Unit 8

Marketing Tourism

Destinations

Unit topics• NTOS/DMOS defined • Destinations promotion role for NTOS • Destinations positioning themes, branding, images

and concepts • The marketing role for NTOS: The process • Marketing facilitation strategies for an NTO

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REMEMBER THIS:

• Tourism is a service. • Services differ from physical products, –This needs to be taken into account

when marketing them

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CHARACTERISTICS OF TOURISM SERVICES • Intangibility • Heterogeneity / Variability • Temporary ownership • Perishability • Inseparability

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Intangibility

• Not the physical portion (tangible) of the product

– Performance or experience rendered by the service provider to

the service consumer

• Most tourism products are a mixture of tangible

and intangible

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Inseparability

• Services are usually produced and consumed at the

same time

– Think of a restaurant meal

• This can make it difficult to separate the provider

of the service from the service itself.

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Perishability

• Services cannot be saved or stored as they expire

during the simultaneous production and

consumption process

– Aircraft seat

– Restaurant meal

– Amusement park ride

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Heterogeneity

• Standardisation

– Difficult to achieve in a people based service industry

• Quality control plays an important part

– What forms of standardization can you think of?

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Ownership

• Service customers usually only have access to or

use a facility where a service is performed

– Use of a hotel room for a holiday – you occupy the space only

and have temporary use of the facilities

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How Tourism Differs

• Tourism is more supply-led than other services All ready have the product then research which market might be interested in

purchasing it.

– Dunedin the destination is already here who wants to visit.

• Tourism product might involve the co-operation of several suppliers.

e.g. Package holiday

• Tourism is a complex, extended product experience with no predictable critical evaluation point.

Pre trip anticipation and post trip reflection

While trips to the same destination may be the same different variables can make the trip different – and hard to evaluate against

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How Tourism Differs

• Tourism is a high-involvement, high-risk product to its consumers

– Involves committing large sums of money to something reasonably unknown

• Tourism is a product partly constituted by the dreams and fantasies of its customers.

– Unlike banking and car repair, tourism is not consumed for rational, functional purposes.

• Tourism is a fragile industry susceptible to external forces

beyond the control of its suppliers

– Tourism organisations sometimes have to make rapid responses to crises in the form

of product redesign, price reductions or promotional damage limitation.

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MARKETING DESTINATIONS

NTOs/DMOs DefinedA destination represents an ‘amalgam of tourism products, offering an integrated experience to consumers’.

• A DMO (Destination Marketing Organizations) can be defined as ‘any organizations, at any level, which is responsible for the marketing of an identifiable destination’

• The term NTO (National Tourism Organizations) is used specifically to designate the ‘entity with overall responsibility for marketing a country as a tourism destination’.

Marketing roles of NTOs and DMOs

• It can be concluded that there are two levels to consider in marketing a country as a destinations.

>> The first level, concerned with the destinations as a whole, is the primary focus of what NTOs do.

>> The second level covers the marketing activity of the mainly private sector operators promoting their individual products.

Destination promotion role for NTOS• NTOS have to choose between two alternative strategies

- A promotional strategy: reaching prospective visitors

via expenditure on a promotional mix intended to achieve

destinations awareness and influence prospective customers’

attitudes and purchasing behavior

- A facilitation strategy: concerned with exercising a

influence over the tourism industry.

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A Promotional Strategy

• A promotional strategy means devising and implementing promotional and integrated communications programs, and targeting potential visitors segments with branding, images and key messages.

• The objectives are typically to make customers aware, motivate their interest, encourage them to surf the internet, send for product brochures, call direct or go to travel agents in their area.

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A Facilitation Strategy • An alternative strategy, relevant to DMO’s

• Facilitation creates marketing collaboration and networking bridges between a DMO and individual operators in the travel and tourism industry.

• Facilitation strategy requires extensive co-operation and joint decision-making with private sector partners. It also requires a substantial commitment to market research and intelligence, and to performance evaluation.

• The strategy a DMO adopts in practice should vary according to the stage of development the destination has reached. Where destinations are largely unknown in the markets, existing tourism flows are small, DMO will have to play a major role in promoting its destination’s products.

Destination Positioning Themes, Branding, Images and Concepts

• DMOs always have a vital function to perform for their destinations in choosing the single-minded communication propositions ( messages and symbols ) that serve to identify and position or ‘brand’ their countries in the minds of prospective visitors, and differentiate them from all others.

➢ Amazing Thailand

➢ Incredible India

• To be successful in practice such propositions must be:

>> Based on genuine product values and attributes that can be delivered and experienced and that visitors recognize as authentic, not fake.

>> Readily understood by customers at the point of purchase. >> Involve at least the leading players in the commercial sector. >> Incorporated into the promotional efforts of a country’s regions and resorts. >> Sustained over several years if they are to overcome the communication inertia and barriers. >> Systematically exploited in a coordinated range of sales- promotion and customer servicing techniques designed to reach visitors on arrival at the destination as well as prospective visitors in countries of origin.

The main stages in destination marketing process for NTOs

• Researching the external business environment

• Government policy and tourism strategy

• Marketing planning

• Marketing objectives and targets

• Budget decisions

• Internet developments

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Marketing Facilitation Strategies for an NTO

The most important facilitation processes used by NTOs around the world:

• Flow of research data and marketing intelligence

• Representation in markets of origin

• Organization of workshops and trade shows

• Familiarization trips

• Travel trade manuals

• Support with literature production and distribution

• Participation in joint marketing schemes or ventures

• Information and reservation systems

• Support for new products

• Trade consortia

• Consumer assistance and protection

• General advisory services for the industry

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MARKETING ACCOMMODATION

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Strategic Marketing Tasks for Accommodation Businesses

• evaluating strategic opportunities for growth

• planning the most profitable business mix of segments, products and price ranges having regard to yield rather than volume

• Deciding the position, brand or image each accommodation unit (or chain of units) should occupy.

• Internet marketing

• Encouraging and regrading frequent users (relationship marketing)

• Developing marketing integration between units inc common ownership (chains) or units in individual ownership (coops)

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MARKETING TRANSPORTATION

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Passenger Transport Respond to 7 specific external factors which operators have limited

control and influence

• vehicle technology (major innovations)

• Information and communication technology

• regulatory framework

• price of fuel

• economic growth or decline (national and international tech)

• exchange rate fluctuations

• environmental issues

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MARKETING ATTRACTION

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Marketing strategies for AttractionsThe primary task of marketing managers if to monitor and interpret the factors in the changing external environment that influence strategy.

• Actions of competitors

• Customer sophistication

• ICT Developments

• More sustainable approaches to managing resources

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MARKETING FOR

TOUR OPERATORS

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Marketing strategies tour operatorsMarketing tasks are divided into strategic and tactical considerations. Most tour operators enter a “boom and bust” atmosphere. The five elements are:

• interpreting the strength and direction of change in the external environment.

• strategic decisions on volume and pricing

• Choice of product/customer portfolio

• positioning and image

• Choice and maintenance of distribution system/preferred marketing method.

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