Tour 2011 Miranda Hurren

Assignment One: Essay Student ID: 110165085

TOUR 2011

SERVICE MANAGEMENT IN TOURISM,

EVENTS & HOSPITALITY

STUDY PERIOD 2 2017

Assignment One: Essay

The importance of Customer Empowerment in Tourism
Services

Miranda Hurren
Student ID: 110165085
Word Count: 2284

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Tour 2011 Miranda Hurren
Assignment One: Essay Student ID: 110165085

THE IMPORTANCE OF CUSTOMER EMPOWERMENT

IN TOURISM SERVICES

The rise in technology, particularly the Internet and social media

has created a new platform of communication where people can
readily share opinions and write reviews, generating customer
empowerment as consumers know what they want before going to
the market. Thus it is imperative that tourism services value
customer empowerment to create what the market want and
remain competitive in their respective businesses. This essay will
seek to demonstrate just how significant customer empowerment is
by regarding its relationship with technology, analysing both the
positive and negative impacts it has on employees, customers and
organisations in tourism services and finally identifying how firms
can regulate customer empowerment by either maximizing positive
impacts or minimizing negative impacts.

The level of influence customer empowerment has on the design;

production, marketing and innovation of services will be assessed
with references to the sharing economy. Technology has had a
colossal impact on increasing customers empowerment in tourism
services, particularly the Internet and social media sites.
Customers use these platforms to write, share and search for
information about goods and services, in turn these interpersonal
relations impact customers online buying decisions (Sigala 2017, p.
1). Thus the sharing economy exists as a network of connected
individuals and communities who utilise online platforms to
facilitate exchanges, interactions and experiences (Sigala 2015, p.1
). Not only does the internet provide a communication platform for
individuals, but the growth of internet penetration has in turn
influenced lower IT prices and increased accessibility of

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Assignment One: Essay Student ID: 110165085

smartphones and Wi-Fi networks (Privitera 2016, p. 22), thus the

popularity of internet use to make bookings and reservations in
tourism services has increased.

Customer empowerment influences the design of tourism services

as the firm and consumers go through the creative process
collectively, sharing ideas and thoughts (Thallmaier 2015, p.10).
The Marriot successfully utilised co-design with their customers
through a crowdsourcing activity that encouraged participants to
express ideas that could improve the hotel experience (Marriott,
2013). As part of the two-way communication process the hotel
took these ideas on board to increase their understanding of
customers needs and expectations when selecting a hotel.
Technology certainly systemized this process making it more
accessible and less time consuming for The Marriot to undertake
the research with their customers.

Co-production is another element of customer empowerment that

has been made more accessible due to technology. Co-production is
evident when reviewing the Swedish retail chain IKEA who offer
affordable furniture, however at the expectation that their
customers transport and assemble their own furniture (Etgar
2009). Through this strategy customers become far more involved
in the production method, offering many benefits to both sides.
Customers feel a sense of accomplishment after building their own
furniture and receive good value for money. Meanwhile IKEAs
transportation and manufacturing costs are kept at a minimum.
Whilst technology is not an aspect the customers directly deal with,
it is a necessity behind the scenes of the system, ensuring things
run smoothly and enabling customers to seek help along the way if
they need.

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Tour 2011 Miranda Hurren
Assignment One: Essay Student ID: 110165085

Marketing demonstrates an area where technology has had a major

influence. Due to the technology of websites they have the ability to
collaborate information such as customer reviews, product
recommendations, user ratings, discussion forums and virtual
communities to enhance the way products are sold and purchased
(Spencer & Buffet 2012 in Sigala, M 2017). This influences
customer empowerment by transforming them into active
participants of the marketing, selling and purchasing network
(Sigala, M 2017, p.2). An example of harnessing the resources
available was seen in the campaign Love Great Britain, where
individuals were encouraged to share their photograph whilst
finding another random participant via their image. The fastest pair
to unite won a trip to London. The resulting outcome benefited
both parties as the participants won a free holiday and received
amusement from the campaign, whilst Love Great Britain had a
staggering amount of hits on their Facebook page and acquired
25,000 new fans (Visit Britain 2017). Once again without
technology to provide a platform in which consumers could
effortlessly engage with each other and the campaign directors,
this campaign would have not been feasible.

Research has demonstrated that customers seek to take part in the

creation process, offering improvements and influencing business
processes in various stages along the product development. This is
due to technology, which has allowed consumers to increase their
information base, self-efficiency and skills (Egger et al. 2016), thus
providing them with the self-confidence to become co-innovators.
Co-innovation is defined as the practice of developing systems,
products, or services through collaboration with customers,
managers, employees, and other company stakeholders (Egger et
al. 2016, p.8). The creation of Airbnb demonstrates an example of
co-innovation where consumers sought accommodation that
provided a level of homely comfort that traditional tourism services

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Tour 2011 Miranda Hurren
Assignment One: Essay Student ID: 110165085

such as hotels could not provide. As an innovative idea with a

technological base, Airbnb provided somewhat of a solution to this,
imitating homely feelings (Sigala, M 2017) as well as providing
authentic hospitality experiences, social interactions, amenities
and low prices (Sigala, M 2015).

Technology has encouraged customer empowerment and many

organisations have harnessed the opportunity to utilise customer
engagement for the benefit of their organization. However, positive
and negative impacts on employees, customers and the firm are
still present and need to be addressed when determining the
importance of customer empowerment in tourism services.

An increase in customer empowerment has provided many

positives for employees such as the ability to complete their job
tasks at a higher standard of quality, improved customer service
and greater job satisfaction. Delegation of activities to customers
can occur through customer empowerment, leading to greater
management efficiency and minimizing the number of tasks
companys employees must undertake (Pranic & Roehl 2012, p.
369). With organisations regarding customers as partial
employees (Pranic & Roehl 2012, p. 370) hence streamlining the
process by undertaking tasks, employees can dedicate more time
and effort to other tasks and produce higher quality results. An
additional positive is increased customer service. As online reviews
provide a platform for customers to express their opinions
regarding the service and goods they receive, employees are held
more accountable for the customer service they provide and
therefore are more consciously aware of the effort they put into
their performance in the service industry. However, this does carry
a negative side to it.

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Assignment One: Essay Student ID: 110165085

People are inclined to avoid situations they consider to exceed their

coping skills. Conversely, they involve themselves in situations they
feel they have the ability to handle (Pranic & Roehl 2012, p. 371)
Therefore, when feeling empowered and confident in their ability to
effectively articulate their complaints they do so, regularly at
expense of employees. Employees are expected to handle such
situations accordingly as dissatisfaction is not caused by the initial
failure to deliver the expected service but rather an employees
lack of appropriate response to the failure (Maxham 1999, p.244).
Often this requires emotional labour the display of organisational
desired emotion, such as friendliness by customer service workers
in their interactions with customers or clients (Anderson et al.
2002), dealing with complaints and undertaking emotional labour
regularly can negatively affect employees morale, have negative
health consequences and lead to burnout (Batram et al. 2012).

Empowerment in the service industry offers a wide range of

positives for customers. When customers invest time and money
into goods or services; which are often intangible and perishable
(OCass & Ngo 2011, p. 490), they expect the end result to reflect
the value in order to be satisfied. Empowerment allows the
customer to be more involved in the outcome of the product they
receive through co-production, co-design and co-innovation
strategies. Furthermore, with the ability to search and read
numerous information sources customers can to reduce their
transaction costs and risks (Sigala, M 2017). The end result of
having greater control and flexibility in the goods ands services
they purchase is a more personalized product or experience and
satisfied result.

Greater control and participation in tourism services also poses

negative attributes for customers by demanding more of their time
and effort. For example, when considering the IKEA example again,

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Assignment One: Essay Student ID: 110165085

some customers may enjoy building furniture, whilst others may

resent doing so, especially if repeated frequently (Etgar, M 2009,
p.1). Furthermore, customers need to ensure they have the correct
tools and appropriate vehicles to transport the furniture. All of
which exerts time and effort, which may have been preferred to be
spent with family and friends or partaking in recreational activities.
Thus they need to weigh up the costs of such resources with the
actual costs of their role in the process (Etgar, M 2009, p.1) to
determine whether or not it is worth it.

Customer empowerment benefits firms in the tourism industry as it

enables them to capture the behaviors and needs of customers
through different feedback processes. In turn this superior
understanding of their customers needs and expectations provides
them with the capability to satisfy expectations, build customer
support, enhance relationships, brand awareness and loyalty
(Sigala, M 2017, p.2). Doing so encourages customers to spread
positive feedback, both online and via word of mouth which in turn
improves the popularity of the service and increases their monetary
outcome.

Firms are also subject to negative consequences due to increased

customer empowerment. As power increases, it is presumed
customers raise their expectations due to increased ability to
demand more (Hunter & Garnefeld 2008, p.4). This puts additional
strain on firms to meet such expectations or risk receiving negative
backlash from the customers failed expectations. Recent research
states that currently many companies are yet to find ways to
effectively manage customer empowerment in order to get greater
performance benefits (Chernikov et al 2014, p.138).

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Tour 2011 Miranda Hurren
Assignment One: Essay Student ID: 110165085

In order to make the most of what customer empowerment has to

offer, tourism services need to incorporate strategies that maximize
the positive impacts and eliminate the negative impacts. These
strategies will be evaluated using online reviews as an example.

A major positive of customer empowerment exists in the form of

genuine, satisfied online reviews and spreading positive word of
mouth, which in turn encourages more people to use the service or
purchase the product. This concept is reflected in studies that
have shown an Airbnb hosts trustworthiness; reflected in reviews
from previous guests, heavily influences the decision to stay at the
accommodation (Sigala, M 2015, P.2). In order to maximize the
benefits from receiving positive reviews and encourage guests to
participate in reviews firms need to undertake management
practices such as trust building and managing customer reviews
(Sigala, M 2015, P.3). Whilst firms can reward customers for
participating in online feedback, it is discouraged to do so
publically as it increases the risk of individuals creating false or
misleading reviews in order to receive the benefits. Fundamentally,
at the heart of maximizing benefits is a firms respect it has for the
power of customer empowerment. If a firm is not processing
feedback and engaging with their consumers from the start,
positive reviews are less likely to exist.

Likewise, strategies exist which can help minimize any negative

effects of customer empowerment. Dissatisfied customers are likely
to leave negative reviews and an abundance of negatives reviews
about a tourism service or product is highly likely to deter any
future customers. Therefore, managing negative reviews is
paramount as customers who are dissatisfied, but experience an
excellent service recovery, may ultimately be even more satisfied
than before and more likely to remain loyal to the service provider
(Maxham 1999, p.244). Negative reviews should be dealt with

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Assignment One: Essay Student ID: 110165085

promptly and professionally, without aggravating the customer

further or denying responsibility. Customers should feel as though
they have been taken seriously and listened to, diffusing the
situation before it worsens. Unfortunately the nature of the
Internet allows dissatisfied individuals a sense of anonymity where
they can create false profiles to hide their identity and undertake
deviant customer behavior by writing false reviews (Sigala 2017,
p.3). Unfortunately cyber legislation is currently inadequate in
policing and detecting such profiles undertaking deviant behavior
(Sigala 2017, p.4). Therefore, potential consumers who are
undertaking research about a tourism service must be mindful of
potential false profiles or exaggerated reviews by taking
responsibility for their own research and taking the validity of
profiles into consideration. Moreover, individuals should be aware
that some firms can be deceitful and pay reviewers to create false
positive reviews or lobby travellers to do so, receiving discounts,
special offers and treatment in return (OConnor 2015 in Sigala
2017, p.3).

In summary, customer empowerment is a highly valuable

component of tourism services to customers, employees and firms
if conducted appropriately. Technology has had an immense impact
on tourism services as customers share opinions and write reviews,
influencing potential customers decisions to purchase a good or
service instantly. This communication network provided by the
Internet cannot be escaped, thus tourism services should embrace
the opportunities it provides and work collaboratively with their
customers through strategies such a co-design, co-production, co-
marketing and co-innovation. Companies that have welcomed these
tactics, such as IKEA and Airbnb are now reaping the benefits and
regarded as successful companies throughout the world. Whilst

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Tour 2011 Miranda Hurren
Assignment One: Essay Student ID: 110165085

customer empowerment is overall a benefit it needs to be

effectively managed to avoid negative impacts such as emotional
labour on employees, unrealistic expectations of customers and
dissatisfaction when they cannot be met. Unfortunately set rules
and guidelines do not currently exist when it comes to policing
such notions. However professional two-way communication
between all three stakeholders is the best way to achieve content
customers whom have had both flexibility and control throughout
the process as well as pleased firms and employees whose
workload has been systemized. Customer empowerment will
continue to positively affect the tourism industry if it is taken
seriously and with open minds that accept new creative processes.

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Tour 2011 Miranda Hurren
Assignment One: Essay Student ID: 110165085

REFERENCES

Anderson, B, Chappel, S, Provis, C & Tourism, CR 2002, The

recognition and management of emotional labour in the tourism
industry, CRC for Sustainable Tourism, Gold Coast, QLD

Bartram, T et al. 2012, Do perceived high performance work

systems influence the relationship between emotional labour,
burnout and intention to leave? A study of Australian nurses,
Journal of Advanced Nursing, vol. 68, no. 7

Chernikov, V, Kushch, S & Tikkanen, H 2014, Customer

Empowerment and Firm Performance: Benefits and Potential
Harm, Ideas in Marketing: Finding the New and Polishing the Old,
pp.138

Egger, R., Gula, I., & Walcher, D 2016, Open tourism: Open
innovation, crowdsourcing and co-creation challenging the tourism
industry, Springer pp.8-35

Etgar, M 2009, Ways of Engaging Consumers in Co-production,

Technology Innovation Management Review, viewed online 23
March < https://timreview.ca/article/307>.

Hunter, L & Garnefeld, I 2008, When does Consumer

Empowerment Lead to Satisfied Customers? Some Mediating and
Moderating Effects of the Empowerment-Satisfaction Link, Journal
of Research for Consumers, vol.1, no.15, p.4

Marriott 2013, Travel Brilliantly, Marriott Hotels, viewed online

March 23 2017, < http://marriott-hotels.marriott.com >.

Maxham, j 1999, Service recoverys influence on consumer

satisfaction, positive word-of-mouth, and purchase intentions,
journal of business research, vol 11, no.24, p. 244

OCass, A & Ngo, L 2011, Achieving customer satisfaction in

services firms via branding capability and customer empowerment,
Journal of Services Marketing, vol 25, no. 7, p. 489-496

Pranic, L & Roehl, W 2012, Development and validation of the

customer empowerment scale in hotel service recovery, Current
Issues in Tourism, vol 16, no. 4, pp. 369-371

Privitera, D 2016, Describing the collaborative economy: forms of

food sharing initiatives, Economic science for rural development,
pp. 21-22

11
Tour 2011 Miranda Hurren
Assignment One: Essay Student ID: 110165085

Sigala, M 2017, Collaborative commerce in tourism: implications

for research and industry, Current Issues in Tourism, vol.20, no.4,
pg.2

Sigala, M 2015, Entrepreneurship in the sharing economy and

implications on market formation: findings from the airbnb sharing
ecosystem, International Journal of
Tourism Research, pp.1-10

Sigala, M 2017, How Bad Justification and Normalisation of

Online Deviant Customer Behaviour, School of Management,
Business School, pp.1-9

Thallmaier, S.R 2015, Definition of Co-Design, A Study in the Mass

Customization Industry, p.10

Visit Britain 2017, Campaigns, viewed online 23 March 2017,

<https://www.visitbritain.com/au/en/campaigns/omgb#KG8HXfZez
YUYV4FJ.97>

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Tour 2011 Miranda Hurren
Assignment One: Essay Student ID: 110165085

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anderson, B, Chappel, S, Provis, C & Tourism, CR 2002, The

recognition and management of emotional labour in the tourism
industry, CRC for Sustainable Tourism, Gold Coast, QLD

Bartram, T et al. 2012, Do perceived high performance work

systems influence the relationship between emotional labour,
burnout and intention to leave? A study of Australian nurses,
Journal of Advanced Nursing, vol. 68, no. 7

Chernikov, V, Kushch, S & Tikkanen, H 2014, Customer

Empowerment and Firm Performance: Benefits and Potential
Harm, Ideas in Marketing: Finding the New and Polishing the Old,
pp.138

Egger, R., Gula, I., & Walcher, D 2016, Open tourism: Open
innovation, crowdsourcing and co-creation challenging the tourism
industry, Springer pp.8-35

Etgar, M 2009, Ways of Engaging Consumers in Co-production,

Technology Innovation Management Review, viewed online 23
March < https://timreview.ca/article/307>.

Gilmore, J & Pine, J 2002, Differentiating Hospitality Operations

via Experiences: Why Selling Services is not Enough, Cornell Hotel
and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, Vol. 43, Issue No. 3, p. 88

Hunter, L & Garnefeld, I 2008, When does Consumer

Empowerment Lead to Satisfied Customers? Some Mediating and
Moderating Effects of the Empowerment-Satisfaction Link, Journal
of Research for Consumers, vol.1, no.15, p.4

Marriott 2013, Travel Brilliantly, Marriott Hotels, viewed online

March 23 2017, < http://marriott-hotels.marriott.com >.

Maxham, j 1999, Service recoverys influence on consumer

satisfaction, positive word-of-mouth, and purchase intentions,
journal of business research, vol 11, no.24, p. 244

OCass, A & Ngo, L 2011, Achieving customer satisfaction in

services firms via branding capability and customer empowerment,
Journal of Services Marketing, vol 25, no. 7, p. 489-496

Pienaar, J 2008, Burnout, engagement, coping and general health

of service employees in the hospitality industry, Tourism
Management, vol. 29, no 6, pp. 1053-1063

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Tour 2011 Miranda Hurren
Assignment One: Essay Student ID: 110165085

Pine, BJ & Gilmore, JH 1999, 'Welcome to the experience economy',

Harvard business review, vol. 76, no. 4, p.12

Pranic, L & Roehl, W 2012, Development and validation of the

customer empowerment scale in hotel service recovery, Current
Issues in Tourism, vol 16, no. 4, pp. 369-371

Privitera, D 2016, Describing the collaborative economy: forms of

food sharing initiatives, Economic science for rural development,
pp. 21-22

Renuka, HP 2014, Impact of Emotional Labour on Employee Well-

being: A Conceptual Framework, Review of HRM, vol. 3, pp.21-27

Sigala, M 2017, Collaborative commerce in tourism: implications

for research and industry, Current Issues in Tourism, vol.20, no.4,
pg.2

Sigala, M 2015, Entrepreneurship in the sharing economy and

implications on market formation: findings from the airbnb sharing
ecosystem, International Journal of
Tourism Research, pp.1-10

Sigala, M 2017, How Bad Justification and Normalisation of

Online Deviant Customer Behaviour, School of Management,
Business School, pp.1-9

Thallmaier, S.R 2015, Definition of Co-Design, A Study in the Mass

Customization Industry, p.10

Visit Britain 2017, Campaigns, viewed online 23 March 2017,

<https://www.visitbritain.com/au/en/campaigns/omgb#KG8HXfZez
YUYV4FJ.97>

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