THE DEVELOPMENT TEAM
Principal Investigator Prof. S. P. Bansal,
Vice Chancellor, Indira Gandhi University, Rewari
Co-Principal Investigator Dr. Prashant K. Gautam,
Director, UIHTM, Panjab University, Chandigarh
Paper Coordinator Prof. Sandeep Kulshreestha,
Director, Indian Institute of Travel & Tourism Management
Paper Co-Coordinator Dr. Saurabh Dixit,
Nodal Officer, IITTM, Gwalior
Content Writer Dr. Ramesh Chandra Devrath Asst. Professor, IITTM Gwalior
Content Reviewer Dr. Prashant K. Gautam,
Director, UIHTM, Panjab University, Chandigarh
Paper 9: Tour Guiding Essentials Module 40: Managing Visiting Impacts
tems Description of Module Subject Name Tour Guiding
Paper Name Tour Guiding Essentials Module Title Managing Visiting Impacts Module Id 40
Pre- Requisites Basic knowledge of tour guiding and visitor impacts
Objectives To create awareness in reducing the negative impacts of visitors at monuments.
Keywords Tour guide, visiting impacts, customer satisfaction.
Managing visiting impacts
1. Learning Outcome 2. Introduction
3. Role of Tourism Companies in Creating Customer Satisfaction 4. Role of Tour Guides in Winning Customer Loyalty
5. Role of Tour Guides in Establishing Customer Satisfaction 6. Summary
7. Bibliography
QUADRANT-I
1. Learning Outcome
After completion of this module students will be able to:
1. Understand how visitor impacts a destination
2. Learn about how a tour guide can manage visiting impacts on a destination 3. Understand the Role of Tour Guides in Winning Customer Loyalty
4. Learn Duties and responsibilities of the Tour guides in Creating Positive Impressio
MANAGING VISITING IMPACTS
2. INTRODUCTION
The quality of experience that the tourists will have in a tourist destination will shape their idea of whether “to visit” or “to not visit” a place over again. If the visitors are going to have positive experiences in the tourist destination, they will surely develop the intention of visiting the location over again. They will as well encourage their friends and connects to visit the place. If the visitors are going to have negative experiences in the tourist destination, they will surely not want to visit the location over again. They will as well advice against their friends and connects from visiting the place if they are not satisfied.
(Research Gate)
The kind of experiences that the tourists will develop in a tourist destination is dependent upon their expectations from a specific place. If their expectations were not met in a specific tourist destination, they will obviously not be satisfied with their visit. If their expectations were met then they will leave the place with great satisfaction.
Before the tourists visit with a destination, they tend to prospect the places that they would want to visit. During this process, they might have come across advertisements.
They might have listened to the opinions of their friends and guides about the target place. In this process, they might have developed a specific image about the prospective place. In this process, if they have imagined something that is not true about the place in their minds, obviously they will be disappointed when they come to a place; however, if they imagined the place exactly like what it is or somewhat similar to what it might be like, then again, they might not be dissatisfied.
The way in which the advertisements and word of mouth recommendations position the tourist destination in the minds of the reader is a major reason for the formation of expectations in the minds of the visitor. Even if the place is exactly like what the visitor has expected, how the visitor is being tour guided in the place and how the visitor takes to the experiences that the place has to offer has roles to play in influencing the attitude of whether “to visit” or “to not visit” a site over again.
4 step Process
(1) Identifying visitor activities;
(2) Researching visitor impacts;
(3) Monitoring visitor impacts; and
(4) Assessment of visitor impacts monitoring (Research Gate).
(Research Gate)
The coming of tour shopping online has helped with excellent destination positioning experiences. The internet helps publish pictures and videos of the destinations and therefore destination positioning has become very easy. In most cases, what the tourists see in the advertisements online tend to be what they are able to experience in the real time. This has made it possible to create the right set of expectations in the minds of the visitors.
3. Role of Tourism Companies in Creating Customer Satisfaction
Tourism companies are increasing their market share by investing for their own improvement. Investing in one’s continuous improvement has become important due to the competition between tourism businesses. For any service provider, it is very important for them to be able to retain past customers.
Customer behavior is heterogonous and they come with different behavior and targets.
Those who are in the tourism businesses are working very hard to improve on the satisfaction level they can provide for their
(Tourists to Thailand Satisfied Rather Than Terrified, 2017)
customers. They communicate closely with the customers to eventually be able to improve on the portfolio of increased numbers of loyal customers.
The overall customer expectation has increased. Customers are looking for high standards of product design. When customer expectation is fulfilled, this leads to an increase in the number of visits made by the customer. This also increases the word of mouth referrals made by the customer. The reputation of a tourism industry can go down when there are lot of customer complaints. The tourism industry should ensure that they are doing what it takes to reduce customer complaints.
Satisfaction is a judgment related to the quality of a product or service. It is a judgment about the service feature. It is a judgment about the product quality. High quality satisfaction is the end state of any consumption experience in any product or service.
When it comes to the tourism industry, fulfillment of the “experience expectation” of the tourist is related to the kind of experiences they gain in the real-time world in the tourist destination. The difference between the pre-travel expectation and the post travel expectation determines the satisfaction factor in the clients. When the pre-travel expectations are fulfilled, feelings of gratification are seen in customers. Satisfied customers probably would want to come over again to the place. They might even be willing to provide with references.
It is a point to be remembered that feelings of gratification will not always lead to customer loyalty. There are some customers who appear unsatisfied even if they are satisfied with the experience. They find something or the other to complain about. There is no solution to dealing with unsatisfied customers who are wrongly motivated. Another challenge that we have to remember is that even if the customers are satisfied, these customers have more numbers of alternatives from other tourist providers who are competitors to one particular destination. Therefore, customer retention is a challenge regardless of whether the customer is satisfied or not.
(22.3% increase in number of tourists in March compared to corresponding month in 2016, 2017)
The tourism industry makers understand all these facets. In a highly competitive market, it is important to differentiate the unique nature of a tourism product. For instance, all hill stations provide more or less similar experience to customers, and therefore, differentiation can be difficult. Service quality is of utmost importance when it comes to sustaining customer satisfaction.
When the tourism process is planned well by the tour guide, this will naturally increase the numbers of tourist receipts, employment, and the revenue for the local region where the tour guiding is taking place. To improve on the competitiveness of a tourist destination, investors pour in money to create better attractions. They improve on the service quality and the image of the destination. This is one of the major approaches taken by the people of the tourism industry to encourage repeat visits.
Attracting previous customers by providing them with cost discounts is the key to gaining new customers. Customer retention leads to improved word of mouth referral. This increases the chances for repeat visits by the tourists. Economic profits are best achieved with repeat visits and word of mouth reference. Repeat customers help you attract better business for the future. Also, they are cost effective when compared to creating customers from the start. Several tourist destinations depend on repeat visits. This is true about beaches and hill station resorts.
Repeat visits are very important for the vacation market. Repeat visit is triggered by the emotional attachment of the people to a specific location. Their need to further explore a specific destination, their willingness to show the destination to other people, some people being content with just one destination are the major reasons to name in order to encourage repeat visits from tourists.
4. Role of Tour Guides in Winning Customer Loyalty
Every tourist destination will want to win customer loyalty. Customer satisfaction is the key to developing customer loyalty and revisit intentions in the minds of the tourists.
Tourist destinations have activity providers, service providers, and experience providers who continually upgrade and tweak their service themes, product themes, and experience themes to suit the requirements of their visitors. They refresh their service quality to be attractive and desirable to the interests and expectations of the visitors to the tourist destination.
Tour guides occupy a very special position in the system. In terms of organisation, they are an essential part of the supply-side components. They can work for all of the supply-side
stakeholders, within all of the sectors of the tourism industry. No matter who they are working for, tour guides are generally regarded as service providers for visitors (Pond, 1993)
When all this is happening, the key personality who co-ordinates and co-presents the services, products and activities of the tourist destination in an appealing way to the visitors to create customized customer satisfaction is the tour guide. The tour guides have a major role in creating an impact in the minds of the visitors to revisit with the tourist destination over again for the second, third or even the fourth time.
5. Role of Tour Guides in Establishing Customer Satisfaction
People are traveling to tourist destinations for reasons related to leisure, business trips, health reasons, spiritual visitation, adventure, or any other reasons for relaxation and for a way out. In this scenario, the tour guides who coordinate the complete activities and agenda of the visiting tourists from start to finish with high level of service quality and integrity tend to reshape the attitude of the tourists towards the tourist destination.
The quality of the tour guiding services have a major role to play in creating tourist satisfaction and revisit intentions in the minds of the visitors. When the tour guide plays it wrong the best destination can land in the bad books of the customer. Similarly, when the tour guide plays it right the best destination can land in the good books of the customer. Just to say, the tour guide is the anchor who creates the impressions of revisits and referrals in the minds of the visitor.
(Bowie, 2005)
Guiding is the Oldest Activity
Tour guiding is one of the oldest human activity. Human beings have been roaming around the world since ages and ages ago. Traditionally, people who helped other people find their way in their travel were known by different names like bear leaders, pathfinders, cicerones, proxemics, and more.
(Kapoor, 2016)
All of these people were the predecessors of the current day tour guides. This means tour guides were existing even before two and a half millennia. With the coming up of mass tourism, tour guides have become an integral part of this industry. The services of tour guides is indispensable when it comes to time-sensitive tourism.
Organized tourism can get to be very difficult in the absence of the intelligent and well- organized services of tour leaders and tour guides who welcome the tourists at the destination to accompany the visitors throughout the trip.
Role of the Tour Guide in Crafting Visitor Experience
The tour guide will guide the visitor in the language of their choice thereby making the visit more understandable. The tour guide will introduce the natural and cultural heritage of a tourist destination in the best possible way to local and foreign tourists. The tour guide will provide the visitors with authentic information about the place. The tour guide will interpret the monuments, heritage sites, architecture, and the other destinations in a place in an interesting manner. They help the tourists understand the local culture, their limitations in the tourist destination, their responsibilities in the tourist destination, arranging for transportation, helping tourists choose the right place for their food and stay, planning the trip, warning about dangers in the
(Outdoor Adventure Guide)
local area, helping with preparedness tips during adventure trips, advising on the right climate for travel, advising on the right things to buy, helping tourists to identify between useful and exploitive events in the local place and more. The tour guides make the unknown environment completely safe for the tourists by providing them with essential local information to continue with a safe travel experience. In short, the tour guide is the person who unfolds the experiences in the place in an organized manner. They are the key people in crafting the visitor opinion about a specific tourist destination.
In the first stage (pre-tour), customer satisfaction is affected by customers’ expectations and previous experience.
During the second stage (on-tour process), customers’ expectations, previous experience, visitors’ behaviour, the perception of equity, unforeseeable events and customers’ stress tend to affect the customer satisfaction. In the final stage (post-tour), customer satisfaction is mostly shaped by customers’ experience. In addition to this, these factors together with the tourism product and service characteristics are likely to result in customer satisfaction, partial satisfaction or customer dissatisfaction with tour experience (Horner, 2016).
(LEARN TO BE AN AWARD-WINNING TOUR GUIDE WITH)
Tour Guide as the Representative of the Destination
Tour guides mostly have area specific qualification to guide visitors in a specific destination. They themselves have a clear cut idea about the ins and outs of a tourist destination. Since they are very sure about the place they are guiding for, they will be able to provide quality service. In cases where the tour guide is a native of the destination, they are in most cases proud of being able to show case the destination to tourists. They do it more for the love and passion for the place. They create strong and positive impressions about their place. If there are instances where the tourist is to be
warned of, they provide the warning information, thereby, protecting the tourists from the dangers in the place.
Duties and responsibilities of the Tour guides in Creating Positive Impression
The tour guide in reality is the person who is shouldering big responsibilities in the tourism industry. They do more than communicating information about a specific place to the visitors. They present it in an interesting and dedicated manner. The tourists remain happy and satisfied with a specific tourist destination because of the service quality of the tour guide.
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The tour guide is the leader who is willing to take the responsibility for organizing the tour. They learn about every in and out of the place they are guiding for, and they provide authentic information to the tourists. They communicate the cultural facets of the
local communities to the visitors and in turn communicate the visitor culture to the local community. They act as a bridge between the visitor and the local community. They train the tourists to respect the local culture and in turn the locals treat the tourist with respect.
The tour guide educates the visitors about expected tourist behavior like not spoiling the natural environmental conditions of the place, not littering the place, not smoking, not drinking and other essentials of well cultured behavior, which goes a great way in helping the tourist enjoy the place without creating harsh experiences for themselves.
The tour guide provides visitors with cultural interpretations and they play the role of integral cultural brokers thereby creating a respectable image about the place, the people and its culture in the mind of the people.
(The Heart of the Gold Country)
The tour guide has a major role in understanding the spending habits and status of the visitor. They help the visitors identify the best possible quality services they can buy for the money they are willing to spend in terms of food, shelter and other activities like therapies and local cuisine experiences in the locality.
The tour guide decides on the right time of visit for specific destinations. If the visitor is on adventure tourism, they create a tour itinerary to suit their interest. If the visitor is on
a spiritual trip they create a tour itinerary to suit their interest. They create customized tour plan to suit the interests of the tour group. They provide with rich interpretations thereby helping the visitors to live the events of the place in their minds. This leave the tourists with memorable themes about the place, leaving them willing to come back to the place over and over again. Satisfied visitors in turn land up referring their friends to the location. Therefore tour guide have a major role to play in creating revisits and referral visits for the tourist destination.
Culture Curious Tourists
Tourists are out for some sunshine and rain after strenuous days and nights of earning for living and passion. When they come to a tourist destination, most of them are curious and eager to have cultural experiences. They are willing to experience something different. They are willing to experience the local culture like the locals. They do not want to be treated like special guests. They want to eat local food and live the local life for the couple of days they have planned to be around. They are looking for authentic local experiences. Tour guides understand these interests of the tourists and they help in arranging for authentic local experiences for tourists. Tour guides arrange for local hosts who serve authentic local breakfast and dinner. If there are local festivals, the guides arrange for the tourists to be able to experience the trip like the locals too. This makes the tourists enjoy the place more.
In some cases, the tourists are those who are out for a good local experience while on a business trip, tour guides helps such tourists have an excellent time without compromising on their official tasks, thereby leaving them with refreshing experiences with the trip. This kind of an arrangement makes more and more business visitors to be willing to take up business trips. Good quality tour guiding caters to the legal and ethical requirements of tourists. Thereby leaving them with the feeling of wanting to come again to the place over again.
(Native American Festival at UA’s Moundville Park Named One of Top 10 Events for Alabama History in 2009)
Tour guides arrange for best quality hospitality, thereby leaving the visitors confident enough to stay for more days in the future when they might place for a trip again with more members of their family and friends. By influencing the choice and quality of service and products that the tourists would take in the tourist destination, the tour guide uncovers best quality experiences for the tourists.
For lengthy stays, the tour guides help the visitors find economic solutions without compromising on the quality of experience they can thus gain. The tour guide not only manages the tour, they also help manage the resources and experiences for the tourists.
Social tour guides entertain and facilitate to fulfill the requirements of the tourists.
Communicative tour guides educate the visitors. Environmental interpreters promote ecological and environmental tourism. In short, every type of tour guide has a contributory role in the tour guiding process.
6. Summary
With changing economic and political conditions almost every industry has been affected in one way or the other. Due to competition between businesses of every kind, it becomes important for businesses to maintain a close relationship with their clients to eventually provide improved customer service to stay in the business for a long time. For any kind of service, satisfying the client and retaining the customers is the most important objective. And customer service is a complex phenomenon and it takes lot of skill and resourcefulness to achieve consistent customer satisfaction. Almost every business enterprise is working hard to sustain its values to retain customers and customer satisfaction.
(WIRELESS TOUR GUIDE SYSTEMS FOR TOURISM)
So, the tourist industry has become a buyer’s market. It is no more a seller’s market.
This has led to customers asking for cheaper holidays without compromising on the high quality and standards in tourism. So, if repeat and referral business of visitors is to be earned, tour providers will have to provide competitive yet high quality holiday experiences for reasonable costs. The satisfaction is a judgment made on the product or service offered to a client. The tour guide educates the visitor about how to judge the tour services in the right light. They train the visitors about what they can reasonably expect and what they cannot expect from a specific product or service. They refine the expectations of the visitors in a way to match it with realistic expectation. When the expectations are realistic, then fulfilling it becomes easy for the service providers.
Tour guides have a role in setting the pre-travel expectations of tourists. When the right set of expectations are set, the expectations are duly satisfied, and the customers remain loyal. Despite best efforts unsatisfied customers are here to stay. They are the exceptional few with bizarre perceptions which cannot be changed. No matter how good the services are, some customers are not satisfied. We need to stop worrying about such clients. The rest is about following integrated standards to create visitors with revisit and referral interests. By all means tour guides are influential to create revisit and referral interests.
