Enhancing Customer Service Through Communication in Tourism

This essay discusses the importance of customer service in the travel and tourism industry, highlighting the role of effective communication in enhancing customer satisfaction. It emphasizes that the hotel business heavily relies on the satisfaction levels of customers and the ability of employees to provide excellent services. The essay identifies three major elements of customer service: expanding the definition of services, understanding customer demands, and developing a customer-friendly approach. It explores both formal and informal communication methods within the workplace, emphasizing that informal communication helps sustain relational connections with customers, fostering knowledge sharing and improving the effectiveness of the workforce. The essay concludes that a balance of formal and informal communication is crucial for attaining customer satisfaction, improving employee productivity, and enhancing the overall reputation of the hotel.

Running head: CUSTOMER SERVICE IN TRAVEL AND TOURISM
Customer service in travel and tourism
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

2CUSTOMER SERVICE IN TRAVEL AND TOURISM
In today’s world, the importance of customer service is undeniable and that is acknowledged
by the business leaders operating in various industries. As the hotel business is totally dependent
on the satisfaction level of the customers and the ability of the employees to provide services to
the customers; there is immense importance of customer service policies in the hotel businesses.
It can be seen that three major elements of customer service are expanding the definition of
services provided to the customers, knowing the demands of the customers and the last one is
developing a customer friendly approach within the business organization (Quintanilla & Wahl,
2015).
While building a customer friendly approach within the organization maintaining
communication and relationship among the employees of the company and the target customers
is vital for ensuring the best interests of the business organization. In this scenario, it can be said
that communication plays a significant role in building and sustaining a good relationship among
the employees and management of the company with the customers of the company (Rhee &
Yang, 2015). Communication within the workplace can be of two types and those are formal and
informal communication. It can be said that formal communication is a sort of communication
that is predefined by the management of the hotel when a new employee joins. In the induction
training the new employees of the hotel gets to know how a formal communication takes place
between a customer and an employee of the business organization (Tuntirattanasoontorn, 2018).
The aim of establishing a formal communication system within the workplace is to convey
messages from the top leadership of the company to the employees of the grassroots level. It can
be said that the management of the hotel should use both formal and informal type of
communication within the business organization in order to experience more productivity along
with profitability (Mohammed et al., 2016). In this regard, it should be mentioned that in the

3CUSTOMER SERVICE IN TRAVEL AND TOURISM
workplace, especially under hotel environment informal interaction or communication more
appropriately serves the purpose of the management (Pan, 2015). It is seen that informal type of
communication within the workplace actually helps to sustain a relational communication with
the customers of the company. Informal communication can take place in any stage of the
workplace, be it among the employees or with the customers of the company. The major aim of
sustaining an informal communication within the organization is to maintain a cordial relation
with all the stakeholders of the organization and also to maintain a good relation with the
customers of the company. Presence of informal communication within the workplace can
effectively help to maintain a sharing of knowledge that can effectively increase the
effectiveness of the general workforce of the hotel which will contribute to the profitability of
the enterprise (Luturmas & Indarti, 2016).
In this regard, it is worthwhile to mention that informal communication within business
organization is all about maintaining relationships which is necessary in the service industry as
the profitability and reputation of a hotel majorly dependent on the relation between all the
stakeholders of the company including the target customers. It is seen that in the workplace
informal communication can pick up where formal discussions end and establishing a good
informal communication serves various purposes within a hotel organization. it is a matter of fact
that in today’s world, communication is vital than ever as in today’s market due to increased
rivalry in the market of operation all the business organizations are trying to gain competitive
advantage on each other and this is increasing the importance of maintaining a good system of
communication within the workplaces (Law, Buhalis & Cobanoglu, 2014).
It can be said that to attain customer satisfaction within the hotel there should be presence of
both formal and informal type of communication. It can be said that by establishing formal

4CUSTOMER SERVICE IN TRAVEL AND TOURISM
communication within t workplace, the management can ensure that the orders and messages are
reaching up to the general employees regarding what the management expects from them
(Dzhandzhugazova et al., 2016). On the other hand establishing informal communication is
necessary as it can effectively negate the confusions of the employees of the organization and it
can give a boost to the sharing of knowledge that can improve the effectiveness of the entire
workforce.
Situations in the workplace Formal communication Informal communication
Forwarding orders from
hierarchy

Forwarding assigned tasks 
Sharing of knowledge 
Eradicating confusions of the
employees
 
Establishing good relation with
customers

Understanding the demands of
the customers

Eradicating the grievances of the
customers

Relevance of formal and informal communication within the hotel
Source: created by author
It can be said that when the customers of the hotel receives a good behavior from the
employees of the organization and experiences that the effort put in by them is commendable to

5CUSTOMER SERVICE IN TRAVEL AND TOURISM
be able to provide services to them; the customers generally leave a good review that enhances
the reputation of the company (Beldona, Schwartz & Zhang, 2018). It can be said that a good
communication within the workplace can effectively help the customers to understand the
perspectives of the management and can get an overall idea regarding what services they can
expect from the management of the organization. It can be said that presence of effective
communication within the business organization that operates in travel and tourism company
specifically. It is a matter of fact that the management of the hotel should stress on increasing the
communication within the workplace so that the relation with the customers get increased and at
the same time the productivity of the general workforce gets improved.

6CUSTOMER SERVICE IN TRAVEL AND TOURISM
References
Beldona, S., Schwartz, Z., & Zhang, X. (2018). Evaluating hotel guest technologies: Does home
matter?. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, (just-
accepted), 00-00.
Dzhandzhugazova, E. A., Kosheleva, A. I., Gareev, R. R., Nikolskaya, E. Y., & Bondarenko, A.
P. (2016). Business administration in hotel industry: problems and solutions (by the
example of the Russian Federation). International Journal of Applied Business and
Economic Research, 14(14), 651-660.
Law, R., Buhalis, D., & Cobanoglu, C. (2014). Progress on information and communication
technologies in hospitality and tourism. International Journal of Contemporary
Hospitality Management, 26(5), 727-750.
Luturmas, J. R., & Indarti, N. (2016). Underlying Factors of Attitude and Intention Towards Knowledge
Sharing Among Employees: the Case of the Hotel Business in Ambon, Indonesia. Journal of
Indonesian Economy and Business: JIEB., 31(3), 292.
Mohammed, I., Guillet, B. D., Schuckert, M., & Law, R. (2016). An empirical investigation of
corporate identity communication on Hong Kong hotels’ websites. Journal of Hospitality
Marketing & Management, 25(6), 676-705.
Pan, F. C. (2015). Practical application of importance-performance analysis in determining
critical job satisfaction factors of a tourist hotel. Tourism Management, 46, 84-91.
Quintanilla, K. M., & Wahl, S. T. (2015). Business and professional communication: keys for
workplace excellence. Sage Publications.

7CUSTOMER SERVICE IN TRAVEL AND TOURISM
Rhee, H. T., & Yang, S. B. (2015). How does hotel attribute importance vary among different
travelers? An exploratory case study based on a conjoint analysis. Electronic
markets, 25(3), 211-226.
Tuntirattanasoontorn, N. (2018). Service quality improvement in the Thai hotel industry. AU
Journal of Management, 6(1), 24-37.