Principles of customer service

AC 2.2 - Explain how tourism organisations meet expectations of different types of customer

Learner Introduction

In the last section, we examined the large range of customer needs that tourism organisations have to provide for.  As well as needs, customers also have expectations.

You may book a holiday months in advance.  You will have looked at brochures online and made a choice of resort and hotels.  From the images and information provided by the tour operator, you will have expectations about the holiday you have purchased.

The same applies for hotels, attractions and other tourism products.  Images and information are supplied by tourism organisations to encourage customers to buy their products.  The question is will the expectations be met?

In many cases, customers will have higher expectations if they spend more money.  This could be applied to a business seat on an aircraft or a room in a five-star hotel.  Generally, when customers pay more money their expectations are higher.

If customers’ expectations are not met then the customer experience is likely to be poor and the organisation might lose custom.

These issues are explored in this section and you will be asked to consider customer expectations in one tourism organisation.