IPB University Ecotourism Study Program Provides Excellent Service Training for Mulyaharja Organic Agro Eduwisata Managers
Increasing tourist visits and creating visitor satisfaction and loyalty are important parts of a tourist destination. This is the reason for IPB University Vocational School lecturers from the Ecotourism Study Program (Prodi) to provide excellent service training to people who work at Agro Eduwisata Organik (AEWO), Mulyaharja Tourism Village, Bogor City, West Java.
Not only increasing visitor satisfaction, the excellent service provided will also have an impact on the loyalty of visitors who come to the tourist village located in South Bogor District.
IPB University Ecotourism Study Program lecturer, Dr Rini Untari delivered training materials to around 20 participants. They are residents who work at AEWO Mulyaharja who work as micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), ticket staff, area technical staff, housekeeping staff, and security staff, as well as farm women’s groups (KWT).
In the training, Dr Rini delivered introductory material on the importance of people working at AEWO understanding the needs and expectations of visitors who come to Mulyaharja Tourism Village. “Basic needs and functional needs also need to be known so that they can meet the expectations of visitors when they come to travel to this destination,” she said.
Dr Rini added, if visitors’ expectations are achieved beyond expectations then they will feel very satisfied and will come back, including recommending Mulyaharja tourism village destinations to family and others. Not only the needs and expectations of visitors, in the training activities, participants were also asked to practice related to excellent service that meets the principles of better, faster, new, cheaper, and simpler.
“Serving with heart is important in tourist destinations that involve the five senses, from greeting and giving a smile, looking by making eye contact, and listening actively,” explained the hooded woman.
In addition, she continued, visitor loyalty can be done through a communication media approach, building a customer centric team, and doing customer marketing. “Customer marketing can be done by giving simple rewards such as vouchers, free products or early access to major events in tourist destinations,” she concluded.
According to M Hoerudin Hermawan, one of the participants and also a manager at Mulyaharja Tourism Village, excellent service is not only knowledge, but also an evaluation material of the implementation activities that have been running so far. In this activity, the lecturer team involved were Ira Resmayasari, SSos, MPar, MTHM, Dr. Helianthi Dewi, and Bedi Mulyana, SHut, MPar, MMCAP. (*/Rz) (IAAS/Aly)
