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TCI Research launches TRAVELSAT, the first global and independent survey benchmarking international tourists` satisfaction and trip quality in a standard way for all destinations, markets and traveller segments. TRAVELSAT© monitors 80 satisfaction and quality indexes for 100+ countries, regions and cities, based on representative opinions of tourists who experienced the destination.
Olivier Henry-Biabaud, company CEO, explains the rationale of this large international project: “Today 1 trip decision out of 3 is prompted by friends and relatives. For any country, region or city, attracting new visitors with ad campaigns is essential but make visitors happy with their experience is even more crucial as it impacts both visit repeat and destination reputation! In a highly competitive context many DMOs have expressed a need for an independent and professional benchmark instrument to evaluate hospitality and service quality provided to their visitors; TRAVELSAT meets their needs establishing a reference standard measure.”
Following to a two year development process in contact with DMOs, a pilot survey takes place amongst 2000 foreign tourists who experienced Euromed destinations in summer. Commenting on provisional results, Olivier Henry-Biabaud adds: “This summer nearly 1 US visitor out of 4 complained about a negative experience with local transportation during their stay. Destinations spend millions in promising brand and ad campaigns to recruit new US visitors and to manage their reputation in this strategic market: should not they spend the same for training public transport personnel and taxi services to deliver quality standard expected by US tourists?”
The large scale data collection starts in January 2010 with results available for clients from Q2 2011.