Top 3 Learnings From My Time In The Bahamas

The first thing I learned on our trip to the Bahamas is how much more analytic evaluating customer experience can be compared to what I thought it was before I took the class.  Before the class I thought customer experience analysis was just a series of exit surveys.  And the top one or two recurring complaints was what a company needed to focus on to improve customer retention.  I never thought there could be deeply analytical methods like online review analysis and participant observation that feed into a visual aid like the IPA graph.

The second thing I learned from our trip is how important effects of Climate Change are to certain regions of the world.  When the Bahamas was hit by Hurricane Matthew in 2016 it devasted their tourism industry.  Since tourism is the number one money maker it’s safe to say Hurricane Matthew devasted the livelihood for the majority of Bahamians.  Climate change is something I hear about especially living in DC but its effects are minimal on my way life.  Because of climate change we in DC endure harsher summers and harsher winters but our way of life isn’t going to change due to climate change.  In the Bahamas the opposite is true and long-term climate change is going to alter the tourism landscape.  One positive outcome I see as a result of climate change in the Bahamas is tourism spreading out from Nassau to the Out Islands.

The third thing I learned from our trip is how important the internet and specifically Trip Advisor is to marketing for the tourism businesses in the Bahamas.  Before the internet tourists had to rely on word of mouth or a tour guide to find out what attractions were available to see.  But with the advent of the internet tourists can now be their own tour guide.  A collection of negative reviews for these businesses is a death sentence because other attractions to visit are just a click away.  My group heavily relied on Trip Advisor to figure out where we wanted to go.