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Customer feedback systems in tourism : a study of interdependent services of German travel agencies, tour operations and airlines

Harling, Christiane
Date
1998
Type
Thesis
Fields of Research
Abstract
A high level of service quality is being widely acknowledged among German tourism marketers as the strategy to survive in an increasingly competitive market. In tourism many independent suppliers contribute to the tourist experience. This concept is critical to the industry as poor performance within one sector may result in low tourist satisfaction and subsequently reflect poor on all providers. Customer feedback systems have the potential to help management identify customers' expectations and causes of (dis)satisfaction in order to then communicate necessary service improvements back to the employees. Little knowledge exists how feedback systems can be applied to tourism systems. This exploratory study focuses on interdependent services of travel agents, tour operators and airlines. It investigates on the current extent of customer feedback systems in each sectors as well as the feedback information exchange between the three organisation types. Furthermore, it aims to identify barriers and improvement potential of such cooperation. Results indicate that all organisations collect information. However, feedback systems as proposed in the literature exists in only a few companies. Most organisations do not use a combination of different feedback methods. They also lack communication channels/ procedures to implement improvement needs into the service delivery process. The researcher argues that such feedback information systems are not effective tools to increase an organisation's service quality. Findings further suggest that no established cooperation in terms of customer feedback information exists between the organisations. The researcher recommends that, prior to investing in data collection methods, management should focus on the implementation of communication systems throughout the whole organisation using improvement procedures and employee research. The author suggests how the three organisation types can collect feedback information more effectively. Cooperative feedback systems should be established in a step-by-step approach. It is recommended to start with information exchange about current feedback systems and cooperative research on inter-organisational processes.
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