Enabling experiences - The role of tour operators and tour leaders in creating and managing package tourism experiences
Year: 2014
Type: dissertation
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: The current thesis aims to create a deeper understanding of the factors that have an effect on package tourism experiences and, consequently, to illustrate the role of tour operators and tour leaders in experience creation and management.The thesis consists of an introductory essay and four distinct empirical studies.The first study lays the foundations for the thesis by examining tourism experiences on a general level and addresses research question 1: What is the role of different experience factors in the formation of tourism experiences?The remaining three studies are conducted in cooperation with Oy Aurinkomatkat -Suntours Ltd Ab and they address research question 2: What is the role of tour operators and tour leaders in the creation of package tourism experiences?The first study subjects various models on the characteristics of experiences to empirical research by analyzing the narratives of successful tourism experiences (n=153).The second study focuses on the role of satisfaction with the tour operator in creating successful tourism experiences by analyzing a large set of customer satisfaction data (n=38,153).In the third study, written customer complaints (n=84) are analyzed in order to examine the role of tour leaders in service failure situations.Finally, the fourth study examines how concurrent service recovery by the tour leaders versus subsequent service recovery by the customer service department of the tour operator influence customer satisfaction and loyalty by analyzing survey data (n=220).Based on the empirical findings, the role of the service providers in the creation of experiences appears to be quite limited.Even though tangible elements (e.g. products and services) are essential prerequisites for tourism experiences, especially peak experiences are more often associated with abstract and emotional factors.Additionally, in successful tourism experiences, the participation of individuals is passive rather than active, which is interesting as in marketing, tourism experiences are often connected to adventures and even extreme activities.Furthermore, the findings suggest that also negative incidents and emotions can be or become peak experiences.In the experience creation process, service providers should focus on the intangible elements, as their employees can create not only functional but also emotional environments that trigger experiences.Even if moving tourists' physical bodies is easier than moving their minds, we need more experience products that focus on being and feeling as opposed to doing and learning.The second study indicates that the tour operator's destination services and accommodation services are the key factors in explaining the success of a package tourism experience.Pre-tour services and environmental issues were also essential, whereas flight and airport services were the least important.However, together, these six components explained only 34% of the variance in the success of a tourism experience, which affirmed the limited role of tour operators in experience creation.Still, the tour operators need to endeavor to manage all service encounters, and pay particular attention to the professional skills of their employees.The tour leaders should be seen as experience enablers whose task is not to impose ready-made experiences but to concentrate on the consumers and empower them to experience whatever it is that they came to experience.Furthermore, both academics and managers need to question the dominant role of customer satisfaction in measuring tourism experiences and, instead, develop measures that better take into account the subjective and emotional elements of experiences.The popularity of package tours is partly explained by the availability of assistance in case something goes wrong.The tour leaders sort out various service failures, most of which are related to the accommodation services.However, the analysis of customer complaints clearly indicates that the actions of the tour leaders are not perceived to be adequate.In some cases, the tour leader's inability to solve the problem causes even more dissatisfaction than the initial service failure itself.Furthermore, according to the survey data, the service recovery efforts of the customer service department seem to be satisfactory, unlike the actions of the tour leaders.Managing service recoveries is one of the main tasks of the customer service department, but when the recovery takes place subsequently, the experience has already been ruined and cannot be fully reimbursed.Concurrent service recovery, in turn, has the opportunity to save the experience and, therefore, tour leaders need to be trained to manage the service recovery situations and empowered to make immediate decisions concerning, e.g., the type and amount of compensation.An evident strength of the thesis is the use of various customer data sets and methodologies to enhance the understanding of tourism experiences.Tourism organizations collect and possess vast amounts of customer information, but the utilization is often inadequate and fails to lead to any organizational learning and value enhancement.Cooperation with academia could be one solution for the tour operators to better benefit from the data, and it would certainly enhance the theoretical understanding of tourism experiences.Keywords: tourism experience, experience marketing, experience management, package tourism, tour operator, tour leader, customer satisfaction, service failure, service recovery I have finally reached the destination and it is time to look back and express my sincere gratitude to the various people who have guided me along the way.Comparing a thesis to a journey is a cliché, but perhaps permitted for a tourism researcher.As a geographer, I need a map to describe my journey.I use the most beautiful map I have ever seen; the imaginary World of Experience published in The Atlas of Experience by Louise van Swaaij and Jean Klare.Unfortunately, I was not permitted to republish the image, but in case needed, it can be found on the Internet 1 .More than ten years ago, hardly graduated and eager to see the world, I began my journey in the World of Experience.Suntours flew me to the metaphoric Peninsula of Pleasure, which I explored for two years.Already during this vocational training in package tourism, I was overly interested in how tourists perceive their vacations and amazed at how differently experiences could be interpreted.From the first pile of customer satisfaction questionnaires, I had the urge to understand what successful tourism experiences are made of.With Suntours, I traveled through Amazing, Wonder, and Happy and continued to the Coast of Long Evenings where I found Sultry, Good Friends, and Cold Beer.It was great fun, but I also had to climb the Mountains of Work and nearly exhausted myself somewhere between Duty and Stress.Conducting this thesis would not have been possible without Suntours Ltd and, therefore, I first wish to express my gratitude to Mr. Antero Kaleva, the former Manager of Production, Planning, Quality Assurance, and Sustainability, for hiring me in the first place, and for the research cooperation and the access to various data sets.However, all good things must come to an end.I found myself in Homesick, and returned Home.There I was, in Safe, back at the Department of Economic Geography, where my supervisor, Professor Heli Marjanen, met me in Welcome.I felt enormous relief, just like years ago, when I accidently ended up at the Turku
Source: UTUPub (University of Turku)
Author: Juulia Räikkönen
Language: English
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funders: Tekes, Turun Yliopistosäätiö
OpenAlex ID: W49479109