Tools for measuring customer satisfaction in travel & Tourism

1. TOOLS FOR MEASURING
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION IN
TRAVEL & TOURISM
ABHILASH K A

2. INRODUCTION
■ The tourism industry consists of a number of different sectors
including the travel, hospitality and visitor services sector.
Within each of these sectors there are a number of individual
enterprises that provide a range of services to people who are
travelling away from their home environment.
■ During the past few decades, customer satisfaction and service
quality have become a major area of attention. The concepts
have strong impact on business performance and customer
behaviour, service quality leads to higher profitability and
customer satisfaction.

3. CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
■ Customer satisfaction is typically defined as a post
consumption evaluative judgement concerning a specific
product or service. It is the result of an evaluative process that
contrasts pre purchase expectations with perceptions of
performance during and after consumption experience.
■ The most widely accepted conceptualization of the customer
satisfaction concept is the expectancy disconfirmation theory.
The theory was developed by oliver who proposed that
satisfaction level is a result of the difference between expected
and perceived performance.

4. SERVICE QUALITY
■ Service quality is a complex, elusive, subjective and abstract concept. It
means different things to different people. The most common definition of
service quality is the comparison customers make between their
expectation and perceptions of the received service.
■ SERVQUAL scale which became the most popular instrument for
measuring service quality, reliability, tangibles, responsiveness, assurance
and empathy. The SERVQUAL SCALE consists of 22 items for assessing
customer perceptions and expectations regarding the quality of service.
The results are used to identify positive and negative gaps.
■ The gap is measured by the difference between perceptions and
expectations scores and indicates the level of service quality.
■ According to this instrument service quality occurs when perceived service
meets or exceeds customer expectations.

5. QUALITY ASSESSMENT METHODS
■ By measuring customer satisfaction tourism businesses and firms in related
sectors will be in a better position to understand how their service delivery
performance is perceived by customers and identify the areas that need
improvement.
■ Quantitative methods are better suited for summary assesments of experience
or establishing benchmarks. Qualitative and participatory techniques are more
suitable for developing a thorough understanding of the perspectives and
expectations and may promote dialogue with and between users of the service.
■ Organizations may be more familiar with quantitative method such as surveys
which emphasize that samples of service users must be statistically
representative . Qualitative methods provide a form of information also valid ,
but different regarding the opinion of services users and it can provide rich and
useful data that can clarify the levels of satisfaction and dissatisfaction.

6. ■ Qualitative methods are particularly useful to obtain views of groups of clients
that can be a small numbers in the population but whose views are important to
adapt services to meet their specific needs. It may be appropriate to use a
mixture of methods to provide information that is both broad and deep.

7. CASE STUDY: MEASURING
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION IN THE
TOURISM INDUSTRY
AUSTRALIA
■ The survey focused on the following organizations:
■ The academic departments of Australian universities
■ State and common wealth tourist offices
■ State and common wealth parks agencies
■ Non Government tourist industry organizations and associations

8. BUREAU OF TOURISM RESEARCH
■ The Bureau of Tourism research has looked at this topic at various
stages over the last decade and, in some years, included
questions about satisfaction in its International Visitor Survey
(IVS). In 1990, respondents were asked what they ‘enjoyed most’
and ‘disliked most’ about each state. This question was not
repeated in later years. In 1994 and 1995 respondents were asked
to provide information about their satisfaction with certain services
such as the availability of foreign language signs, interpreters,
facilities for the handicapped and road and street signs. This was
discontinued in subsequent collections.

9. COMMONWEALTH TOURISM
AGENCIES■ The Australian Tourism Commission has completed a number of
satisfaction studies for various source countries such as Malaysia,
Japan, Korea, United Kingdom, etc. Visitors are interviewed at
their point of departure to determine what their impressions are of
Australia as a holiday destination. They seek responses on what
their expectations were before arrival, whether these were met,
and whether they would return or recommend Australia as a tourist
destination. The survey goes into considerable detail about
respondents’ satisfaction with elements of their trip such as
standards of hotels, service standards in restaurants, on domestic
airlines, etc, shopping opportunities, friendliness of the Australian
people, and so on.

10. STATE TOURISM OFFICES
■ Only a few state tourism offices have undertaken research into customer
satisfaction or related issues. Most declare interest in the question but have
concentrated primarily on market research and/or descriptive surveys.
■ Tourism Western Australia have completed a study of what their own clients
think of the service they received. This is akin to enterprise-level customer
feedback surveys. The Northern Territory Tourism Commission has completed a
survey of customer satisfaction amongst users of caravan parks (Northern
Territory Tourist Commission, 1994). This was undertaken in response to media
criticism of the quality of caravan parks in the Territory. Approximately 900
people were surveyed and the focus was on the users’ opinions about a range
of facilities (eg. toilets, play equipment) and the services received.

11. PARK AGENCIES
■ Park agencies around Australia have been amongst the leaders in
looking at the question of satisfaction amongst its clients.
Melbourne Parks and Waterways (now part of the newly created
Parks Victoria) had undertaken regular visitor satisfaction surveys
for a number of years. These focussed on 17 domain-specific
items relating to an urban park visit, including visitor amenities
such as toilets, children’s playgrounds, etc.

12. CONCLUSION
■ A big challenges for managers and policymakers of a tourism
destination is to understand the patterns of tourist decision
making processes and identity factors that influence overall tourist
satisfaction. Natural surroundings accommodaton infrastructure
and tourism facilities are very important features in choosing a
destination and particularly relevant to individual experiences. In
fact the challenge is often more cultural than managerial. The real
challenge is not the ability to use measurement and evaluation
tools, but to translate into action the information collected by these
methods. This means that the organization has the right and is
willing to use such information so before choosing the best tools
for measuring customer satisfaction it should be analyzed and
clearly defined.