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"TOURISM TIDBITS" FROM TOURISM & MORE, INC.

The goal of "Tourism Tidbits" is to provide travel professionals with a monthly, easy-to-read overview of creative ideas. With proper referencing, we invite you to quote or reproduce "Tourism Tidbits" and to pass it along to a friend.

"Tourism Tidbits" is published monthly in English and Spanish, Portuguese and Turkish. Mtra. Patricia Koalska of Mexico does the Spanish translation, Marcus Vinicius Campos of Brazil provides the Portuguese translation, and Dr. Turgut Var provides the Turkish translation.
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TOURISM & MORE'S "TOURISM TIDBITS" for June 2009

Apologizing can be good business

A number of years ago, a movie swept much of the world, its name was "Love Story." The movie's most famous line was "Love means never to have to say you're sorry." It is not the purpose of this month's Tourism Tidbits to critique the movie's philosophy, but what may or may not be true in love, certainly is not true in business in general and in the travel and tourism business in particular. Anyone who works in travel and tourism knows that things do go wrong. From hotel bathrooms that overflow to travel delays, from employees who may be having a bad day to food that is served not up-to-standards, tourism and travel often feels like a minefield of potential crises. While these mishaps may not be intentional our customers do suffer, and may have good reasons to complain especially during the summer months when travel is at its peak and nerves are often frayed. Apologizing is never easy even under the "best" of circumstances. In the case of tourism and travel, where there is a tendency toward stress, the successful use of the apology as a marketing tool has become an essential art form. To help you hone your apology skills, Tourism Tidbits offers the following suggestions.

-Train your front-line personnel in the art of saying they are sorry. Often it is the front-line person who must apologize for something that is not his/her fault or has to take the brunt of a customer's anger. While the customer may be unfairly misplacing his/her hostility, there often is no other place for the anger to go. It is essential that front-line personnel learn to handle an angry situation for which they may not be responsible but still have to fix. Travelers' anger is rarely aimed at the person, but in most cases is aimed at an unfeasible or unworkable situation. Concentrate on fixing the situation rather than on defending one's own personal honor. Teach people to state more than simply I am sorry, but also this is what I am going to do about this situation.

-Be sensitive to your customers' time management needs. When tourism stress and customer anger are analyzed the number one annoyance factor is usually involved with a loss of time. Leisure travelers are purchasing experiences that are forms of time. Business travelers may lose clients and money due to delays that cause them to lose time. Thus, the airlines' hub systems may be efficient from their perspective, but one delayed flight can cause a great deal of anger, frustration, and income loss to those needing to make connections. Sensitivity to other people's time concerns is an essential part then of a good apology.

-Often a simple apology is not enough. While everyone appreciates an apology, simple apologies, especially when they are perceived to be routine and not sincere, are often not enough. Too many tourists and travelers are left holding the bag after being told "thank you for your patience." Most travelers do not want to hear that they need to be patient. Instead they want precise information on how the problem is going to be handled, what compensation will be given, and who besides them (the person who has been inconvenienced, delayed, or angered) is going to take responsibility for fixing the problem.

-Listen attentively to complaints. There is perhaps nothing that angers travelers and tourists more than personnel and employees who simply do not listen. These people may physically hear the words spoken, but their non-sequiturs and defensive manners only serve to worsen the problem. It is bad enough that the mishap occurred; it is doubly worse when front-line personnel seem to be ignoring the problem.

-Fulfill all promises made. Often front-line personnel in an attempt to "fix" a problem or to find a way to satisfy and angry customer promise things that simply will not occur. These false promises or misinformation not only exacerbates an already upset customer, but produces a new reason for the customer to be angry. It also makes customers lose faith in the organization or business' integrity. Be truthful in what you promise and fulfill all promises in a timely manner.

-Turn anger into solutions. Do not wait for a customer to demand a solution, offer one and teach all front-line personnel to do the same. In most cases the customer may be so pleased that you offered a solution that the anger or disappointment may turn to appreciation. The best apology is taking a negative situation and not just solving the problem but going beyond a customer's expectations.

No matter how angry an customer is he/she is still your customer. Often personnel forget that travel is not easy and that it is a human being who is standing on the other side of the counter. We may not be able to fix every problem, but all of us can listen to the problem. Remember no matter what you say or how correct you are, the other person is still your customer.

Interested in doing research in the area of tourism security?

Announcing Our New Subscription Service!

The Tourism & Security Control Panel

Tourism & More, working with our technology partners at Mnemotrix Systems, Inc., is now offering subscribers an enhanced and indispensable online service. Here is a new part of the "More" in Tourism & More.

This new service offers its subscribers full access to the last 18+ years of our Tidbits Newsletter archives, our News and Newsgroup realtime feed, and our Global Security Research Database for Tourism.

This all new approach to research provides much more than the usual keyword search, with our Strategic Data Fusion research capability, and a simple manual for how to make use of it. All this is available for a modest annual subscriber fee of only $99.99 per year. Corporate memberships are also available.

The aim is to give you best-of-class in strategic data fusion research tools. It is not enough anymore to list a hierarchy of subjects we once wrote about. This new service will allow you to be able to get into the content directly by idea or concept.

The Tourism Tidbits Newsletter has been published since 1990. That is a lot of writing and a lot of issues. If you just want a listing by subject and date you can already find it on our "Archived Tidbits" page. But now we want to give you a subscription service, where for a nominal fee, you can access something that goes much deeper.

Using state-of-the-art in Strategic Data Fusion, you can research the daily news and current events with our real-time news feed, and sift through newsgroup message traffic content of Tourism & Security related newsgroups in the same way. Best of all, we have a focused global Research Database of timely information relevant to Tourism & Security and more.

The cost for this service is US$99 per year. To subscribe to this service, please go to our website at <www.tourismandmore.com> and click on where it says: "subscribe".
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What topics would you like to see discussed in Tourism Tidbits?
Please send us a list of topics of interest to you and we will do our best to dedicate future issues of Tourism Tidbits to your needs/desires.

TOURISM AND MORE'S WIDE RANGE OF SPEECHES AND TRAINING SEMINARS

For a complete listing of topics and information, please check our web page http://www.tourismandmore.com/contact or e-mail us at ptarlow@tourismandmore.com

Please note our all-new special course: Tourism Confronts Terrorism: What You Need to Know to Maintain a Viable Industry in the Face of Terrorism.

Here is a partial list of some of our other most popular topics. All seminars and speeches can be presented in English or Spanish.

Two Brand New Lectures concerning the World's Economic Crisis:

1) Smoothing out rocky economic roads: What tourism needs to do stay in front of these economically challenging times!

2) Surviving Economically Challenging Times: Best Practice from Far and Wide.

Additionally:
3) Our trained staff of professionals are ready to meet with your board and you to discuss specific strategic planning in this most difficult of times.

Please contact us at tourism@bihs.net for more information regarding costs and available dates.

Also New!!!! How to tourism communities need to work to prevent and recover from natural disasters.

Other lectures include:
-Tourism Confronts Terrorism: What You Need to Know to Maintain a Viable Industry in the Face of Terrorism.

-Training Your Police: Tourism Oriented Policing (TOPs), how it works and why it is essential for a viable tourism industry.

-Getting On Board: Helping Your Police and Other City Employees to be Part of the Tourism Industry.

-Marketing to the Baby-boom Generation, Generation X and beyond.

-New Trends in Tourism Marketing and International Tourism.

-When the Market is Tight and the Economy Is Slow: New Ideas in Marketing.

-Developing a Successful Agricultural and Rural Tourism Industry.

-Something from Nothing: The Art of Creating New Attractions.

-Tourism Ethics: Linking the Wisdom of Moses to Your Tourism Product.

-Understanding Tourism Statistics: When is a fact a fact and when is it not? How to present data to the media.
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TOURISM ON-LINE/EDUCATION
TOURISM SECURITY. The George Washington University's Tourism Destination Management and Marketing Certificate Program announces the launch of "Safety and Security for Tourism Destinations: Achieving a Safe and Secure Tourism Environment". This is a course designed to help tourism professionals understand the importance of safety and security within a destination, as well as provide them with the "tools" needed to create a secure environment for both visitors and residents.

World-renowned travel safety and security expert, Dr. Peter E. Tarlow, has developed this course by drawing on his wealth of experience and the growing number of publications in this area. The course is available worldwide via Internet-based distance learning. For more information please email mailto:dmpdl@gwu.edu.

BOOKS ON TOURISM

1) Event Risk Management and Safety (ISBN 0-471-40168-4) by Peter E. Tarlow, published by John Wiley & Sons. Presenting theory and practical applications. To purchase this book, visit http://www.wiley.com/ or http://www.amazon.com/. If you would like Dr. Tarlow to speak or train people in this area, please contact him at mailto:tourism@bihs.net.

2) Restoring Tourism Destinations in Crisis by Dr David Beirman: Published By Allen & Unwin (Australia & SE Asia) and CABI Publishing North America/ Europe 2003. For more information contact the author at mailto:david@aicc.org.au.

3) Leisure Travel: A Marketing Handbook, by Stanley Plog, Pearson Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2004. It's available through the website of Pearson Prentice-Hall for $25.

4) Tourism in Turbulent Times. Toward Safe Experiences for Visitors. Edited by Jeff Wilks, Donna Pendergast, and Peter Leggart. Published by Elsevier.

5) Tourism Security & Safety, from Theory to Practice. Edited by Yoel Mansfeld and Abraham Pizam, published by Elsevier.

6) The Economics of Tourism Destinations, by Norbert Vanhove, Published by Elsevier

7) Beach Safety and the Law, Edited by Jeff Wilks published by Queensland
(Australia) Law Society

8) Media Strategies for Marketing Places in Crisis, by Eli Avraham and Eran ketter Published by Elsevier

9) Tourism Development: Growth, Myths and Inequalities. Burns, P. and Novelli M. eds. (2008). Wallingford: CABI

10) Tourism Management: Analysis, Behavior and Strategy, edited by Woodside and Martin, published by Cabi, London, England

11) Tourism and Mobility, Burns, P. and Novelli M. eds. (2008). Wallingford: CABI.

Some Upcoming Tourism Conferences

We invite you to submit your conferences to Tourism Tidbits. Please submit request in the form found below. Please note, Tourism Tidbits has received a number of complaints asking why '"My conference" was not listed.

If you do not tells us, then, we cannot list the conference. We are happy to list all conferences about which we are informed. Please follow the format below when sending us a conference announcement. Thank you!

Unless otherwise stated, English is the conference language.

Some Upcoming Tourism Conferences

We invite you to submit your conferences to Tourism Tidbits. Please submit request in the form found below. Please note, Tourism Tidbits has received a number of complaints asking why '"My conference" was not listed.

If you do not tells us, then, we cannot list the conference. We are happy to list all conferences about which we are informed. Please follow the format below when sending us a conference announcement. Thank you!

Unless otherwise stated, English is the conference language.

June 1-3, 2009
Vienna, Austria
Psychological, Marketing, Socio-Economic, and Sociological Drivers of Cultural Experiences in Leisure and Tourism
Details at http://cpthl2009.modul.ac.at/index.php/2008/cpthl2009.

June 12-13, 2009
Kingston Hilton Hotel, Kingston, Jamaica, W.I.
Caribbean VeggieFest and Wellness Conference
(Wellness Tourism: A Global phenomenon with a Caribbean Flavor)
For more information please contact:
Sharon Parris-Chambers
President, Positive Tourism Network
876-381-1591 ~876-957-9243
svpc58@yahoo.com or go to www.positivetourism.com
and www.caribbeanhealthtourism.com

June 15-18, 2009
Singapore
BEST EN Think Tank IX: The Importance of Values in Sustainable Tourism
For more information please visit www.besteducationnetwork.org or contact the BEST EN Secretariat anhe@sitkom.sdu.dk

June 20-23, 2009
Kos Island, Greece
Tourism in a Changing World: Prospects and Challenges
For more information please go to: Internet site: http://www.angelfire.com/ks/andriotis or contact Andriotis, Konstantinos at: kostas.andriotis@ntu.ac.uk

June 21-23, 2009
Honolulu, Hawaii
TTRA's Annual Conference
More information at http://ttra.com/hawaii2009.html

July 4-7, 2009
Leeds, United Kingdom
Emotion in Motion: The Passions of Tourism, Travel and Movement
For more information go to: http://www.tourism-culture.com/

July 6-8, 2009
GOLD COAST, AUSTRALIA
THE INTERNATIONAL EVENT MANAGEMENT SUMMIT
For more information: "Australian Centre for Event Management" acem@uts.edu.au

Aug. 5-7, 2009
Bonita Springs, Florida
15h Annual Florida Festivals and Events Association
For more information please visit www.ffea,con

Sept. 6-, 2009
Bournemouth
Marketing Innovations for Sustainable Destinations: Operations, Interactions, Experiences. For more information please contact Dr Alan Fyall at: afyall@bournemouth.ac.uk

Sept. 11-14
Kos Island, Greece
Conference on Tourism in a Changing World: Prospects and
For details and upcoming updates visit the conference website: http://www.ictdm.net/ or see the conference leaflet available at: http://www.ictdm.net/Forms/Leaflet_ICTDM_2009.pdf.

Sept., 17th and 18th
Huesca, Spain
II International Congress. Sustainable Mountain Tourism
More informations, visit: www.unizar.es/centros/eueeh/ or contact 2cturis@unizar.es

Sept. 21-25
Acra, Ghana
Ghana Tourism Conference & Exhibition

For more information contact yfaar@yahoo.co.uk

Sept 24-25

Rimini, Italy
Higher Tourism Education: issues and practices An international conference organized by th University of Bologna, Rimini campus, Faculty of economics. For more information please contact arianna.giovannini@ichtt.org

March 23-26, 2010
Atlanta, Georgia
2010 Food Safety Education Conference
Hyatt Regency Atlanta
For more information please go to www.fsis.usda.gov/Atlanta2010

April 22-25, 2010
Crete and Santorini, Greece

International Conference on Sustainable Tourism: Issues, Debates & Challenges For more information please to to: http://sustainablecrete.com

About the Author:
Dr. Peter E. Tarlow is the President of T&M, a founder of the Texas chapter of TTRA and a popular author and speaker on tourism. Tarlow is a specialist in the areas of sociology of tourism, economic development, tourism safety and security. Tarlow speaks at governors' and state conferences on tourism and conducts seminars throughout the world and for numerous agencies and universities.

If you know of anyone else who might enjoy "Tourism Tidbits," please send his/her email address to ptarlow@tourismandmore.com Please let us know of any topic that you would like to see covered by "Tourism Tidbits." We invite others to submit articles for consideration for publication.

You are welcome to reproduce "Tourism Tidbits" or any part of "Tourism Tidbits" with proper citing. We hope that you will see "Tourism Tidbits" as a place where tourism, visitor, and travel professionals exchange ideas and information. "Tourism Tidbits" does not offer or provide specific legal or financial advice. Our goal is to provide a "review" for industry personnel and discuss provocative issues. We remind all readers that every specific business decision should be made only after you have done the proper research. The author(s) accept(s) no responsibility for any loss due to any information published in "Tourism Tidbits."

All articles sent to "Tourism Tidbits" and accepted for publication are owned by "Tourism Tidbits" and may be subjected to editorial review and rewriting (with permission of the author). All questions about "Tourism Tidbits", suggestions, or cancellations should be addressed to Dr. Peter E. Tarlow at ptarlow@tourismandmore.com

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Dr. Peter Tarlow
1218 Merry Oaks,
College Station, Texas, 77840-2609, USA.
Telephone: +1 (979) 764-8402.

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