Tourism is the biggest industry in the world, hundreds and thousands of people travel and visit other places every year, so there are a great number of features involved in it, which become a complex tourism system. Therefore, tourism management or not can lead to satisfactory or unsatisfactory visitor experiences, and conversely, good or bad visitor experience would enhance or weaken visitor management. So I will discuss visitor management, visitor experience and the relationship between them, with reference to the four stages of visitor experience.
The actual visitor experience begins with visitor's planning and decision-making, during their journey out, when they stay at the destination or attraction, during their journey home, to their memories after they finish their travel. It is a complex process, which is composed of a variety features, such as the figure 1 illustrates: (Ryan, C,1997), a good or bad visitor experience is influenced by all of them. .
Figure 1.
Therefore, there should be a proper visitor management in order to catch a good result. So visitor management styles and function seem are very important, which will influence staff attitude and job satisfaction and will have direct impact on the visitor experience. (Swarbrooke, J, 1995)According to Fayol, who categorized several aspects, including determining and deciding objectives, forecasting, planning, organizing, directing, co-ordinating, controlling and communication (Rogers, A & Slinn, J 1993), all of them are playing an important role in four modes in terms of indirect, direct, financial and educative.
The first stage is the before phase of the holiday. People usually need to prepare, making some planning and decisions, which can be called pre-travel(Laws, E 1995), visitors want to get more information, such as the length of stay, choice of transport, service of accommodation or unique attractions. At this stage, the management of tour operator and destination play a vital role, which can control tourists and influence their experience.