ARTICULATING SERVICE CONCEPT TO ENHANCE TOURISM EXPERIENCE DESIGN

ARTICULATING SERVICE CONCEPT TO ENHANCE TOURISM EXPERIENCE DESIGN Identifying the nature of Irish Tourism experience is recognised as being of primary importance in the formulation of tourism policy and in the shaping of an enhanced competitive position for the industry (OECD, 2004), however tourism service managers often have difficulty articulating the true nature of their service concept (Fitzsimmons & Fitzsimmons, 2004). The definition of service concept is a fundamental part of the strategic advantage seeking processes of service design, service development and service innovation (Tax & Stuart, 2004). In response to the competitive imperative for improved tourism product development, this paper will develop a conceptual model of the components of a service concept, an experience concept and the process by which the tourism experience concept can be articulated. There exist varied definitions of the components of a service concept from both service marketing, e.g. Lovelock & Wright (1999) 8 P’s, and service operations perspectives, e.g. Clark, Johnston & Shulver (2000) and there is also considerable literature on the subject of service experience components. Experiences create added value by engaging and connecting with customers in a personal and memorable way (Fitzsimmons and Fitzsimmons, 2004) and progress the economic value of the organisations’ market proposition (Pine & Gilmore (1998)). As services are driven to become more experiential and therefore increasingly intangible, the articulation of service concept invariably becomes more difficult but also more necessary. The objective of this paper is to examine the existing theories and frameworks of the components of services and experiences and to identify areas of commonality and/or divergence. From this understanding of the components of an experience, a preliminary conceptual model of the process service providers should follow in seeking to better define and articulate their tourism experiences will be developed. Pine & Gilmore (1998) assert that developed nations have moved beyond the notion of a service economy to a the idea of an experience economy and that the ability to design effective systems for the creating desired customer experiences has become increasingly important for competitive advantage. Articulating Service concept is a fundamental part of improved Tourism service des