The list of challenges facing Branson as the 2008 tourist season starts, includes gas prices, rising prices for food and just about everything else, the general economy and its impact on the willingness of people to travel, localized flooding, etc. Yet, there is another challenge that is equally as important, the challenge of having a workforce that insures that visitors to Branson have an experience that will bring them back again.
Branson spends millions of dollars on marketing to bring people to Branson and entrepreneurs spend millions of dollars building lodging, restaurants, theatres, attractions, shopping and other facilities to meet the needs of those visitors while they are in Branson. In addition, the Branson area has a variety of outdoor activities from fly fishing to golf that should be the envy of any of her competitors. Yet at the end of the day, what will determine the ultimate success of Branson is the interface between the visitor and Branson’s workforce.
The first, and most obvious situation, is the actual one on one personal contact between a member of the Branson workforce and a visitor as that person provides a service directly to the visitor. That personal contact may come through serving a meal, checking someone in at a hotel, guiding on a fishing trip, ushering at a show, taking tickets at an attraction or anyone of a myriad of other activities where the experience the Branson visitor is going to have is directly related to a personal interaction with a member of Branson’s workforce.
The second and not so obvious situation is where there is no direct personal contact between a member of Branson’s workforce and visitors because the service provided is done so behind the scenes and generally requires no direct contact with visitors. These situations would involve cooks, food prep personnel, dishwashers, grounds keepers, maintenance personnel, and the many other services that generally do not involve personal interaction between the person providing the service and the visitor.
As an example, a Branson visitor and their family decide to eat at one of Branson’s fine restaurants. From the time they walk through the door until the time they leave, the experience they will have is not in the direct hands of the investors or owners, who may have spent hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars building the facility and a bundle more for its daily operating costs, it’s in the hands of Branson’s workforce.
From the greeter to the cashier taking the payment, the experience that the visitor has will, by direct or indirect contact, be influenced, either positively or negatively, by a member of Branson’s workforce. A cheerful competent server who is able to communicate with the visitor will more than likely generate a more pleasurable experience than one who is grouchy, not competent, or can’t communicate effectively with the visitor. If the visitor looks at their utensils and finds them dirty that sets the stage for an experience that would be different than if they were clean.
The adequacy of Branson’s workforce starts with having enough people to provide the level of services that Branson’s guests expect and will make them want to return. It’s not just a numbers game. The key words are “the level of services that Branson’s guests expect.”
If that doesn’t happen, for whatever reason, not a large enough workforce to provide the services, inadequate employee selection, training, or supervision etc., the millions spent on marketing and things for visitors to do when they get to Branson will have been spent in vain. At the end of the day, for most people, it is the quality and performance or Branson’s workforce that will determine the experience they have and whether or not they will return to Branson.
