The Canberra and Capital Region Tourism Awards set a benchmark for innovation and lead the tourism awards nationally by providing comprehensive visitor experience assessments as a crucial component of the awards judging process. The concept ensures the awards are influenced by consumer perceptions and, importantly, the visitor experience offered by the entrant.
Each tourism business is anonymously visited twice by a professionally trained ‘Mystery Shopper’ who assesses them against categories that have been identified as essential for a desirable visitor experience. It covers diverse elements of service delivery, signage, availability of material on tourism, as well as elements of pre and post visitor experience. The process has been developed to ensure visits and evaluations are objective and independent and the assessors are asked to provide additional commentary in their reports to support their findings.
For award categories where a Visitor Experience Appraisal is relevant, the results are combined with the submission and site visit to generate an overall score. Businesses can also choose to enter the Canberra and Capital Region Tourism Awards under the Visitor Experience Appraisal category, which provides direct access to this mystery shopping component. The top three Visitor Experience Appraisal results are recognised at the Gala Awards Dinner. All of the results and reports from Visitor Experience Appraisals remain confidential and are only discussed and made available to the business operator, the Canberra and Capital Region Tourism Awards judging panel and the Tourism Awards Coordinator as part of the judging process.
Entrants involved in the Visitor Experience Appraisal program receive:
Two Visitor Experience Appraisals
Reports on each appraisal
A one-on-one debrief
This process has a full retail value of $1,530.
The following tourism product types are currently covered under the Visitor Experience Appraisal program:
Attractions
Accommodation
Winery Cellar Doors/ Breweries/ Distilleries
Tours
Visitor Centres
Restaurants
Note: Additional questionnaires will be created where necessary.
Feedback from 2009 Canberra and Capital Region Tourism Awards entrants on the Mystery Shopping process.
1. Have you found this process beneficial for your business?
Yes – Able to give feedback to my staff to improve our customer service.
Yes – An honest and independent assessment of our work.
Yes – The process highlighted how important certain aspects of our business, such as host interaction, are to visitors. The process also highlighted just how high some people’s expectations are of our business.
Yes – Always good to get an outsiders perspective on our product.
2. How will you use the results from the Visitor Appraisals?
To improve customer service and also staff morale and training.
To further develop the way we deal with our clients.
We had already acted on issues that were raised, such as our website, but will be sharing the responses with our team to ensure we are all aware of what customer expectations are for the business.
To reiterate some of the things that are already in place and continue to meet those standards.
Visitor Experience Appraisal
Each tourism business is anonymously visited twice by a professionally trained ‘Mystery Shopper’ who assesses them against categories that have been identified as essential for a desirable visitor experience. It covers diverse elements of service delivery, signage, availability of material on tourism, as well as elements of pre and post visitor experience. The process has been developed to ensure visits and evaluations are objective and independent and the assessors are asked to provide additional commentary in their reports to support their findings.
For award categories where a Visitor Experience Appraisal is relevant, the results are combined with the submission and site visit to generate an overall score. Businesses can also choose to enter the Canberra and Capital Region Tourism Awards under the Visitor Experience Appraisal category, which provides direct access to this mystery shopping component. The top three Visitor Experience Appraisal results are recognised at the Gala Awards Dinner. All of the results and reports from Visitor Experience Appraisals remain confidential and are only discussed and made available to the business operator, the Canberra and Capital Region Tourism Awards judging panel and the Tourism Awards Coordinator as part of the judging process.
Entrants involved in the Visitor Experience Appraisal program receive:
This process has a full retail value of $1,530.
The following tourism product types are currently covered under the Visitor Experience Appraisal program:
Note: Additional questionnaires will be created where necessary.
View the 2011 Canberra and Capital Region Tourism Awards assesment process
Feedback from 2009 Canberra and Capital Region Tourism Awards entrants on the Mystery Shopping process.
1. Have you found this process beneficial for your business?
2. How will you use the results from the Visitor Appraisals?