Four National Trust for Scotland properties – Crathes Castle, Brodie Castle, Inverewe Gardens and the Battle of Culloden – have won a CIE Tours International Award of Excellence based on customer feedback.
The awards recognise the quality of the UK’s hotels and visitor attractions and are presented to those who have received a customer satisfaction rating higher than 90%. Since launching six years ago, the number of venues and attractions receiving such high satisfaction ratings in the UK has grown from 32 to 71.
In 2018, the company enjoyed a 13% rise in visitors on their UK tours, bringing more than 15,000 visitors to the UK. Over the course of the year, CIE’s tours visited 184 attractions and 73 hotels across the UK, contributing a total of £13 million to UK suppliers.
Elizabeth Crabill, Chief Executive at CIE Tours International said, “The level of customer satisfaction achieved by our suppliers plays a vital role in our success and the aim of our Awards is to encourage them to focus on the clients’ experience and improving standards of service, so it is gratifying to see the increase in suppliers being given 90% plus ratings. All of the recipients play a key role in our success by welcoming our visitors and ensuring that they have a memorable experience.
“Our awards are well recognised and hugely respected in Ireland, and it is great to see that the awards have been embraced so quickly in the UK. Travellers from North America are accustomed to very high levels of service, so we run the awards to encourage our partners to focus on continuously increasing the quality of our visitors’ experience. To achieve a rating above 90% from these visitors is very meaningful and the fact that the number of our suppliers in the UK achieving this is rapidly increasing year on year, is a great sign for UK tourism.”
Sandrine Contier-Lawrie, Head of Business Devlopment, Travel Trade and Hospitality, said “We are delighted to receive these awards and would like to thank CIE Tours once again for their continued partnership and support to our properties and to the National Trust for Scotland.”
