Visitor information centres’ contribution towards creating memorable visitor experiences

Abstract

Information exchange is a process through which information, experience and skills are exchanged among stakeholders. While studies acknowledge the role of VICs in enhancing memorable visitor experiences, it remains unclear how the experiences that visitors have at VICs contributes to the dimensions of Kim, Ritchie & McCormick’s (2012) Memorable Tourism Experience (MTE) (hedonism, novelty, local culture, refreshment, meaningfulness, involvement, and knowledge). The pur5pose of the paper is to ascertain whether the experiences that visitors have at VICs contribute to their memorable experiences at visited areas. The paper also intends to determine the factors in the VIC experience that are statistically significant predictors of visitors’ experience of the dimensions of MTE A total of 152 self-completed, structured questionnaires were collected from visitors to government-owned VICs in South Africa. The results show that the experience that visitors have at VICs contributes to the dimensions of MTE at visited areas. More specifically, vistors’ experience of VIC information quality, information resources, ICTs, staff knowledge and customer service contributed to the MTE at visited areas. The results are important in enabling VICs to create an environment that contributes to memorable visitor experiences at visited areas. They will help VIC managers to fulfill their enhancement and information provision function by delivering experiences in VICs that contribute to memorable experience at visited areas and in turn encourage visitors’ intention to revisit these areas.