Visitor satisfaction and feedback

Visitor satisfaction

There are a number of ways to measure visitor satisfaction. Generally it’s by a survey either at the conclusion of their visit or via email afterwards. Keep the survey short and create the questions based on what you want to know. If you’re not sure, keep the questions general such as ‘how could we improve’. Don’t forget to ask a question designed to encourage positive answers, such as ‘What did we do well?’. You can use these responses and comments (with permission) in your marketing. Respond to, and regularly review any negative feedback or suggestions and incorporate these into your product reviews and planning.

Visitor feedback and reviews

Actively ask for reviews from your visitors and develop a process to ensure all feedback is monitored and responded to. Actively encouraging visitor feedback shows your visitors that you care about their opinion. You can then share positive feedback – a great marketing tactic – and use any negative feedback to address issues in your business.

There are many different ways to encourage visitor feedback. You could have ipads or computers available so they can review their experience onsite before they leave. You could send a followup message to thank them for their business and ask them to leave a review. Or it could be as simple as your staff asking a couple of open ended questions at the end of the experience and recording that information. Displaying reminders such as Facebook or Tripadvisor logos on your premises is another good way to remind visitors to leave a review. 

Asking the right questions

Ensure your visitor feedback mechanism includes a question around how you can improve. You could do this by including a question in a survey, or offering the opportunity on your website or in a followup email for visitors to contact you with feedback on how you can improve.

Having an online presence

Make sure your business has a page on Facebook, Google and Tripadvisor so visitors can leave reviews. Make a plan to monitor these regularly - if you do it on a regular basis it doesn't take long and means you can provide timely responses to any questions or comments.

Using visitor feedback in product development

Your visitors are telling you what they want, so listen to them! Once you are capturing visitors’ ideas and suggestions (both via a visitor survey feedback mechanism and monitoring online reviews), ensure you have a process to review these and incorporate them into your product development plans - for example, by including feedback and product improvement ideas in a regular meeting agenda.

Dealing with negative feedback

Keep your visitors happy by dealing with their complaints quickly and efficiently. This doesn’t mean agreeing to a remedy every time. This article provides tips on how to deal with negative feedback.

Experiencing your product first-hand

It’s also useful to occasionally experience your product from the perspective of a visitor. You could also organise, in conjunction with your Regional Tourism Organisation or in collaboration with other local operators, an industry familiarisation where you can ask questions of the attendees to get specific feedback about your product.

Useful resources

Customer insights programme - Angus & Associates offer tourism operators a comprehensive customer survey and reporting system. Truly understand what your customers think, how they find you and their perceptions of value, and benchmark your performance against others. TIA members receive a special discount. Find out more

How to build your own visitor feedback programme

Social media tips for tourism operators

Dealing with complaints and bad reviews