Tourism Knowledge SIG

AIDA or AIDAS is an acronym used in marketing that describes a common list of phases in the purchasing cycle. When you are marketing a product or service, ensure you provide points of contact for customers during these phases:

• A - Attention (or Awareness): attract the attention of the customer/market.

• I - Interest: raise interest by focusing on and demonstrating advantages and benefits (instead of focusing on features)
• D - Desire: convince customers/market that they want and desire the product or service and that it will satisfy their needs.
• A - Action: lead customers/market towards taking action and/or purchasing.
• S - Satisfaction: satisfy the customer with the goal of them becoming repeat customers who give referrals to a product or service

Once upon a time, tourism was primarily associated with leisure and visits to exotic places for recreation and possibly a visit to see family. In the last few years, a number of different classes of tourism have been mentioned that relate to altogether different reasons for tourism: If tourists are attracted repeatedly to a particular location, no matter for what reason, they represent a potential resource for a wide range of local businesses.

Some kinds of tourism

• Health tourism this involves activities that promote good health. Examples of health tourism include visiting exercise or meditation centres or resorts that provide health services or specialise in vegetarian food. Such visits are typically of a specified duration, such as 3,5, or 7 days.

A number of research projects have suggested key areas to attend to if you are interested in improving the level of the service that you provide. These models suggest that of good customer service includes Responsiveness, Assurance, Tangibles, Empathy and Reliability or RATER for short. While there are commonly acceptable meanings for these terms, it is important that organisational participants be provided an opportunity to create their own definitions and meanings specifically in the context of your organisation.

Responsiveness means:

• Prompt service to customers

• Willingness to help customers
• Readiness to respond to customers' requests
• Going out of the way to make customers happy
• And specifically in our organisation, responsiveness means to perform well on ________________________

Assurance means:

• Employees who instill confidence in customers

• Making customers feel safe in their transactions
  

No matter how much we're tempted to judge service quality from our own point of view, it is only the customer's opinion that counts. Any judgement of service quality is irrelevant unless made by the customer. So what creates the sense of good or bad service? Can the customer 'service experience' be managed and if so, how? Consumers and tourists are becoming increasingly discerning and expecting more for their money and it seems that service providers who are proficient in managing their clients' experience can benefit significantly, especially in tight economic times. And some of these principles are applicable are as applicable to government service delivery as they are to hotels, restaurants, retain and any other space where there is an interraction between client and service provider.

PHYSICAL EVIDENCE

If you are new to social media and are still exploring the area, here are 4 steps to help you get the best out of it:

• Step 1: Explore - search & browse for content that interests you. Find out where your friends, colleagues and peers spend their time on the web. Particularly look for notable commentators and figures in the area in which you are interested, subscribe to their personal blogs and follow the comments and conversations.