Real-life escape games: target group analysis and long-term customer satisfaction through franchising for the german market

Abstract

TeamEscape Dresden is a branch of the ‘TeamEscape’ franchising network that was founded in 2013 by collaboRATIO GmbH. Today, the network is the biggest provider of real-life escape games on the German market. The author of this work is the managing director of the TeamEscape Dresden branch. In the current situation, from various newspaper articles it can be assumed that real-life escape games are a booming phenomenon in the German market (Ludwig, 2014). As a room escape concept appears to be a one-time experience, questions arise for venue owners whether their type of business is sustainable and what kind of actions can be undertaken to retain customers. In the specific case of TeamEscape Dresden, circumstances are once again different as the branch is part of a franchising company. Real-life escape games arrived in Germany only in 2013 (Dietrich, 2014). The amount and quality of available scientific literature dealing with real-life escape games can be described as very limited. Also, the generation of a random sample would exceed the given capacity of this work. Nevertheless, this work bases its findings on the available literature and conducts a survey with a convenient sample in order to reveal tendencies and assumptions that give more clarity about the customer profile of real-life escape games and strategies to maintain the business in a franchising environment for the German market