Conducting User Research project with recommendations for improvement of the overall experience at chain of luxury hotels on Mauritius.
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Beachcomber Hotels has seven hotels and resorts. The hotel's management wished to understand how their services were perceived by regular guests to the hotels, and I was there to provide this insight. Customer Experience Report from Luxury hotels on a tropical island: Mauritius is an Island in the Indian Ocean and also small, independent country who's main source of income is textile production, sugar canes and luxury tourism: During a period of 2 month I conducted a 3-part Customer Experience research plan, visiting six hotels as a regular customer, following up with interviews of management and staff as part of the field research phase, and gathered the information in a report, which was then presented to management, who then asked for a set of recommendations to follow the observations. Field research Initially I set the objectives for the report and prepared visiting six of the seven hotels: Royal Palm, Paradis, Shandrani, Trou aux Biches, Le Victoria and La Mauricia, over the course of a month, during which I would act as a regular visitor to each of the hotels, trying of as many of the hotel's services as possible. I would then interview the hotel manager and parts of the staff, and move on to the next hotel. Observations & Recommendations Based on my experiences as a "regular guest" and on the interviews I had made, I wrote the first report with my observations, which emphasized the cases of discrepancy between intended and actual experience. The report was presented to management, who then asked for a set of recommendations that could be used in procedures to improve service. This gave me an opportunity to visit the hotels again, this time to look for ways to meet and exceed customer expectations. "Recommendations" was delivered as the final part of the project. OUTCOME: The report were able to identify an opportunity to promote exchange of experiences BETWEEN hotels, so guests at other hotels in the same chain could be given access to more events and experiences. Guests would feel this as a huge benefit, but very few would actually make use of the option. Value was added at no expense. SKILLS IN ACTION:
References: Robert de Speville, Commercial Director at Beachcomber Hotels, Curepipe, Mauritius. |