The public and private sectors have forged another strategic alliance with the newest objective being sharpening the level of service in the hospitality industry, a plan that in the short term is designed to target over 400 individuals in the tourism industry.
The initiative is one which brings together American Express, the Caribbean Hotel Association, its Bahamas counterpart and the Ministry of Tourism in a Total Service methodology that was launched here yesterday.
The Bahamas has been identified as one of six pilot destinations involved in the programme.
For all the successes in the tourism industry – the largest earner of revenue for The Bahamas – officials have consistently acknowledged the need to boost service levels and thereby increase tourism satisfaction.
The hospitality professionals identified for participation in the weeklong Total Service training sessions are to come from the front lines of the industry, according to officials.
Sammy Gardiner, director of the training and education unit at the Ministry of Tourism conceded that the partnership and its goals are pivotal.
“I don’t care if it’s 1000 different customers, we have to find a way to satisfy 1,000 customers and efforts like these will certainly give those practitioners the tools to make sure that it happens and attention [should be] paid to front line staff. At the interface, you can easily make or break a vacation destination.”
“The fact there are so many developments on the table for the Bahamas, we know that we have to provide the type of service for which we have become world renowned,” added Mr. Gardiner.
A lot of destinations are catching up with us, but we have to make sure that because of the importance of tourism we have to pay that kind of attention to this.”
Patricio Rubalcaba, senior manager for American Express’ destination business, said the company was inclined to pursue the plan because of the important nature of the service element in the hospitality business.
American Express is one of the largest travel agencies in the world.
“We are interested in what the tourists are spending in the local economies and that tells you why American express is interested in the economic standpoint,” he said.
“Obviously bringing tourists to the island, promoting the Islands of The Bahamas, but we also want to maximize what tourists spend on the island so that is the motivation.”
The Total Service methodology was developed based on knowledge, observation, analysis and experience of the reality in tourism services in the Caribbean, Latin America and Europe.
The training is organized based on 10 action principles that underpin the service profession, inclusive of team work, multidirectional communication, effective handling of conflicts, positive attitudes and a culture of total service.
Organizers are also planning to train a cadre of Bahamian professionals to deliver the training throughout the country from the hotel and attraction sectors to tour operators, airlines and retail operators. The train the trainer element is expected to relay the principles of service and create a network of intelligence.
Another partner in the effort, the Bahamas Hotel Association has committed to ensuring that the participants will come from across The Bahamas.
“We can’t stress enough what service means to us in the hotel sector,” said Earle Bethell, BHA president. “It’s very important- Every island would be touched as far as this initiative is concerned and we look forward to it trickles on down.”
The BHA has 100 percent membership in Caribbean Hotel Association which represents over 800 hotels and resorts in the region.
With visitor arrivals and expenditure exceeding the mid-1990 levels, Secretary General of the Caribbean Tourism Organization Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace said recently that complacency is the biggest threat to The Bahamas as those numbers continue to grow.
“Somehow, you believe you’ve reached certain levels and therefore begin to ease up,” said the former Director General of Tourism in a Bahama Journal interview.
“The good news is that I don’t see that happening-But it’s a very simple formula – to make sure that the visitor experience gets better and better each time. And so, they leave going back home, telling other people what a fabulous time they had. And that is the most important thing.”
He said the overall focus should be to grow in both areas – numbers as well as visitor satisfaction.
A Ministry of Tourism’s 2005 Exit Survey indicated that 81 percent of the country’s stopover visitors said they were likely to return to The Bahamas in one to five years. Some 13,473 visitors completed the survey.
Half (50.4 percent) of those interviewed indicated that it was “very likely” that they would return on a vacation to The Bahamas within that period.
A further 30.3 percent said that it was “somewhat likely” that they would return.
Those numbers are down from those recorded in 2004’s survey.
At that time, 88 percent of the country’s stopover visitors indicated that they were likely to recommend the destination to friends and relatives.
More than half (59 percent) of those visitors indicated that they were “very likely” to recommend The Bahamas.
A further 30 percent of the stopover visitors indicated that they were “somewhat likely” to recommend The Bahamas to friends or relatives. An estimated 13,886 completed that survey.
In both surveys the major concerns continued to be high prices, poor value for money, litter (primarily in the Family Islands), hotel dissatisfaction and the poor attitudes of the people.
The Bahama Journal
