The relatively high scores for people-related criteria likely benefit Lao PDR's satisfaction scores as well as its tourism industry. As people are inherently social, pleasant interactions are likely to influence positively the scores for other, non-people related criteria, either by association or by making it easier to overlook shortcomings.
LAGGARDs. Although there are areas for improvement, Lao PDR does not lag the benchmark by more than 12 percent in any of the private industry criteria. Comfort, hygiene, and restrooms have the biggest gaps to the GMs-benchmark but these all hover around a relatively small 10 percent gap compared to the larger gaps in attractions and public sector management. Presumably, these criteria reflect the level of development in Lao PDR compared to the GMs benchmark and should improve with development and growth. Only hygiene standards and restrooms received satisfaction scores of less than 7.