You are here

Establishing tourist information centers

19 January, 2016 - 17:57

Tourist Information Centers (TIC) are the most important visitor service facility in a community. They are important because they frequently provide the initial contact with most tourists who visit a community, and because they have the opportunity and the responsibility for creating the first impressions a tourist will perceive. Therefore, it should be one of the first duties of the tourism organization to establish TICs in and near the community, provide them with complete information on the area, and staff them with well-trained personnel.

The Community TIC offers specific information about the local area, its attractions, events, facilities, and services. It also assists in gathering data about tourists, such as where they come from, how long they will stay, what brought them to the area, and other significant data that a community needs to assist in the development of its tourism plan.

As pointed out in a guide published important to the listener. The necessity of developing an understanding of who the tourists are, their problems, and motives was noted.

As pointed out in a guide published by the Texas Tourist Development Agency, most visitors or "passers-by" are strangers to the community and unaware of the variety of attractions offered. Therefore, the TIC must be able to provide complete information about the community. Types of information which should be available to tourists should be classified for easy reference, and could include most of the following major categories:

Accommodations (hotels, motels, campgrounds, hostels)

Auto repair garages

Attractions/amusements

Children's services churches

Cultural attractions (museums, galleries, lectures, musicals)

Complaint referrals

Community events

Directional information

Directories of:

Emergency information

Employment information

Entertainment

Foreign visitors and interpreters

Health services and hospitals

Historical sites, places, buildings

Local industry

Local government services

Local newspaper, radio and television services

Maps

Parking

Parks and recreational places (tennis courts, swimming pools, golf courses, horseback riding stables, and other sports information)

Restaurants (showing type, price range, reservations needed etc.)

Shopping information

Sightseeing services

Special tour services

Twenty-four-hour services

Transportation services

Of course, the TIC may expand this list of categories, or use only those which represent a large portion of the questions that are most often asked by tourists.

The initial compilation of the information represents a major commitment of staff time for researching, organizing, and determining the form in which the information is to be presented to the tourist. Therefore, it is important that the information be inclusive, accurate, up to date, easy to understand, and attractively presented.

The TIC makes it easy for travelers to get reliable answers to their questions and provides an excellent opportunity to sell them on the area's attractions as well as gather information about them. By placing a facility of this type in a central, easily reached location, one stands a good chance of stopping many travelers who might otherwise just drive through the community.

The information center should be placed strategically along the major route through your community—or at the intersection of major routes. It should be conveniently located at ground level with plenty of free parking space available. In congested areas reserved parking areas adjacent to the center should be arranged. By all means, keep the building and grounds attractive. If possible, provide for well-landscaped grounds.

The center could be located in a store, hotel/motel, or the Chamber of Commerce office. However, it is preferable to have it in a building of its own. It is not necessary to have much space as long as the center is attractive, easily recognized, and large enough to provide display racks for brochures on local and area attractions.

One approach is to have a center with an unusual type building—a tepee, covered wagon, log cabin, grist mill, replica of historic building (The Alamo or Judge Roy Bean's saloon perhaps). The center should be unusual and attractive on the inside as well as the outside. It must draw attention to itself. A large sign should identify it. Posters, photographs, and historic artifacts are appropriately displayed inside. Welcoming signs on the major routes to town should give the location and hours of operation. It is important that your staff, volunteers, or paid employees, be well-informed and enthusiastic individuals who understand their purpose and have a knowledge of and pride in their community.

media/image13.png
Figure 9.13 Tourist center must carry information on area activities. Panning for gold near Queenstown, New Zealand. 
(Courtesy New Zealand Tourist and Publicity Office.) 

Visitor centers can double as a reservation bureau for your hotels and motels. Often the hotels and motels help finance such projects and their operation. Alternatively, a leading hotel or motel can be sought out to donate the necessary space to the community or at least provide rent at a minimum rate.

In sum, hospitality and tourist information facilities are important in promoting the attractions of the community. Additionally they serve the important purpose of providing a method for surveying the tourist population. These are the places where valuable information can be gathered through registrations, questionnaires, and interviews with little contamination of data from the non-tourist or the risk of alienating the visitors (in this latter case they have voluntarily stopped which is far different from being stopped or interrupted as would be required in some information gathering situations).

The number and quality of the information centers in your community should be assessed. Do you have an information center and is it adequately attracting people to stop? Is the exterior and interior attractive and is it strategically placed and identified so visitors can be enticed to stop without feeling they have to go out of their way?

Comparing registrations at lodges, various attractions, or restaurants with the registrations at tourist information facilities will give a good index of how many take advantage of such facilities. Various questionnaires may be used to assess tourism and can include questions about visitor center usage and usefulness.

An additional role and service that the visitor center can play is providing the visitor something to do and see. The economic rewards of delaying the visitor one extra day is well known. The Texas Tourism Development Agency in the United States suggests that the community should encourage visitors to use the community as a base of operations for seeing all of the attractions within easy driving distance.