TOTAL QUALITY ENVIRONMENTAL INTERPRETATION
JCU tourism researcher Gianna Moscardo reports on a new CRC
project (2.2.3) `Evaluation and Design of Reef Interpretation' which aims
to achieve improvements in the quality of reef interpretation.
For many people, the interpretation encountered while on holiday may
be their only opportunity to learn about their bonds with the environment.
Interpreters can play a critical role in encouraging sustainable tourism.
For people working with visitors in natural environments, quality tourism
not only provides a valuable experience for visitors, it also contributes
to the effective management of those visitors.
Quality is a concept that has permeated the world of business and
management. More specifically, the philosophy known as Total Quality
Management (TQM) has provided a new approach to improving the quality
of goods and services. The two core features of TQM are the need for customer-focus
and decisions based on facts and measurements, not opinions. There are
many lessons that interpreters can learn from TQM, but most importantly
is the need to understand visitors and how they respond to types of interpretive
activities provided.
Four distinct types of research are necessary for total quality interpretation.
Front-end evaluation is a part of quality planning and is concerned
with identifying actual and potential audiences; what they know and what
they expect. Formative evaluation is an integral part of the development
and implementation of an interpretive activity, using mock-ups and representations
to gain visitor feedback. Summative evaluation, the most common
type, examines the effectiveness of an activity after it is completed.
Each of these types of evaluation is useful in a particular situation.
To develop more general principles explaining and predicting visitor responses
requires visitor research. This is particularly useful for generating
longer term quality improvements, and in designing new interpretive activities.
All four techniques will be used in the new CRC 'Evaluation and Design
of Reef Interpretation' project.
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