Measuring customer feedback in tourism

The Times referred editorially (June 7) to the importance of customer feedback with respect to Malta's all-important tourism industry. It also lamented the fact that we do not seem to know anything about such a matter as there is no data to tell us in detail how we feature in the minds of our million odd guests each year. The reality is far different from that portrayed.

Since 1992, the Malta Tourism Authority and its predecessor, the National Tourism Organisation - Malta, through their research division, have uninterruptedly been carrying out a number of surveys precisely aimed at collecting, among other things, feedback on the experience of the different visitor flows coming to the island.

Such data is generally available on a quarterly basis and relates to tourists arriving from the major geographical source markets of the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Scandinavia and Austria. Volumes from these markets account for about three-quarters of the total tourist influx into Malta in any given year.

Besides these surveys, which aim at obtaining visitor feedback on the overall experience of the Maltese islands, the MTA's research also evaluates visitors' experience through a number of specific locality surveys, targeting both leisure resorts as well as places of historical and cultural interest visited by tourists to Malta and Gozo.

These "location surveys" cover the coastal areas of Sliema, St Julians, St Paul's Bay, Bugibba and Qawra, Marsascala, Mellieha and Xlendi as well as the historical and cultural centres of Valletta, Vittoriosa, Mdina and Victoria.

In order to complement this research, surveys relating to the evaluation of specific events are also regularly carried out. Events covered include the Malta Fireworks Festival, the Malta Historic Cities Festival and the Mediterranean Food Festival.

It is not the scope of this brief contribution to provide highlights of research findings. However, it may be interesting to dwell on the types of questions which visitors are asked in these surveys, in order to enable The Times readers to understand the quality and quantity of the indicators forthcoming from this research.

The nationality surveys contain a specific section which asks respondents to rate a number of aspects of their trip to Malta in terms of both the physical environment and the service provided.

These include Malta International Airport, the Gozo ferry terminals, accommodation, restaurants, entertainment, car hire, taxi service, public transport, beaches, guided tours, historical sites, museums, roads and road signs, traffic, parking, public conveniences, levels of cleanliness, sea quality and a host of others.

The locality surveys, on the other hand, aim to establish an evaluation of visits to particular localities and differentiate between leisure localities, which generally (though not necessarily), coincide with the location where the respondent's accommodation is located and historical/cultural localities, which are usually the subject of a specific visit by respondents.

In such surveys, aspects such as the length of visit to a locality and a critical evaluation of the facilities utilised or visited during the sojourn are measured.

The question which will invariably be asked in the face of all this information is: "Who actually uses this data?"

Internally, it assists the MTA's directorates in fine-tuning their actions whether those aimed at the demand side, by the marketing and promotion directorate or those aimed at the supply side, particularly through the product-planning and development and the enforcement directorates.

The surveys also provide the MTA with useful data for its deliberations with other components of the public service and the private sector relative to the shortcomings in the tourism offer which require corrective action. Moreover, the data provides important information in support of the inter-ministerial tourism committee role to address wider-ranging tourism issues in a more coordinated manner than previously possible.

Mr Vella is the MTA's head of research.