Project Up Dates

1
Project Up Dates

• Maine TAC
• October 24, 2006

2
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

3
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

4
Longwoods International Partnership

• CenTROs 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 Maines tourism market(s)

5
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

6
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

7
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 Weeks End
• Report to Participating Campgrounds in Development

8
Customer Satisfaction TrackingContinued

• What Did We Learn?
• This Method Can Work Well
• 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 commitment
• It Can Not be Supported with Web Mail
• Requires E-Mail Client Software, e.g., MS Outlook
  or Eudora
• Need to Work with Producers of Operations
  Management Software to More Fully Automate the
  E-Mail Invitation Process
• 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

9
The Market for a North Maine Woods Ecotourism
Resort

• Purpose
• Example of One Step in Tourism RD

10
Innovation Management Process The Innovation
Pipeline
Idea Generation
Kotler, Philip and Gary Armstrong (2006)
Principles of Marketing, 11th Ed.,
Pearson-Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ.,
pg. 276
11
The Market for a North Maine Woods Ecotourism
Resort

• Purpose
• Example of One Step in Tourism RD
• 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

12
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