product and the environment. The experts that are related to the subject of audit perform this. They are analyzed using the Likert scaling. Main items that are looked at include erosion, effects of both flora and fauna, physical fragility of the product, quality of air, and the environment.

Cultural integrity is the potential negative impact of the tourism product on the locals that are living there and the community at large. The experts also do this. They try to see whether the product harms the lifestyle of the people and their cultural traditions due to visitation. They try to analyze the type of tolerance and the degree of acceptance the tourist receives from the locals.

The robusticity index is used in the calculation of the impact of the product in the environment and the cultural integrity, which is the arithmetic mean. From the results of the market appeal, we have the products that have high attractiveness and are called optimal products for tourism. Outstanding products are products that have great market appeal and perfectly fit the tourism activity. When the firm has this, they only focus on maintaining that level of attractiveness. Notable products are products with great attractiveness. In this level, the management focuses on improving its attractiveness.

To sell my products and to meet customer satisfaction as a manager, I will work on the following. Put video advertisements on the website that will show some of the scenes that are found in the tourist site. This will ensure that when someone visits the website, they get to know the products we are dealing with. Besides, it will give them a desire to visit the site. I will also put directions that are google-map enabled for easy navigation of the customers. This will give them what they need to know and what they have to plan in the form of transport and accommodation.

There are noticeable things on the website that I liked. The fact that you can book online is one thing that makes it attractive .this means you can book in the comfort of your home. It also has the map navigation where you can check on directions. What I would like the website to be improved is to add more google maps navigations to be added and the video adverts.