What holiday tourists expect from currency exchange service in Finland? : Case FOREX Bank Tampere
Kuusela, Soile (2014)
Tampereen ammattikorkeakoulu
2014
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2014112817439
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2014112817439
Tiivistelmä
The purpose of this research was to find out valid information of holiday tourists’ expectations of currency exchange service in Finland. This research was conducted for FOREX Bank Tampere. FOREX Bank is the largest foreign exchange specialist company in the Nordic region. The idea was to achieve valid and relevant information about the customers and their perceptions and expectations of the currency exchange in Finland. After the results were processed and analyzed it was important to find out whether FOREX Bank’s values and aims match with the nowadays customers.
The data was collected through a questionnaire. The survey was conducted at the Tampere-Pirkkala Airport in terminal one. The main purpose was to hand out the questionnaire to the people travelling to Budapest, Hungary and London, UK. Altogether 153 responses were received. The results were processed with Tixel, which is statistical data processing software. Analyzing has been conducted through service quality theory and author’s own thinking, and then compared with FOREX Bank’s business idea.
According to the results holiday tourists like to exchange currency in their home country before the trip either in an exchange office or in another bank. However, many like to withdraw the money from an ATM at the destination. People seem to mostly expect easiness and fluency, competitive rates and reliability from an exchange office in Finland. In service most valued things are short queuing time, easiness and fluency, and reliability. There were some differences in the answers between the female and male respondents and the age groups.
These results truly tell how important it is to give personalized service to the customers, as not everyone prefers the same things in the currency exchange. The results show that FOREX Bank meets the quality service requirements of the customers quite well. Especially question concerning the willingness to visit the same company again after the currency exchange indicates that FOREX Bank is meeting the customers’ expectations. However, there were quite many people, who had not exchanged currency in advance, even though foreign currency was needed at the travel destination. This could be something that FOREX could develop for example by trying to raise public awareness of the various countries and holiday destinations that use different currencies.
The data was collected through a questionnaire. The survey was conducted at the Tampere-Pirkkala Airport in terminal one. The main purpose was to hand out the questionnaire to the people travelling to Budapest, Hungary and London, UK. Altogether 153 responses were received. The results were processed with Tixel, which is statistical data processing software. Analyzing has been conducted through service quality theory and author’s own thinking, and then compared with FOREX Bank’s business idea.
According to the results holiday tourists like to exchange currency in their home country before the trip either in an exchange office or in another bank. However, many like to withdraw the money from an ATM at the destination. People seem to mostly expect easiness and fluency, competitive rates and reliability from an exchange office in Finland. In service most valued things are short queuing time, easiness and fluency, and reliability. There were some differences in the answers between the female and male respondents and the age groups.
These results truly tell how important it is to give personalized service to the customers, as not everyone prefers the same things in the currency exchange. The results show that FOREX Bank meets the quality service requirements of the customers quite well. Especially question concerning the willingness to visit the same company again after the currency exchange indicates that FOREX Bank is meeting the customers’ expectations. However, there were quite many people, who had not exchanged currency in advance, even though foreign currency was needed at the travel destination. This could be something that FOREX could develop for example by trying to raise public awareness of the various countries and holiday destinations that use different currencies.