As you know, my chosen attraction is an aquarium. Due to this unique nature of holding over 800 live species of marine animals, dolphins and over 200 sharks, it can face challenges and difficulties in countering service tangibles. In this entry, I will hence analyse some of my observations in context of a service product.
Firstly, the aquarium can only deliver the marine life to visitors to a certain extent as these are animals and not tangible products like rides in a theme park.
Hence, visitors might not feel entirely satisfied or might feel disappointed by their expectations.
Example, some might expect open aquariums or an available diving experience but the lack of these elements might let them feel unsatisfied afters.
However, the attraction has combined both tangibles and intangibles to counter the possible challenges of being an aquarium.
As mentioned from entry 2, staffs are readily involved in providing and delivering to the customer's experience. Although the staff are unable to bring majority of the marine animals to you physically, they educate you. This way, you can relate and learn by observing the nature of these animals as they educate.
Though majority marine animals cannot be brought to us physically, the "Touch pool" feature present is a good example of how S.E.A Aquarium counter such service issues.
As seen before in entry 2, the staffs are bringing boring "textbooks/knowledge" to life. Like the malay staff holding the picture, visitors especially children can easily understand his explanations of the starfish. Visitors are encouraged by the friendly staffs to engage in a hands on experience to feel "closer" to these marine animals.
What more, their positive and helpful service nature add on to the pleasing environment and service experience of the attraction as a whole. Customers like myself enjoy and feel more pleased to be surrounded by friendly and approachable staffs.
Secondly, like every customer, we all have demands of needs and wants. Each customer has a different perspective, expectation, and experience.
Like myself that did pre-visit research, I gain many first hand knowledge of the attraction before visiting. This gives me an idea of what to expect and perhaps expectations of what others raved about. The reviewed open ocean gallery raved as the world's largest did not disappoint me as it was indeed humongous when I visited.
However, some customers that could have past experiences from other aquariums could expect more. Like in some reviews I had read, some were disappointed as they compared it with previous larger scale aquariums they have visited.
Therefore, S.E.A Aquarium has to face the difficulty of keeping up with being consistent. In terms of providing the all rounded aspects ranging from services, variety of marine life, facilities to other products like souvenirs made available.
Example, what they brand, promote and advertise on their official website, and host websites should be what they can deliver. The open ocean gallery can be an example to illustrate this as it is highly raved worldwide of how huge the viewing window is.
Also, vast amounts of people review on this attraction, hence they have to live up to their reputation and expectations created by past visitors.
Example, clean aquariums should be maintained to achieve a high standard and keep the fishes healthy. From what I observe, it's been done.
This is one of the many scuba diver that was cleaning and maintaining the aquarium during operating hours. Giving customers the impression that they maintain their aquariums standards.
Nonetheless, I would still say that it is indeed a huge challenge to keep up with customer expectations and demands. Due to the mass market mix and large scale size of many different elements. Not all customers can be pleased and satisfied.
Thirdly, the large scale attraction is home to vast amounts of marine life. It is difficult to keep up with its consistency of providing every species to display.
Some marine animal like the dolphins might not be able to thrive in this man-made habitat. Hence some might fall sick or even die.
The service product of an aquarium is not standardized and changes all the time.
The good team of staffs could possibly only be temporary where people come and go. Eventually newer staffs might not possess the same disposition and attitude as good as this batch.
Other visitors at the attraction can also contribute to the atmosphere of the place. On unfortunate days, inconsiderate customers could leave other victimized visitors a bad impression of the place.
Therefore uncontrollable factors like the lives of the marine animals or visitor crowds could post a challenge to the attraction in trying to standardize itself.
Fourthly, since an attraction runs on ticket sales and normally operates daily , lost sales or unsold tickets are unavoidable. On non-peak periods, the Aquarium could receive lousy sales but still needs to operate the entire attraction.
This can be profit losing since this large scale place requires expensive, specific and controlled habitats for the marine life. Lost sales in a day cannot be retrieved back, hence making it a perishable product.
Supply and demand is difficult to balance as demand is seasonal and unpredictable.
Fifthly, the live marine animals cannot be brought home as souvenirs or pets. Customers especially children might demand animals to be sold to them and this can affect the overall mood of the visiting family.
However, the attraction managed to counter this by providing ample amounts of souvenirs sold. Example, Shark soft toys as such.
Also, the aquarium face the difficulty of promoting to potential customers.
Example, It can be challenging to convince experienced aquarium visitors to visit as you cannot experience the product without visiting itself. This fact might deter potentials as they might fear that it will disappoint them.
Also, buying the ticket is buying an overall experience minus the available souvenirs. Unsatisfied visitors cannot get a refund/exchange of their "experience" for a new product.
Hence S.E.A Aquarium has to make sure the overall experience delivered to customers are up to expectations and satisfaction each time it operates.
Lastly, the surroundings of the aquarium plays a part in adding to the visitor's experience.
Not everything appeals to everyone, hence the design and layout of the attraction must be carefully thought out to be functional yet appealing.
Especially an enclosed attraction that attracts large numbers of visitors, human traffic could be a serious problem.
Like from my experience, the attraction has designed a roundabout type of layout. Although aesthetically appealing and easy for users to reach each destination.
It however slows down traffic flow as people do not have alternative routes. Everyone has to go with the flow to reach the next section. Therefore this poses a challenge of managing human traffic flow to S.E.A Aquarium.
Also, due to the factors of different controlled habitats needed for the animals, design can be difficult to appeal both visitor and animals.
Example, for safety reasons, viewing panels must be thick enough to hold the water enclosure, yet be clear enough for visitors. Hence this must be countered as well.
In conclusion, every attraction face several challenges as a service product. Like the S.E.A aquarium, many difficulties must be countered. However, some can be overcome with advanced planning. Overall, I feel that this attraction has managed to counter issues as mentioned, but there are always improvements to be made.
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