Industry interview with five star Loch Ness attraction owner, Freda Rapson
Jacobite, the five star attraction owned by Freda Rapson, offers cruises and a wide selection of tours and charters sailing on the legendary Loch Ness throughout the year.
As Tony Mercer, Head of Quality & Standards at VisitScotland says:
“Jacobite is a worthy holder of the 5 star Tour accolade as it sets very high standards in the hugely important day trip market. Visitors and locals alike can enjoy the experience of viewing some of our most famous sites, Loch Ness and Urquhart Castle, from the loch itself on an informative and comfortable cruise combined with coach trip.”
Playing close attention to business data, visitor satisfaction and balanced scorecard KPIs has been of great significance in growing this successful business.
However, Freda believes that for maximum success, it is essential that a more joined up approach to visitor data collection and dissemination is undertaken at a local and regional level.
She regards overcoming dated and disjointed local visitor data as critical for tourism businesses like Jacobite, in order to fully maximise their marketing to geographically discrete markets.
As Freda explains:
“I’ve got a bee in my bonnet at the moment about the amount of customer information that is out there but is not joined up. We collect information mostly from our customer feedback cards. Nationality/visitor origin is one of the main statistics we pick out, so we’ve got that information. And somebody in another business down the road has that information. But nobody links it together.”
“If we all had three standard questions that were asked, and that data was centrally analysed and shared between businesses, it would be such a simple thing.”
The Austrian visitor data example
Freda describes her experiences from a recent learning journey to Austria, where she found near perfect statistics for accommodation occupancy, seasonality, year on year trends and overnight visitor nationalities.
“In Austria, organised by government, everyone that checks in has to give name and nationality. This added to the hotel specific (eg 4 star, location) which all goes into a central database. It means that everyone that spends a night in Austria is recorded. It is so simple, why can’t we do it? Clearly it would require legislation/central co-ordination but its not rocket science. Its so do-able.”
The Austrian research process that Freda refers to is described at some length in this very useful research paper by Karl W. Wöber (Institute for Tourism and Leisure Studies, Vienna University, Austria).
I would agree with Freda that the data collection process is both do-able and very important, though I would add that there are complexities and challenges involved, particularly of the political and administrative varieties.
It would, for example require not only careful planning, but a long term financing model that would allow the data to be collected of a number of years. There would be challenges to ensure that smaller or poorer areas were not overlooked or excluded.
As Karl W. Wöber writes about the Austrian experience:
“Due to the refinancing interests of data collection authorities and the lack of financial resources in the tourism industry, however, the data analysis for smaller tourism regions or report communities has been prevented in the past. This factor must be regretted since it can be assumed that the evaluation of key success factors in tourism marketing will significantly improve when they are measured in smaller regional units.
Also tourism managers, especially those operating on a regional level, usually have only very little influence in the organization of nationwide surveys. Therefore, many of the statistical series are based on administrative regions that are not always congruent with actual regional use and by tourists and subsequent flows.”
Nevertheless, there is no reason why the 20 years plus of learnings from regions like Austria could not be taken on board to ensure that any process developed in Scotland does not fall at obstacles that have already been encountered elsewhere.
How could such data be used by tourism businesses?
Clearly even the most accurate data has little value if it is not used. As Freda adds “its all very well recording it, but what matters is what you then do with it.”
She explains how such visitor information would be utilised by Jacobite, most importantly “to understand profile of customers.”
“Our customers don’t match the old regional survey data that was conducted on the street. Groups, for example, get missed. If data such as visitor origin were accurate it would clarify who we are marketing to, so we could target and promote accordingly. We’d ask what are we doing in the key areas where the bulk of visitors are coming from”
She continues “I do think that there is a lot of fallacy out there. People say we’re not a family market, or not a short break market. Or people say there are no German or Spanish visitors out there. There are.
I bet you if you counted them, there are significant numbers but they’re being missed. For example, the official stats say roughly 1% of visitors are Spanish – but that is not the picture I see in my business.”
“I know what our percentage of our individuals and groups are in terms of nationality – and somewhere, those people are staying here. As a visitor attraction, we see the key link as being with the accommodation providers. Visitors come and stay and then look at what they will do. There must be a point of contact to record that visit – even if that needs legislation – so the visitor data is accurate and truly reflects our business.”
At a destination and country management level, there are of course many other potential uses for joined up visitor data – from comparative regional profiles to package targeting. But what I think is significant about Freda’s viewpoint is that she makes a very strong case for how individual businesses themselves will also profit from better quality data.
And given that is individual businesses like Jacobite who will be responsible for achieving Scotland’s revenue growth targets over the next decade, I think Freda has a strong case for putting joined up visitor data at the top of the tourism industry wish list.
This entry was posted on Monday, October 15th, 2007 at 4:13 pm and is filed under Destination research, Industry interview, National tourism strategy, Tourism market research, Tourism statistics, Visitor attraction research. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.