Project Up Dates

Maine TAC

October 24, 2006

Tourism & Hospitality Education

• Tourism Certificate Program – Hutchinson Center, Belfast– Fall 2006

• BUA 490 Hospitality Guest Service Internship• REP 254 Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management

– Spring 2007• BUA 370 Introduction to Marketing• REP 466 Internet for Small Business

– Other Courses• PRT 470 Principles of Tourism Management and Planning• REP 3## Tourism Economics • Elective

Longwoods International Partnership

• Key Features of the Agreement– Access to Data

• Raw Data • All Data But that for the Current Year

– Potential Uses for the Data include …• Regional Analyses Requiring Aggregation• Investigation of Special Topics not Requiring

Current Data• Student Projects

Longwoods International Partnership

• CenTRO’s Responsibility– Prepare the Partnership Agreement

Document– Process to Avoid Unwarranted Release of

Conflicting and Potentially Erroneous Conclusions

• Systematic Approach to Informing Researchers about the Appropriate Analyses of the Data

• Avoid conclusions resulting from artifacts of collecting and weighting the data to validly represent Maine’s tourism market(s)

Longwoods International Partnership

• Longwoods’ Responsibility– Document the Data

• Weighting• Alterations of Data Collection Methods &

Instruments

– Access to Personnel• Review Data Analysis before Release of

Potentially Controversial Conclusions

Customer Satisfaction Tracking

• Purpose– Micro Level: Feedback to Individual Businesses

regarding product quality• Businesses can monitor the quality of customer experience

– Macro Level: An Indicator of the Health of the Hospitality Industry and Tourism in Maine

• Pilot Test: Summer 2006– 4 Campgrounds, 2 Dropped Out– Incentive Panel Response Rate: 47%– Reminder Panel Response Rate: 22%

Customer Satisfaction TrackingContinued

• Data Collection Method– E-mail Invitation from Campground within week of check out– Respondent clicks through the hot link in the Invitation– Respondent Completes On-Line Questionnaire– Registers for the drawing for 2 $1000 LLBean Gift Certificates

(incentive panel only) – Single e-mail reminder (with hotlink) to complete the

questionnaire (reminder panel only) – Communication with Establishment Management

• Biweekly Update Reports on Response and Completion Rates

• Current Status– Drawing for the Incentives at Week’s End– Report to Participating Campgrounds in Development

Customer Satisfaction TrackingContinued

What Did We Learn?1. This Method Can Work Well2. Participation Requires Dedicated Managers at the Establishment

– Requires that Managements of Prospective Establishments Fully Understand the Benefits of Participation

– Regular communication with managers helps maintain commitment3. It Can Not be Supported with Web Mail

– Requires E-Mail Client Software, e.g., MS Outlook or Eudora4. Need to Work with Producers of Operations Management

Software to More Fully Automate the E-Mail Invitation Process5. An Incentive Seems to Be Important to Increasing Response

– Higher Response Rates may also be a result of the quality of the relationship between Tourist and Management Personnel

The Market for a North Maine Woods Ecotourism Resort

• Purpose– Example of One Step in Tourism R&D

Innovation Management Process The Innovation Pipeline

Innovation Management Process The Innovation Pipeline

IdeaGeneration

IdeaScreening

MarketingStrategy

BusinessAnalysis

ProductDevelopment

TestMarketing

Commercialization

ConceptDevelopmentand Testing

Kotler, Philip and Gary Armstrong (2006) Principles of Marketing, 11th Ed., Pearson-Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ., pg. 276

The Market for a North Maine Woods Ecotourism Resort

• Purpose– Example of One Step in Tourism R&D – Explore the Market for an Eco-tourism Resort – Estimate the Size of Market

• Method– Concept Development

• Qualitative Research• Focus Groups in Boston and Suburban Philadelphia

– Concept Test • Quantitative Research• On Line Concept Exposure & Data Collection

The Market for a North Maine Woods Ecotourism Resort

• Benefits– Size of the Market for a Unique Value Proposition in a

Portion of the State Less Favored by Main Stream Tourism

– Publication of Research Findings for Public Use

• Financing– Grant: Northern Forest Center– Match: University of Maine and New England Outdoor

Center

• Current Status– Waiting for Grant Approval