Quality is a fairly ambiguous term when related to the tourism industry but it is clearly an important one. We are constantly looking for ways to enhance the quality of our products from our clients' perspectives. Some ways in which we do this are to:
a) not only comply with, but outperform, all of the existing standards and regulations that are relevant to our industry and
b) challenge out-dated models of working with sleddogs by driving the development of new industry standards in sled dog welfare
c) strive to be at the forefront of positive change in the industry and thereby also keep up with industry trends
d) constantly evaluate staff training tools and targets to ensure a client focus
e) monitor product delivery through client feedback to ensure that we are constantly meeting or, ideally, exceeding their expectations in all areas.
f) continually attempt to figure out solutions to our biggest challenges (eg answering client emails during multiday safari season!).
Our guides work in some of the most extreme conditions on earth so the level of competence that they need to be trained to is exceedingly high and a huge amount of time and effort is invested in this.
We set a great emphasis on driving consistency in performance within products irrespective of the conditions encountered since we want all of the clients to go home having experienced a great value, 'once-in-a-lifetime' (hopefully twice!) product. At the same time, because of the conditions, the guides have to be able to adapt and be flexible to constantly changing client needs, depending on the circumstances.
For us, it is important that those of our clients who participate in an adventurous early season multi-day safari, for instance, have the same positive outlook at the end of the journey as those of our clients who participate in the more relaxing Spring months. Whilst their experience of the arctic might be fundamentally different, their experience of their care in the arctic needs to be at the same high standard, throughout. We, and our guides, will do our very best to fulfil this expectation.