Introduction
Working as an assistant to managers in a travel agency, I had to identify the unique customers’ needs of a bakery department. I had to compile the assortment and ensure all products are sold during the day. It was a really difficult task because all customers had different needs and quality expectations. It is relatively easy to state that the function of business is to satisfy customer wants and needs. But customers do not specify the products they will desire and do not know their future wants. Yet executives are forced to forecast well in advance what consumers will decide to purchase. Thus marketing executives operate under conditions of great uncertainty. To identify customers’ needs I analyzed sales and selected the top ten products. The project carried by the travel agency was aimed to improve the quality of services and increase customer satisfaction at all levels.
Job description
It is recognized that customer wants and desires have never been, and will never be, totally gratified. They seem to know no bounds. “As one desire is satisfied, another pops up to take its place. When this is satisfied, still another comes into the foreground, etc. In satisfying customers’ wants and needs, buyers do not make decisions in a social vacuum” (Frame 2002, p. 98) Their conclusions are shaped and influenced by relationships and experiences.
Consumers occupying similar positions in a societal structure tend to respond to situations in much the same manner. Their responses are culturally patterned, and the particular society’s norms of behavior demand conformity. Detailed analysis of needs allows the company or the organizations to save time and costs spent on alternative solutions and risks associated with the project. Over time, profits are tied inextricably to the satisfaction of consumer wants.
Consumers provide the economic rationale for business and marketing activity. The products and services offered for sale, how they are offered, the distribution channels employed, the methods of advertising and personal selling, and every other factor of marketing are all molded by consumer preferences, opinions, habits, beliefs, wants, needs, and desires. In this way, the total business system attempts to meet the desires of consumers. It is essential, therefore, that we analyze the antecedents of consumer behavior, the behavior itself, and the consequences of consumer reactions. Hence, although consumers shape business activity, marketing programs are designed to influence consumer behavior (Hartley, 2008).
What did I learn
My working experience shows that the problem is that the lack of any large or well-organized travel management services catering to a recreation tourism market is additional evidence that the majority of travelers are not there for pleasure travel purposes. What no precise data exist indicates that almost two of the guests are traveling alone, the core is repeat travelers, and very few use local tour operators. These data support the opinion that most travel is for business purposes and should not be classified as purely pleasure travel. Without exceptional service management services, the hotel and tourism chains will not capable to achieve the overall objectives. I did ticketing, and handling customers, communicating with Daallo airlines (Burkun, 2005).
The project implementation shows that the main factors identified by quality travel management services in lodging involve: high accommodation standards, travel hygiene, maintenance of facilities and the environment; professional staff. The purpose of a hotel chain is to get and keep a guest. As hotel chains are dynamically evolving organizations operating within a dynamically changing environment, some means of assessment of how the two interacts has to be found to enable them to be better matched.
Travel agencies and tour operators pay special attention to lodging providers and service quality proposed by foreign partners. To date, growth in the lodging sub-sector has been accelerated by the presence of fiscal incentives. Many hotel chains are not able to realize their potential due to a lack of financial assistance or expertise related to quality travel management. Inadequate channels of financing available to potential and existing investors in the sub-sector have also repressed its growth (Burkun, 2005).
Travel management departments
To improve success and service quality, tourist agencies and service operators and hotel chains create special travel management departments to meet diverse customers’ needs and preferences. To make the most of the chances of success in an increasingly competitive and global market, tourist destinations develop travel services efficiently to achieve a competitive advantage and remain competitive. In destination management time and speed are the main factors of success.
Scheduling is concerned with the timing. The planning of activities has a direct impact on resources and the level of travel management and lodging service. The purpose of destination management is the planning task, and the change of capacity is the key problem field. Destination management decisions have a direct impact on agencies performance and customer service proposed by these agencies (Frame, 2002).
The result of the project was an increasing number of customers daily. The increased demand, amongst other things, leads to high levels of service quality, value for money, and holidays which are customized to their individual preferences. Today travel management and restaurant service are related to green tourism which can influence the assortment of activities and services consumed during the holiday. As a result, a growing number of customers are attracted to natural areas and travel service in hotel chains has emerged as one of the more significant elements of change in the tourism industry. The role of travel management is to meet and anticipate customers’ needs and wants to maintain strong relations with our suppliers (Frame, 2002).
The project shows that customer requirements mean specific needs and expectations of the potential consumers and purchasers of goods. Changes in lifestyles and market environment have had a direct impact on goods and services produced, expenditures, and the consumption process. For example, the effect of increased leisure time, suburban living, shopping centers, automatic vending machines, automobiles, television, and widespread geographic shifts on consumer wants and needs is pronounced.
The shift from rural to urban populations, the growing number of women employed in industry, the decrease in the length of the workweek, increasing productivity, and higher incomes all shape consumer behavior and, hence, market opportunity. Purchasing decisions are affected by the customer’s living space. The living space may be segmented into action and orientation space. The action space refers to the arena and methods by which transactions take place, including organizational constraints imposed by business. The orientation space includes numerous economic, psychological, and source factors influencing buyer behavior (Burkun, 2005).
Requirements must be precisely met because they determine the profitability of the project and sales volume. If the requirements and needs of customers are not met, the company will have some difficulty in sales. Customers are a heterogeneous group subjected to a multiplicity of forces that affect their attitudes, opinions, motives, desires, wants, needs, and, ultimately, buying behavior. They are individuals and groups, grownups and children, producers and users, families and businesses.
Although each customer is a unique individual, marketing managers must think in terms of groups of “average consumers” or prototypes that comprise a more or less homogeneous market segment. Common wants and needs that pertain to the social, regional, educational, economic, psychological, national, or other group interests of a market segment must be recognized and translated into a profitable opportunity (Hartley, 2008).
In destination agencies such as hotels and restaurants, the expectations and perceptions of guests and travelers are important because they are involved in the performance of the restaurant service. Also, customer demands are individual and each restaurant service has the opportunity to be different invoking a variety of demands against which the perceived service is considered. The impact of travel service trends is positive on the tourism product depending on actions taken by the sub-sector. As tourists become more aware of destination choices, they want to exercise greater autonomy in selecting destinations that satisfy their need for excitement (Hartley, 2008).
Conclusion
In sum, from my experience, I can say that travel agency use and manage quality development strategies to differentiate themselves from competitors. Destination management aims to map and make easy the provision of effective travel management services. It is important to note that the impact of new technologies is crucial because if technological changes affect one area of tourism there is an urgent need to improve the other areas. Thus, tourists seek more varied, personal, and authentic experiences, while a wide range of new, imaginative, tourism products will be demanded.
Bibliography
Burkun, S. 2005, The Art of Project Management. O’Reilly Media; 1 ed.
Hartley, S 2008, Project Management: Principles & Strategy; a competency-based approach, Pearson, Prentice Hall, Sydne.
Frame, J.D. 2002, The New Project Management: Tools for an Age of Rapid Change, Complexity, and Other Business Realities. Jossey-Bass.