Case Study of the Week: How to Bring Tourists to Cats?

Aug 14, 2023

Travel and Tourism

You are the director of marketing for Prairie Town Cat Sanctuary. Prairie Town is one of the top tourist destination cities in the world. The city is known for its amusement parks, water parks, museums and large zoo. Millions of people from around the globe visit Prairie Town each year.

Prairie Town Cat Sanctuary is located in the middle of the tourist district, nestled in the neighborhood filled with hotel and resort properties. While tourists do not travel to Prairie Town specifically to tour Prairie Town Cat Sanctuary, it relies on the tourist population.

Prairie Town Cat Sanctuary includes 20,000 square foot building, surrounded by 5-acres of enclosed land that houses more than 100 domestic cats ready for adoption. Prairie Town Cat Sanctuary charges customers a $10.00 admission fee for a 30-minute visit which includes cat treats and toys for increased cat interaction. All of the cats at the sanctuary are available for adoption and admission fees are used for cat care and building upkeep.

There are 100 hotel properties in the neighborhood that Prairie Town Cat Sanctuary is located. Each of the properties has the same 4:00pm check-in and 11:00am check-out times. These times lead to many hotel guests being displaced. Guests arrive to Prairie Town early and are unable to check-in until 4pm or guests must check-out by 11:00am but have later flights or train departures.

The executive director of Prairie Town Cat Sanctuary wants you to determine how to integrate better customer service practices to increase the number of daily visitors. The executive director wants you to identify possible customer needs, factors that lead to positive customer experiences and new reasons tourists would choose to visit the sanctuary.

In addition, the executive director wants you to develop promotional messages that will communicate your ideas to tourists visiting Prairie Town.

Questions?

Randi Bibiano
Competitive Events Specialist
randi@deca.org

Randi Bibiano is DECA's competitive events specialist. In this role, she conceptualizes and authors role-play scenarios for the collegiate and high school division’s competitive events programs. She also manages DECA's online competitive events and serves as a liaison to volunteer efforts at DECA's educational conferences.

Discussion Questions

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Classroom Connection

Career CLuster:

Hospitality and Tourism

Instructional Area(s):

Customer Relations

Performance Indicators:

Identify factors associated with positive customer experiences
Anticipate unspoken customer needs
Explain the nature of customer service in the hospitality and tourism industry
Develop promotional messages for targeted audiences