Are we treating our visitors right?

The subject has been raised in recent times, connecting the negative attitudes of some towards Chinese house purchasers, and the potential impact on the country’s burgeoning Chinese tourist business. Tourism is one of the largest parts of our economy, and it is proper that there should be focus on elements that could be to it’s detriment. In the same way, we should cast critical examination on the impact intensive dairying has on our environment, and it’s potential to soil our clean environmental image.
 
There have been attempts to draw connections between the attitudes of some towards Chinese acquisition of homes and land, and that those attitudes could transfer to the way we interact with visitors. It is a valid concern, that visitor numbers could suffer because of the effect of these attitudes. And the quoting of surveys that show overwhelmingly visitors having positive experiences in New Zealand does  little to dampen that concern. Surveys are not only very often inaccurate, but the questions asked, and the way they are couched, can influence what the result portrays. There are negative attitudes in our community to many of the communities our visitors hail from, and these attitudes  could spill over to the visitors in person.
 
But my concern is far greater. It relates not only to customer service (and very often lack of it) in the visitor industry, but sales skills generally. We know that “sales” is not generally recognized as a skill in New Zealand. And that so often means that people purportedly in sales have no skills at the task. Worse – they don’t realise it.
 
What this translates to in the visitor sector is that very often the New Zealander visitors interact with are boorish, ignorant  and rude. Not just incompetent at their role, but far worse. In the visitor sector that translates to lost sales, but also a negative experience of the country for the visitor.

Unfortunately it is pervasive through our economy, and New Zealand really needs to grow up in this regard and realise that selling is a skill. It’s not just laying it out and hoping customers will buy. It’s creating atmosphere. It’s educating, enlightening and entrancing the potential buyer. And it is also understanding the client, their desires and needs and wants,and interacting with them.
Mostly it is about having a skill set and understanding what sales really means.
                                                                                              
Perhaps we need to start teaching sales as a tertiary skill?  And that sales skills should be compulsory passes for plumbers  and property graduates as well as shop assistants and bus drivers and hotel receptionists. Because we are all in sales. That might help save an economy from the perils of bad experiences.