Designing Tourism Services in an Era of Information Overload

Chapter
First Online:
Part of the Tourism on the Verge book series (TV)

Abstract

Modern technologies enable consumers to receive more information than ever before. The access to (and even overload of) information has changed the ways by which desirable customer service ratings are achieved at tourism destinations. This chapter details how information access has diminished the role of tangible or physical aspects of a tourism experience in the formulations of visitors’ customer service evaluations. Second, this chapter discusses how modern information overload has increased the importance of inserting script deviations in the tourist’s experience in order to achieve top-rate customer service evaluations.

Keywords

Information overload Service evaluations Satisfaction 
This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

References

  1. Abelson, R. P. (1981). Psychological status of the script concept. American Psychologist, 36(7), 715.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  2. Bateson, J. (2002a). Are your customers good enough for your service business? Academy of Management Executive, 16(4), 110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  3. Bateson, J. (2002b). Consumer performance and quality in services. Managing Service Quality, 12(4), 206–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  4. Bawden, D. (2001). Information overload (Library and information briefing series). London: Library and Information Technology Centre, South Bank University.Google Scholar
  5. Bawden, D., & Robinson, L. (2009). The dark side of information: Overload, anxiety and other paradoxes and pathologies. Journal of Information Science, 35(2), 180–191.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  6. Bigne, J. E., & Andreu, L. (2004). Emotions in segmentation: An empirical study. Annals of Tourism Research, 31(3), 682–696.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  7. Bitner, M., Ostrom, A., & Morgan, F. (2008). Service blueprinting: A practical technique for service innovation. California Management Review, 50(3), 66–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  8. Cohen, E. (1972). Toward a sociology of international tourism. Social Research, 39(1), 164–182.Google Scholar
  9. Crotts, J., Mason, P., & Davis, B. (2009). Measuring guest satisfaction and competitive position in the hospitality and tourism industry an application of stance-shift analysis to travel blog narratives. Journal of Travel Research, 48(2), 139–151.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  10. Gan, H. T. (1991). Cognitive scripts in computer-based service settings Doctoral dissertation, London Business School. London: University of London.Google Scholar
  11. Gioia, D. A., & Manz, C. C. (1985). Linking cognition and behavior: A script processing interpretation of vicarious learning. Academy of Management Review, 10(3), 527–539.Google Scholar
  12. Gladwell, M. (2008). Outliers. New York, NY: Backbay Books.Google Scholar
  13. Harper, D. (2002). Talking about pictures: A case of photo elicitation. Visual Studies, 17(1), 13–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  14. Heskett, J. L., Sasser, W. E., & Schlesinger, L. A. (1997). The service profit chain: How leading companies link profit and growth to loyalty, satisfaction, and value. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
  15. Hintz, R. A., & Miller, D. E. (1995). Openings revisited: The foundations of social interaction. Symbolic Interaction, 18(3), 355–369.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  16. Hoevemeyer, V. (2005). High-impact interview questions: 701 behavior-based questions to find the right person for every job. New York, NY: Amacon Books.Google Scholar
  17. Kim, J., & Fesenmaier, D. (2015). Measuring emotions in real time: Implications for tourism experience design. Journal of Travel Research, 54(4), 419–429.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  18. Kim, J., Ritchie, J., & McCormick, B. (2010). Development of a scale to measure memorable tourism experiences. Journal of Travel Research, 51(1), 12–25. doi: 10.1177/0047287510385467.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  19. Klitzing, S. W. (2004). Women living in homeless shelters: Stress, coping, and leisure. Journal of Leisure Research, 36(4), 483–512.Google Scholar
  20. Magnini, V. P. (2013). Performance enhancers: Twenty essential habits for service businesses. Mustang, OK: Tate Publishing.Google Scholar
  21. Magnini, V. P. (2015). Surprise! The secret to customer loyalty in the service sector. New York, NY: Business Expert Press.Google Scholar
  22. Magnini, V. P., Crotts, J. C., & Zehrer, A. (2011). Understanding customer delight an application of travel blog analysis. Journal of Travel Research, 50(5), 535–545.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  23. Magnini, V. P., Ford, J. B., Markowski, E. P., & Honeycutt, E. D., Jr. (2007). The service recovery paradox: Justifiable theory or smoldering myth? Journal of Services Marketing, 21(3), 213–225.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  24. Maxham, J. G., III, & Netemeyer, R. G. (2002). A longitudinal study of complaining customers’ evaluations of multiple service failures and recovery efforts. Journal of Marketing, 66(4), 57–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  25. McCollough, M. A., Berry, L. L., & Yadav, M. S. (2000). An empirical investigation of customer satisfaction after service failure and recovery. Journal of Service Research, 3(2), 121–137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  26. McCollough, M. A., & Bharadwaj, S. G. (1992). The recovery paradox: An examination of consumer satisfaction in relation to disconfirmation, service quality, and attribution based theories. Marketing Theory and Applications, 3, 119.Google Scholar
  27. Meyer, W. (1997). Towards a process analysis of emotions: The case of surprise. Motivation and Emotion, 21, 251–274.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  28. Michelli, J. A. (2008). The new gold standard. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
  29. Noe, F. P., Uysal, M., & Magnini, V. P. (2010). Tourist customer service satisfaction: An encounter approach. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
  30. Peters, T. (2010). The little big things: 163 ways to pursue excellence. New York, NY: Harper Business.Google Scholar
  31. Pine, B. J., & Gilmore, J. H. (1998). Welcome to the experience economy. Harvard Business Review, 76, 97–105.Google Scholar
  32. Plutchik, R. (1980). Emotion: A psychoevolutionary synthesis. New York: HarperCollins College Division.Google Scholar
  33. Prus, R. C. (1996). Symbolic interaction and ethnographic research: Intersubjectivity and the study of human lived experience. Albany, NY: Suny Press.Google Scholar
  34. Reisenzein, R. (2000). The subjective experience of surprise. In H. Bless & J. Forgas (Eds.), The message within (pp. 262–279). Philadelphia, PA: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
  35. Rust, R., & Oliver, R. (2000). Should we delight the customer? Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 28(1), 86–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  36. Smith, R., & Houston, M. (1983). Script-based evaluations of satisfaction with services. In L. Berry, G. Shostack, & G. Upah (Eds.), Emerging perspectives on services marketing (pp. 59–62). Chicago: American Marketing.Google Scholar
  37. Smith, R., & Houston, M. (1985). A psychometric assessment of measures of scripts in consumer memory. Journal of Consumer Research, 12(2), 214–224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  38. Ye, Q., Zhang, Z., & Law, R. (2009). Sentiment classification of online reviews to travel destinations by supervised machine learning approaches. Expert Systems with Applications, 36(3), 6527–6535.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Copyright information

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Virginia Tech UniversityBlacksburgUSA

Personalised recommendations