I love my country Ghana and I have always used the phrase ” I come from the land of gold and smiles each time I had to introduce my self anywhere in the world. This has gotten me to gain many admiration. While my country Ghana is humanitarian and has many great things, there are some very pertinent things that need attention.
So excited about the many festivals in Ghana and been drawn to one, I visited a website in the region where the festival would be taking place to book me a room. It took quiet some time to get the website to open and although I had to muster a lot of patience, the thrill of witnessing this festival was enough to get me to wait.
After successfully booking a room in the hotel, at least I thought I did, I expected to receive a confirmation email but never got one and so sent two emails to the hotel one via the website and another through my email with one giving me an auto response.
Not convinced that I would have a reservation by the time I arrived in Ghana, I contacted a very good friend in the industry to check on the reservation and be sure I had one. His investigations revealed that I didn’t have one.
While I was thankful that he had manually confirmed a place for me, I am very concerned about how much revenue this hotel is going to loose because they are not paying attention to detail. I am thinking how many potential customers out of frustration would end up canceling the entire trip.
Some travel companies in Ghana take too many things for granted, not sure if they realize how this affects the psyche of the potential customer who most likely would share with family and friends about their first impressions, in this case, bad experience. [contentad widget=”604777″]
I observed also that, although this hotel has a good outlook, it’s website was slow to open, and all their social media handles were not functional. They would have been able to solve most of these customer related challenges if they paid attention to this as this is the future of communication.
Well, my second challenge was an advertisement I read on twitter about the promotion of the Kundum festival. Again, it was worrisome to read that the cultural aspect of the festival was not been advertised and the focus was more on the party bit.
Sad to say that most people that attend festivals in Africa, come because of the uniqueness of the festival and do not come primarily to party, although the partying bit is also an influencer.
To get the tourism industry increasing in revenue, Ghana tour operators and the tourism board must pay attention to customer culture and be extra meticulous towards service delivery. The internet must be seen as an enabler and must be used proficiently to address customer concerns.
Source : https://blog.inkumsah.com
