What we do / The Tourism Destination
The Tourism Destination
Tourism destinations are regional business units in which customers (visitors, tourists) find everything necessary for their stay. Hence, a destination can be perceived in many different ways depending on the eye of the beholder. A hotel or resort can be seen as a destination as well as a whole village, in which a variety of service providers offer a wide range of different services. Tourism products on a destination level are therefore highly complex service bundles mostly composed locally by customers and including various service providers.
However, at the end of the day customers do not differentiate and asses every service individually but perceive all services as a whole – as their holiday. If you ask tourists after their holiday to evaluate and recap the holiday, you’ll typically end up with three main points: the name of their destination, an overall assessment and a specific (service) moment supporting the overall assessment. Therefore, all services within a destination have to be provided in high quality, exceeding or at least matching the customers’ expectations.
To accomplish satisfied or even delighted customers you need to offer a consistent high-quality service chain both on a company and a destination level. Critical touchpoints within this service chain need to be identified and improved; outstanding positive touchpoints need to be emphasized. Crucial presupposition for a complementary service offering within a destination is the cooperation of all vital stakeholders.
Service design is a trend-setting approach to identify critical touchpoints or even gaps in the service chain both on a company and destination level. After the identification of strengths and weaknesses within the touchpoint sequence, service design offers methods and tools to improve these in a customer-centered and co-creative manner, supporting cooperation among local service providers and tourists’ co-ownership with their destination. The objective of a tourism service design project must be the establishment of a sustainable relationship between both customers and a destination respectively certain service provider as well as between the main service providers within a destination.