Visitor Satisfaction Toolbox

Last updated: September 2008

Introduction and Scope

A successful tourism industry is based on visitor satisfaction. Failure to meet and exceed visitor expectations will lead to a reduction in visitor numbers and the associated economic benefits to the area.

Local authorities should measure visitor satisfaction, given tourism’s role as a growing component of a region’s economic wellbeing.

Visitor satisfaction surveys are an important part of information-gathering and can help you to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your area against competing destinations. This Toolbox will help you ascertain whether you have all the information you need about visitor satisfaction with the services available in your region.

Why use this Toolbox?

Visitor satisfaction is about more than accommodation or activities. Local authorities provide the essential services and infrastructure which enable the tourism industry to operate. If these services are below standard, visitors will not be fully satisfied. This places considerable pressure on local authorities to ensure that the first impressions visitors have of places are positive and that this is carried through as visitors utilise further services.

Visitor satisfaction surveys can provide a useful basis for setting priorities and allocating funding to improve the tourism products in an area. Some destinations in the United Kingdom undertake visitor satisfaction surveys in which results are compared against a set of key criteria. This process, called destination benchmarking, has a number of benefits, including:

Providing a customer-focused basis for planning and action;
Helping to identify comparative strengths and weaknesses; under-performance against competing destinations can be a strong influence on decision makers;
Providing solid grounds for seeking additional resources for a project;
Raising the profile of visitor management and building support for tourism;
Encouraging improved standards from external suppliers;
Building civic pride from positive findings;
Helping to identify best practice across a range of areas;
Demonstrating improvement over time against benchmarks and measuring the impact of capital expenditure on visitor-related projects.

Complete the checklist on visitor satisfaction information requirements to find what information you have about how satisfied visitors are with services available in your region. The rest of this Toolbox will help you address any information gaps.