Tourism & Travel Management BBS Chapters 3 and 4

Tourism & Travel
Management
Gwenaëlle Porsmoguer
gwenaelle.porsmoguer@brest-bs.com
06 38 64 92 48
Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

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Tourism & Travel Management
Chapter 3
Consumer behaviour in Tourism &
Hospitality

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The individual decision making process :
At individual level, the factors influencing demand for tourism are related in the models
of consumer behaviour.
No two individuals are alike and differences in attitudes, perceptions, images and
motivation have an important influence on tavel decision.
Attitudes are learned predispositions of response and are related to an individual
perception of the world.
Perceptions are mental impressions which help us organise our world based upon
many input factors coming from childhood, family, work experience, education,
books, television programs and films and promotional images. Perception involves the
encoding of informations by individuals and has a major influence on attitude and
behaviour towards products.
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Travel motivations explain the dynamics of why people want to travel based
upon the inner urges that initiate travel demand as part of need-satisfying goals
Images are sets of beliefs ideas and impressions relating to companies, products
and destinations.

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The fundamentals of consumer behaviour and tourism :

Important factors shape tourism consumer behaviour in order to appreciate the
way in which tourism consumers make decision and act in relation to the
consumption of tourist products.
The concept of demand, includes a diversity of psychological, sociological and
economic aspects related to consumer behaviour leading to decision making.

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These factors are :
the needs purchase motives and decision process associated with the
consumption of tourism
the influence of the different effects of various promotionnal tactics, including
the Internet
the different perception of risks for tourism purchase including the impact of
terrorist incidents
the different market segments based upon purchase behaviour
how managers can improve their chance of marketing success

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The buying decision process in tourism : model of consumer behaviour
Need
arousal to
travel
Level of
involvement
in trip
Need
recognition
for travel
Identify Evaluate
travel travel
Feedback alternatives alternatives
Purchase
travel
Post purchase
behaviour impacts Make
on future decision of
decisions travel

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Quite often, with important purchases such as travel, the purchasers will doubt the
wisdom of their choice and have a need for reassurance to what is known as
dissonance or desequilibrium.
This psychological state is reduced by the means of guarantees or telephone help-
line to deal with queries.
It is also reduced by the « welcome back » communication made to someone on
their return from their trip or experience.
Consumer behaviour models are designed to attempt to provide an overall
representation of the consumer behaviour process and to identify the key elements
of the process and their inter-relationships.

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Engel, Blackwell & Miniard (1986) classified models according to the degree of
search or problem-solving behaviour by the consumer.
- Limited problem solving models -LPS- are applicable to repeat or mundane
(common plce) purchases with a low level of consumers involvement. Apart from
short trips near to home these are not applicalble to tourism.
- Extended problem solving models -EPS- apply to purchases associated with the
high level of perceived risk and envolvement and where the information search
and evaluation of alternatives plays an important part in the purchasing decision.

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One of the first attempts to provide some understanding of tourism purchase is to
be found in the research made by Wahab, Crampon & Rothfield in 1976.
These authors presented the consumer as purposeful and conceptualized his or her
buying behaviour in terms of uniqueness of the buying decision :
No tangible return on investment
Considerable expenditure in relation to earned income
Purchase is not spontaneous or capricious
Expenditure involves savings and pre-planning

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Schmoll in 1977 presented the following model :
Field 1 external stimuli in the form of promotion, communication, personal and
trade recommendations.
Field 2 personal and social determinants which determine the goals in the form
of travel needs and desires, expectations and the objective and subjective risks
though to be connected to travel.
Field 3 external variables which involve the prospective traveller’s confidence in
the service provider, destination image, learnt experience and cost and time
contraints.
Field 4 destination characteristics which consist of related characteristics of the
destination or service that have a bearing on the decision and its outcome
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In Schmoll model there is no feed-back loop and no input to attitude and values and
therefore it is difficult for us to regard the model as dynamic.
However Schmoll does highlight many of the attitudes of travel decision making with,
while not unique in themselves, do influence tourism demand.
We can include here decisions regarding choice of a mix of services which made up the
product : high financial outlay (expenses), destination image, the level of risks and
uncertainty, necessity to plan ahead and difficulty of acquiring complete information.
Schmoll, while highlighting some of the characteristics associated with the problem-
solving activity to travel, simply reiterates the determinants of cognitive decision-making
processes.
Within Schmoll’s work we are introduced again to the importance of image which plays a
significant part in the demand process.
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Moscardo in 1996 has provided a different approach to consumer behaviour by

stressing the importance of activity preference as a critical link between the tourist
motivation and travel and destination choice.
He argues that the motives provide travellers with expectations for activities and
destinations are send as offering these activities.

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An activities based model of destination choice :
B travellers/socio psychological variable
Motives :
 Experience
 Life cycle
 Income
 Available time
A marketing
variables / external input C images of
destinations activities
* informations about and attributes
destinations
D destination choice based on a
match between perceived activities
offered and preferred activities
E destination (offer & promote

activities)

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Consumer decision making models have tended to be based on a view that tourist
consumer behaviour is rational and sequenced.
The generic « grand models » are also designed for the purchase of tangible goods
rather than services. They assume individual rather than group purchase, making
them less than ideal to explain tourism behaviour which is often based on a group
or family decision.
There is also a danger that these models are too generalised and simplified to
explain, first, the richness of tourism behaviour and, secondly, the changed tourism
marketplace of the 21st century.

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Decrop in 2000 argues that what is needed is an approach that captures both the
situational and experiental nature of tourist behaviour effectively including the
complexity of everyday life.
In addition, we believe that tourism is highly complex given it is based upon so
many different segments representing different needs and the choice of a whole
variety of destinations that can satisfy such needs.
This complexity demands deep and meaningful research into behaviour using
methodoligies to deliver insights as to how these decisions are made and how
influences such as current well-being, destination image, attitudes and prior tourist
experience may influence behaviour.

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Considerations for the consumer purchase stages and the relevant marketing approach
Issues and particular purchase Consumer considerations Marketing considerations
stage
Pre purchase stage How does a consumer decide that he needs a travel
product ?
How are consumers attitudes towards travel products
forms and/or changed ? Exemple why is the mass
tourism experience so popular in the 70’s now less
popular ?
What is the level of involvement/commitment on the What cues does the consumer use to infer which
part of the purchaser of a travel product? products are superior to others – a critical piece of
information for promotion and positionning of travel
products ?
What are the best sources of information to learn

more about alternative choices ? And given the
intangible nature of the travel product, which sources
have more authority and influence ?
Purchase stage Is acquiring a product a stressful or pleasant

experience and does this influence the nature of
How do situational factors such as time pressure, family
pressure or travel agents displays affect the consumer’s
intermediary used or indeed wether an intermediary is purchase decision ?
bypassed ?
What does the destination and type of holidays
arrangement purchased say about a consumer ?
Post purchase stage Does the travel product provide pleasure or perform
its intended fuction ?
What determines wether a consumer will be satisfied
with the travel experience or wether he will buy it again
?
How is the travel product consumed and are there Does this person tell others about his travel experience
environmental or social consequences to the travelling and therefore afect their purchase decisions ?
activity ?
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Excercise 3 :
Review the process you or your family went through in the purchase decision for
the last holidays you took ?
What important consumer behaviour factors are similar or different in the choice
and purchase of tourism based upon the 20, 30 and 60 year age groups in the
population ?
Consider a tourism product such as a tour operator’s brochure or its web-site and
what clues are there to suggest the market targeted by the company ?
An oral presentation is requested

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Chapter 4
Service marteking

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PLAN OF THE CHAPTER
The service culture
Characteristics of service marketing :
 intangibility
 physical evidence
 inseparability
 variability
 perishability

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Service management concepts for the hospitability industry :
 The service profit chain
 Three types of marketing
 Management strategies for services businesses
 Managing service differentiation
 Managing service quality
 Managing service productivity
 Resolving customer complaints
 Managing employees as part of the product
 Managing perceived risk
 Managing capacity & demande

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The service culture :
One of the most important task of a hospitaity business is to develop the service
side of the business, specifically a strong service culture.
The service culture focuses on serving and satisfying the customer.
Creation of a service culture has to start with top management and flow down.
A service culture is a system of values and beliefs in an organisation that reinforces
the idea that providing the customer with quality service is the principal concern
of the business.

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Hotel Georges V
Paris
Hotel Danielli
Venice
Hotel de Paris
Monaco
Hotel Reids
in Madeira

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Characteristics of service marketing :

 intangibility
 physical evidence
 inseparability
 variability
 perishability

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Service marketing must understand the four characteristics of services :
Intangibility
Inseparability
Service cannot be
service cannot be
tasted, felt, heard
separatd from their
or smelled before
providers
purchase
Services
Variability
Quality of service Perishability
depends on who service cannot be
provides them and stored for later sale
when, were and or use
how

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Intangibility :
Unlike physical products, intangible products cannot be seen, tasted, felt, heard or
smelled before use.
Hospitality and travel industry products are experiential only and we do not know
the quality of the product untill after we have experienced it.
In travel agencies, custmomers used to book their packages on brochures with
glossy photos or now they book from websites designed to catch the eyes.
But there is always some uncertainty !

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A restaurant customer will not know how good the meal is until after he or she has
consumed it. Likewise, a family planning a vacation will not know if the destination
and the choice of their resort was a good one untill they have had their vacation
experience.
One implication of experiential products is that we take away the memories of our
experiences.
Marriot Vacation Clubs International realizes this and has made a deliberate effort
to create memorable guest experience. A white-water rafting trip can create
memories that a family visiting their Mountainside Resort in Utah will talk about for
years.
And the experience will make them want to return.

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As a result the staff at the Mountainside Resort know that they must promote the
activities of the destination as well as the resort.
Same phenomenon for US ranches for tourists who wish to live the lifes of cow-
boys for a while or a « swim with the dolphins experience » in Florida.
Because the guests will not know the service they will receive untill after they
receive it, service marketers should take steps to provide their prospective
customers with evidence that they will help evaluate the service.

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The process is called providing evidence.
Promotional material, employee’s appearence and the service firm’s physical
environment all help tangibilize the service.
Hospitality companies today include virtual tours over their website.
They also take advantage from Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest and other social
media to share photos and videos.

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This is the site where my goddaughter got married 6 years ago in Normandy :
http://www.chateau-de-la-crete.com/us

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A banquet salesperson for a fine restaurant can make the product tangible by
taking pastry samples on morning sales calls. This creates good will and provides
the prospective clients with some knowledge about the restaurant’s food quality.
Sales person can also bring a photo album showing photographs of banquet setups,
plate presentation for different entrees and testimonial letters from past clients.
For persons having a diner as part of their wedding reception, some hotels prepare
the meal for the bride’s family before the wedding day.
Thus, the brid actually gets to experience the food before the reception so there
are no surprises.

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The salesperson may be the prospective customer ’s first contact with the hotel or
restaurant.
A salesperson who is well groomed, dresssed appropriately and who answers
questions in a prompt and professional manner can do a great deal to help the
customer develop a positive image of the hotel.
Uniforms also provide tangible evidence of the experience.
The uniforms worn by front-desk staff of the hotel Nikko San Francisco are
professional and provide tangible evidence that the guest is walking in a four-
diamond-hotel.

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Everything about a hospitality company communicates something.

The wrappers put on drinking glasses in the guest rooms serve the purpose of
letting guest know the glasses have been cleaned.
The fold in the toilet paper in the bathroom lets the guest know the bathroom has
been tidied.
Fruit and champagne in your room on arrival, flowers and chocolates on your
pillow have the same effect.

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Physical evidence :
Physical evidence that is not managed properly can hurt a business.
Negative messages communicated by poorly managed physical evidence include
signs that continue to advertise a holydays special two weeks after the holydays has
passed.
Signs with missing letters, burned-out lights, parking lots and grounds that are
unkempt and full of trash, employees in dirty uniforms at messy workstations, such
signs send negative messsages to customers.

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Restaurant managers are trained to do a preopening inspection of the restaurant. One of
the sign they look for is that all lights bulbs are working. A burn-out bulb can give the
guest sitted near it an impression that the restaurant does not pay attention to details.
Our customers notice all details. This is why a consistent message from industry leaders
is that managers must pay attention to detail.
A firm’s communications should also reinforce its positioning. Ronald McDonald’s was
great for Mc Donald’s but a clown would not be appropriate as the primary mascot of
Four Seasons hotels.
All said, a service organization should review every piece of tangible evidence to make
sure that each delivers the desired organization image – the way a person or a group
views an organization – to target customers.

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Inseparability :
Physical goods are produced, then stored, later sold and still later consumed.
In contrast, hospitality products are first sold and then produced and consumed at
the same time.
In most hospitality services, both the service provider and the customer must be
present for the transaction to occur.
Inseparability means both the employee and the customer are often part of the
product.
The food in a restaurant may be outstanding but if the employee serving the food
to the consumer has a poor attitude or provide inattentive service, customers will
not be satisfied with their experience.
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A couple may have chosen a restaurant because it is quiet and romantic.
But if others customers include a group of loudy and noisy conventioners seated in
the same room, these customers will spoil the couple’s experience.
Managers must manage their customers so that they don’t create dissatisfaction
for others.
Another implication of inseparability is that customers and employees must
understand the service-delivery system because they are coproducing the service.
Customers must understand the menu items in a restaurant so that they get the
dish they expect. This means hospitality and travel organizations have to train
customers just as they train employees.

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A hotel at the Newark airport is popular with international tourists who have just
arrived from overseas. Many of these guests pay in cash or with traveler’s checks
because they do not use credit cards.
On more than one occasion, the front-desk clerk has been observed answering the
phone of an upset guest who claims the movie system does not work. The clerk
must explain upset guest he did not establish credit because cash was paid for his
room.
The clerk must inform the guest that he must come at the front-desk and pay for
the movie before it can be activated. The hotel could avoid this problem and
improve customers relations by asking guests, at arrival time, if they would like to
make a deposit for anything they might charge, such as in-room movies.

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Variability :
Services are highly variable. Their quality depends on who provides them and when
and where they are provided. There are several causes of service variability.
Services are provided and consumed simultaneously which limits quality control.
Fluctuation demand makes it difficult to deliver consistent products during periods
of peak demand.
The high degree of contact between the service providers and the guest means
that product consistancy depends on the service provider ’s skills and performance
at the time of the exchange.

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A guest can receive excellent service one day and mediocre service from the same
person the next day.
In the case of mediocre service, the service person may not have felt well or
perhaps experienced an emotional problem.
Lack of communication and heterogeneity of guest expectations also lead to service
variability.
A restaurant customer ordering a medium steack may expect it to be cooked all the
way through whereas the person working on the broiler may define medium as
having a warm pink center. The guest will be disapointed when he cuts into the
steack and sees pink meat.

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Restaurants have solved this by developing commun definition of steack doneness
and communicating them to the employees and customers.
Sometimes the communication to customers is verbal and sometimes it is printed
on the menu.
Customers usually return to a restaurant because they enjoyed their last
experience. When the product they receive is different and does not meet their
expectations on the next visit, they often do not return.
Variability or lack of consistancy in the product is a major cause of customer
disappointment in the hospitality industry.

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When variability is absent, we have consistancy which is one of the key factors in
the success of a service business.
Consistancy means that customers receive the expected product without
unwanted surprises.
In the hotel industry, this means that a wake up at 07:00 am always occurs as
planned and that a meeting planner can count on the hotel to deliver coffee
ordered for 03:00 pm for meeting break, which will be ready and waiting them
when the group breaks at that time.

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In the restaurant business, consistancy means that the shrimp scampi will taste the
same way it tasted two weeks ago, towells will always be available in the
bathrooms and the brand of vodka specified last week will be in stock next month.
Consistancy is one of the major reasons for worldwide success of Mc Donald’s.
Umbrellas, outside seating of this

restaurant in Italy, create an environment
that attracts attention and is inviting to
those who want informal dining

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Here are three steps hospitality can take to reduce variability and create
consistancy :
Invest in good hiring and training procedures
Standardize the service performance process troughout the organization
Monitor customer satisfaction

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1/ Invest in good hiring and training procedures
Recruiting the right employees and providing them with excellent training is crucial,
regardless of whether employees are very highly-skilled professionnals or low-
skilled workers. Better trained personnel exibit six characteristics :
 Competence they posess the required slills and knowledge
 Courtesy they are friendly respectful and considerate
 Credibility they are thrustworthy
 Reliability they perform the service consistently and accuratly
 Responsiveness they respond quicly to customers’requests and problems
 Communication they make an effort to understand the customer and communicate clearly

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Excellent hospitality and travel companies like Marriot, Accor, Southwest Airlines or
Air France-KLM spend a great deal of time and effort making sure they hire the
right employees.
But their attention to employees does not end there.
They also invest in their employees by providing them ongoing training.

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2/ Standardize the service-performance process throughout the organization
Diagramming the service-delivery system in a service blue-print can simultaneously
map out the service system, the points of customer contact and the evidence of
service from the customer’s point of view.
The guest’s experience includes a series of steps he or she must enact to while
receiving the service.
Behind the scene, the service provider must skillsfully help the guest move from
one step to the next.
By visually representing the service, a service blue-print can help one understand
the process and see potential design flaws.

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Service blue-prints include a line of interactions, line of visibility and line of internal
support.
The line of interactions represents the guest’s contact with employees.
The line of visibility represents those areas that will be visible to the guest and
provide tangible evidence of the service.
The line of internal interaction represents internal support systems that are
required to service guest.

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3/ Monitor customer satisfaction

Use suggestion and complaint systems, customer’s surveys and comparison
shopping.
The hospitality compagnies have the chance of knowing their customers.
Companies also have the e.mail addresses of those who purchase from their
websites.
This makes it easy to send a customer satisfactory survey after a guest has stayed in
a hotel or use its service.

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Travel intermediaries such as travelocity.com contact guests to see how they were
in a hotel they booked on their site.
They realize if a customer had a bad experience they may not use their services
again even though they cannot control the service and quality of the hotels they
represent.
They try to create a consistent experience and set customers expectations by using
a star rating system and publishing customer comments.
Firms can also develop customer database and systems to permit more
personalized customized service, especially online.

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Perishability : service cannot be stored for later sale or use.
Example in a airline company, you may have seats available at the
beginning or mid-december and which remain unsold. But you
cannot store them and add them for other dates when available
additional seats are missing like for example on christmas
holidays. This involves a yield management* for pricing policy.

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Yield management is a variable pricing strategy, based on understanding,
anticipating and influencing consumer behavior in order to maximize revenue or
profits from a fixed, time-limited resource (such as airline seats or hotel room
reservations or advertising inventory).
As a specific, inventory-focused branch of revenue management, yield management
involves strategic control of inventory to sell the right product to the right customer
at the right time for the right price.
This process can result in price discrimination, in which customers consuming
identical goods or services are charged different prices.
Yield management is a large revenue generator for several major industries. Robert
Crandall, former Chairman and CEO of American Airlines, gave yield management
its name and has called it "the single most important technical development in
transportation management since we entered deregulation."
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Services cannot be stored.
A 100-room hotel that sales only 80 rooms on a particular night cannot inventory
the 40 unused and then sell 140 rooms the next night.
Revenue lost from not selling the 40 rooms is gone forever.
Because of service perishability, airlines and hotels charge guests holding
guaranteed reservations when they fail to arrive.
Restaurants are also starting to charge a fee to customers who do not show up for a
reservation. They too realized that if someone does not show up for a reservation,
the opportunity to sell that seat may be lost.

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Some hotels may will often sell hotel rooms at a very low rate rather than letting
them unsold.
Because of inseparability, this can cause problems.
Oftentimes, the discounted rate brings in a different type of customers that is not
compatible with the hotel normal customer.

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For example one luxuary hotel that normally sold rooms for $300 on priceline,
placed rooms for $80.
The guest paying $80 per night is not likely to use the food and beverage outlets
but instead will use less expensive restaurants outside of the hotel or even come
back into the hotel carrying a bag of food coming from a nearby fast-food
restaurant.
Revenue managers to must be careful that they maintain a brand’s image while at
the same time trying reduce unsold inventory.

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Exercice 4 :
Imagine a blue print of your own regarding an experience you had with a hotel,
restaurant or airline.

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Service management concepts for the hospitability industry :

 The service profit chain
 Three types of marketing

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The Service Profit chain
In a service business the customer and the frontline service employees interact to
create the service.
Effective interaction, in turn, depends on the skills of frontline service employees
and on the support processes backing these employees

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Thus, sucessful service companies focus their attention to on both their customers
and their employees.They understand the service profit chain which links service
firm profits with customers and employees satisfaction. This chain consists of the
following 5 links :
Internal service quality superior employees selection and training, a quality work environment and strong support for
those dealing with customers
Satisfied and productive service employee more satisfied, loyal and hard-working employees
Greater service value more effective and efficient customer value creation and service-delivery
Satisfied and loyal customers satisfied customers who remain, repeat purchase and refer other customers
Healthy service profits and growth superior service firm performance

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Service marketing requires more than just traditional external
marketing using the 4 Ps.

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Company
Internal marketing
External marketing
employees customers
Interactive
marketing

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Three types of marketing :
The service marketing shows that it requires external marketing but also internal
marketing and interactive marketing.
Internal marketing means that the service firm must effectively train and motivate
its customer-contact employees and all the supporting service people to work as a
team to provide customer satisfaction. For the firm to deliver consistently high
service quality everyone must practice customer orientation. It is not enough to have
a marketing department doing traditional marketing while the rest of the company
goes its own way. Everyone else in the department must also practice marketing and
internal marketing must precede external marketing. Failure to practice internal
marketing can be expensive. As study of 33 hotels showed that turnover costs
averaged approximately $10 000 per employee for those with complex jobs.

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Interactive marketing means that perceived service quality depends heavily on
the quality of the buyer-seller interactions during the service encounter. In
product marketing, product quality often depends little on how the product is
obtained. But in services marketing, service quality depends on both the service
deliverer and the quality of the delivery. The customer juges service quality not
just on technical quality (e.g the quality of the food) but also on its functional
quality (e.g the service provided in the restaurant). Service employees have to
master interactive marketing skills or functions as well.
Today, as competition and costs increase and as productivity and quality decrease,
more marketing sophistication is needed. Hospitality companies face the task of
increasing 3 major marketing areas : the service differentiation, services quality and
service productivity.

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Management strategies for service businesses

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Managing service differentiation
Service marketers often complain about the difficulty of differentiating their
services from those of competitors. To the extent that customers view the services
of different providers as similar and care less about the provider than the price.
The solution to price competition is to develop a differentiated offering rather than
starting a price war.
Competing by reducing prices results leads to lowering expenses to offset the price
reduction. Cuts to employees expenses result in reduced service levels. Cuts in
maintenance result in a facility that becomes worn.
The offer can include innovative features that set one company’s offer in apart from
that of that of its competitors.
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Still the service company that innovates regularly usually gains a succession of
temporary advantages and an innovative reputation that may help it keep
customers who want to go with the best.
Service companies can differentiate their service delivery in three ways : trough
people, physical environment and process.
The company can distinguish itself by having more able and reliable customer-
contact people than its competitors. Or it can develop a superior physical
environment in which the service product is delivered. It can design a superior
delivery process. Finally service companies can also differentiate their image
through symbols and branding. For example a familiar symbol would be
McDonald’s golden arches and familiar brands include Hilton, Shangri-La and
Sofitel.
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Managing service quality : what is quality ?

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Dr. William Edwards Deming (October 14, 1900 – December 20, 1993) was an
American engineer, statistician, professor, author, lecturer, and management
consultant. Educated initially as an electrical engineer and later specializing in
mathematical physics, he helped develop the sampling technics still used by the
U.S. Department of the Census and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In his book The New Economics for Industry, Government, and Education, Deming
included statistical process control, operational definitions, and what Deming called
the "Shewhart Cycle, which had evolved into PLAN / DO / CHECK/ ACT (PDCA).

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Deming is best known for his work in Japan after WWII, particularly his work with
the leaders of Japanese industry.
That work began in July and August 1950, in Tokyo and at the Hakone Convention
Center, when Deming delivered speeches on what he called "Statistical Product
Quality Administration".
Many in Japan credit Deming as one of the inspirations for what has become
known as the Janapese Post War Economic Miracle of 1950 to 1960, when Japan
rose from the ashes of war on the road to becoming the second-largest economy in
the world through processes partially influenced by the ideas Deming taught.

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The system includes four components or "lenses" through which to view the world
simultaneously :
 Better design of products to improve service
 Higher level of uniform product quality
 Improvement of product testing in the workplace and in research centers
 Greater sales through side [global] markets
Deming is best known in the United states for his 14 Points (Out of the Crisis, by W.
Edwards Deming, preface) and his system of thought he called the "System of Profound
Knowledge".

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The system includes four components or "lenses" through which to view the world
simultaneously:
Appreciating a system
Understanding variation
Psychology
Epistemology, the theory of knowledge
Deming made a significant contribution to Japan's reputation for innovative, high-
quality products, and for its economic power. He is regarded as having had more
impact on Japanese manufacturing and business than any other individual not of
Japanese heritage.

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Despite being honored in Japan in 1951 with the establishment of the Deming
Prize, he was only just beginning to win widespread recognition in the United
States at the time of his death in 1993.
President Ronald Reagan awarded him the National Medal of Technology 1987.
The following year, the National Academy of Science gave Deming the Distinguished
Career in Science award.

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One of the major ways a service firm can differentiate itself is by delivering
consistently quality than its competitor.S.
One can have a number of objective criteria for evaluating a tangible product such
as an automobile. For example how long does it take to go from 0 to 100 kms, how
many kilometers to the liter and so on…
With hospitality products, quality is mesured by how well customer expectations
are met.
The key is to exceed the customer’s service-quality expectations.
« Promise only what you can deliver and deliver more than you promise » said the
Chief Executive of American Express.

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These expectations are based on past experiences, word of mouth, service firm
advertising.
If perceived service of a given firm exceed expected service, customers are apt to
use the provider again. Customer retention is perhaps the best measure of quality.
A service firm’s ability to retain its customer depends on how consistently it
delivers value to them.
A manufacturer’s quality goal might be zero defects, but the service provider is
zero customer defections.

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Knowing your customer is a requisite for delivering quality.
Once customer expectations are determined, managers need to develop a service-
delivery system that will deliver a service that meets the guest’s expectaions.
Investments in service usually pay off through increased customer retention and
sales.
Studies of well-managed service companies show that they share a number of
commun virtues regarding service quality.
First top service companies are « customer obsessed » and they have a philosophy
of satisfying customer’s needs which wins enduring customer loyalty.

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Second, well managed service companies have a history of top management commitment
to quality. Management at companies like Disney look not only at financial performance
but also a service performance. A 98% accurency standard may sound good.
Third Top service companies do not settle merely for good service. They aim for 100 %
defect-free service.
Fourth the top service firms watch service performance closely, both their own and that of
competitors.
They use methods such as comparison shopping, customer surveys, suggestions and
complaint forms. In addition, they provide performance feed-backs. Ritz Carlton have daily
meetings with their employees to go over customers feedbacks and to review the guest
history of arriving guests.Many quick-service restaurant chain offer customer a chance to
win prizes answering several service related questions on an Internet based questionnaire.

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With the costs rising rapidly, services firms are under great pressure to increase
service productivity.
They can do it in several ways.
They can train current employees better or hire new ones who willl work harder or
more skillfully.
Or they can increase the quantity of their service by giving up quality.
The provider can « industrialize the service » by adding equipment and
standardizing production, as in Mc Donald’s assembly-line approach to fast-food
retailing.

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Finally a service provider can harness the power of technology.

Although we often think of technology’s power to save time and costs in
manufactoring companies, it also has great and often untapped potential to make
service workers more productive.
However companies must avoid pushing productivity so hard that doing so reduces
quality.
Attempts to industrialize a service or cut costs can make a service company
efficient in the short run.
But in making them more efficient, they can become less effective.

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For instance, a company that reduces kitchen payroll, may find that it cannot keep
up with the orders, resulting in long wait times for food and dissatisfied customers.
Thus, in attempting to improve service productivity, companies must be mindful of

how they create and deliver customer value and should be careful not to take the
« service » out of service.

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Resolving customer complaints
Many service companies have invested heavily to develop streamlined and
efficient service-delivery systems.
They want to ensure that customers will receive consistently high-quality service in
every service encounter.
Unlike products manufacturers who just can adjust their machineries and inputs
until everything is perfect, service quality always varies depending on the
interactions between employees and customers.
Problems inevitably occur. As hard as they try, even the best companies have an
occasional late delivery, burnt steacks or grumpy employees.

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A company cannot always prevent service problems but it can learn from them.
Good service recovery can turn angry customer into loyal ones. In fact, good
recovery can win more customers purchasing and loyalty than if things had gone
well in the frist place.
Therefore, companies should take steps not only to provide good service everytime
but also to recover from services mistakes.
To have effective complaint resolution, managers must empower frontline service
employees to give them the autorithy, responsablity and incentives that they need
to recognize, care about and tend to customer needs.

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For example, Marriott places its employees in empowerment training which encourages
them to go beyond their normal job to solve customer problems.
Empowered employees can act quickly and efficently to keep service problems from
resulting in lost customers.
The Marriott Desert Springs says the major goal for customer-contact employees is to
ensure that « our guests experience excellent service and hospitality while staying at our
resort ».
Well-trained employees are given the authority to do whatever it takes, on the spot, to
keep guest happy. They are also expected to help management ferret out the causes of
guest’s problems and to inform managers of ways to improve overall hotel services and
guest’s confort.
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Exercice 5 :
Describe how to improve service quality as regards to the advice given by partners in
academic research and who offer 10 essential lessons to manage quality such as :
 Listening
 Reliability
 Basic service
 Service design
 Recovery
 Surprising customers
 Pair-play
 Teamwork
 Employee research
 Servant leadership

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Tourism & Travel Management BBS Chapters 3 and 4

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Tourism & Travel

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

The fundamentals of consumer behaviour and tourism :

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Moscardo in 1996 has provided a different approach to consumer behaviour by

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

E destination (offer & promote

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Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

What are the best sources of information to learn

Purchase stage Is acquiring a product a stressful or pleasant

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Characteristics of service marketing :

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Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Everything about a hospitality company communicates something.

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Umbrellas, outside seating of this

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

3/ Monitor customer satisfaction

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Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management

Gwenaëlle PORSMOGUER BM3 Tourism & Travel Management