TOWARDS A MODEL OF NEW SERVICE DEVELOPMENT FOR DIFFERENTIATED TOURISM SERVICES

As tourism services become increasingly competitive and the life expectancy of many services becomes shorter, there is a need to both develop new services and enhance existing services. The process for new service development remains a difficulty for most tourism firms and in particular for SME’s who may be deficient in the skills necessary for service development Pikkemaat & Peters (2005). The perceived difficulty in the creation of new services is due in no small part to the fragmented and limited nature of research on the subject (Stevens & Dimitriadis, 2005) and the contention that empirical studies have not yet reached consensus on a well formalised New Service Development (NSD) process (Menor et al., 2002).The purpose of this paper is to address this knowledge gap by identifying the activities and resources necessary to develop new services in a tourism context. It is the author’s assertion that the development of tourism services requires a model tailored to the specific characteristics of the sector. This paper proposes to develop a conceptual model of NSD which will include applicable components of existing NSD and New Product Development (NPD) models, but will also add new components to reflect the specific characteristics and challenges of NSD in the tourism industry. It is anticipated that the study will make a significant contribution to both academic knowledge and tourism practice by addressing deficiencies in both tourism and service development literature and will assist practitioners in appreciating the stages and factors that should be considered in developing differentiated new services. This mini case study’s primary aim was to build an understanding of the components of the experience concept at the Guinness Storehouse and to understand the process by which it was achieved. The following are a summary of the elements of the Storehouse experience concept: a scripted theme, authentic physical elements, a range of emotions including excitement, surprise, pleasure and personal control, tiered levels of knowledge transfer, sensory stimulation, brand connection & emotional engagement. The experience is supported by activities including the use of mobile elements, knowledgeable and engaging staff, the interactive use of mixed media, and the active solicitation of customer feedback