RECENT AWARDS
Story Links
HOSPITALITY ASSURED - CASE STUDIES
Fiona Drane, Director,
Bright Light Marketing
June 2007
Hospitality Assured Learning Journey: VisitScotland Visits Stena Line (Irish Sea) Holyhead to Learn More
By Fiona Drane, Director, Selkirk-based Bright Light Marketing, which includes VisitScotland amongst its clients.
From birth, we are learning new things – from the basics of how to survive and communicate, to learning to read and write. As we grow older, we are still learning and developing – though the ways, in which we do, become more sophisticated. In the business world, we have Staff Reviews with learning plans, internal and external courses, conferences and books on any business topic under the sun!
One of the best ways of learning, however, is by going back to basics and doing what children do – watch and learn from others. This is how a child grows and develops. In business life, another name for it is benchmarking. Essentially, it is the same thing and, just like a child, benchmarking is one of the best ways of learning and putting into practice what others excel at!
Vision:
- VisitScotland – one team for tourism working in partnership to exceed visitor expectations
VisitScotland’s main responsibilities:
- to market Scotland and Scotland’s tourism assets to all parts of the world to attract visitors
- to supply information – and inspiration – to visitors and potential visitors to enable them to get the best out of a visit to Scotland
- to provide quality assurance to visitors and quality advice to industry partners to ensure the industry delivers to meet – or exceed – visitors’ expectations.
In April 2005, VisitScotland merged with 14 regional tourist boards in Scotland, forming one new organisation with a shared vision to become “one team for tourism, working in partnership to exceed customer expectations.” Overnight, the organisation’s size mushroomed from 200 to 1,000 staff; and from three offices to over 120, stretching from Lerwick to London. Though our staff brought with them hugely varying expectations, understanding and outlooks, they were united in the ambition to grow tourism by 50% by 2015.
The most critical and complex work in the transformation of the organisation has been our efforts to develop an effective performance culture to support our new vision and ambitions. At the heart of this new culture is a desire to put our customers at the centre of all that we do.
In order to measure and continually achieve this, the organisation decided to attempt to gain Hospitality Assured accreditation as a goal for 2007/8. VisitScotland had internal experience of the standard because the Borders office had achieved accreditation, as the Scottish Borders Tourist Board, over a three year period from 2003 to 2006. Riddell Graham – formerly from the Borders Office and currently VisitScotland’s Director of Strategy Policy and Communications – has taken the lead role in managing the project. Although there was internal experience, VisitScotland was keen to learn from others who were accredited – particularly those with multiple locations.
Linda Martin, Institute of Hospitality (formerly HCIMA) Director of Programmes for Hospitality Assured, put VisitScotland in touch with various companies – including Stena Line (Irish Sea routes). A visit was arranged and took place on the 31 May 2007 at Holyhead. VisitScotland had two main objectives from the visit
- To learn about Stena’s Service Promise
- To learn about Stena’s complaints procedure
The objectives were surpassed as the day gave VisitScotland clear insight into how Stena reaches the standard in all 10 areas and gave valuable knowledge for the internal assessment ahead.
Steve Harries, Stena Line (Irish Sea) Routes Trainer, and Janice Hughes, Brand Co-ordinator on the SS Explorer, spent the whole day with the VisitScotland representatives – presenting, discussing and taking them on board both ships to see how customer service worked in practice. Jim Howey, Stena’s Head of On Board Services, also met the VisitScotland representatives during the course of the day. The result was that both parties were able to exchange freely ideas and thoughts, which can be used to improve customer service in the future for both organisations.
The key benefits of this visit were:
- learning from others on how they meet the criteria for Hospitality Assured
- practical ideas that can be replicated and out into practice
- a new network to refer to and learn from in the future
- though you can read about an organisation or hear a speaker at a conference, there is nothing better than seeing at first hand what a company practices and preaches. During the course of the visit, Stena showed that all staff are enthusiastic and passionate about providing great customer service. That in itself was inspirational.
In summary, this visit showed the benefit of learning from others pays off. It is one of the best ways to see how Hospitality Assured can be implemented in your own organisation or how you can continue to make improvements. A return visit is planned in the autumn for Stena to visit Visit Scotland’s head office and a couple of its Tourist Information Centres (TICs). Both companies hope to visit other organisations as part of the continual learning process.
Bright Light Marketing
Unit 7
Ettrick Riverside
Dunsdale Road
Selkirk
TD7 5EB
t 01750 505051
f 01750 505055
e info@brightlightmarketing.co.uk
w www.brighlightmarketing.co.uk