2014 in comparison to October 2013. This has resulted in a 100% increase for online sales since October last
year.
4.
Both the Irish national agency for tourism development and the Irish national standards authority are actively
promoting the Toolkits as is CEUD. In addition Visit England, the English tourism authority has adopted,
rebranded and reproduced the Toolkits and have developed their own case studies to demonstrate the business
value to tourism service providers in England.
T
RANSFERABILITY
, S
CALABILITY AND
C
OST
-E
FFICIENCY
Ireland’s Standard on Universal Design for Customer Engagement in Tourism Services (I.S. 373:2013), along with its
toolkits, can be easily adopted and adapted by other countries. The cost of standard and toolkit development are
relatively low, also their implementation.
F
UTURE
D
EVELOPMENT
(W
ITH
A
DDITIONS FROM THE
Z
ERO
P
ROJECT
T
EAM
)
The most important barrier to overcome is the continued uptake by tourism service providers. While the Toolkits are
designed to be easily adopted by tourism service providers on an ongoing basis and the case studies illustrate the
practical business benefits, it is important that more tourism service providers learn about the potential benefits and
ease of use of the Toolkits. The case studies have shown that many tourism service providers are eager to improve
customer communications but do not have the skills or resouces to do so. To this end, CEUD is continuing to work in
partnership with the head of standards and education in Fáilte Ireland, the state agency in charge of promoting tourism
in Ireland, and the national standards authority to promote use of the Toolkits. In 2015-2016, it is planned to develop
training based on the Toolkits and this training is expected to be rolled out to further 50 tourism service providers that
have expressed an interest in receiving such training. The Toolkits checklists, good and bad practice examples and easy
to follow guidance are ideal for on the job training.
W
EBSITE
:
(
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
)
NSAI
, Irish Standard I.S. 373:2013on Universal Design for Customer Engagement in Tourism Services
CEUD
, Toolkitson Customer Engagement in Tourism Services, 2013
Filmsabout the four case studies developed