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Chapter VI- Development of an Effective Marketing…
Chapter-VI
Development of an Effective Marketing Mix to
Enable the State to Maximize Its Tourism
Potentialities
6.1
Introduction to Marketing mix
6.2
Destination Marketing mix and Sikkim
6.3
Marketing Environment of Sikkim
6.4
Effective Marketing Mix Strategy for Sikkim
6.5
Conclusion
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6.1 Introduction to marketing mix
The key to achieving organizational goals consists in determining the needs and
wants of target markets and delivering the desired satisfactions more effectively and
efficiently than competitors. It is an innovative managerial function which organizes
and directs all those business activities which are involved in assessing and
converting customer purchasing power into effective demand for specific product or
service and in moving the product or service to the final customer or user so as to
achieve the profit target or other objectives set by the company. By market, we
usually mean a group of actual or potential customers with similar needs or wants (the
demand side). We usually refer to the supply side as an industry. Marketing in
tourism means a systematic and coordinated execution of business policy by tourist
undertaking whether private or state at local, regional, national or international level
to achieve the optimal satisfaction of the needs of identifiable consumer groups, and
in doing so to achieve an appropriate return (Krippendorf, J, 1988). Based on this,
geographically the market areas of Sikkim can be divided into two parts viz. primary
and secondary. Primary market areas are the urban areas of West Bengal and other
adjacent States while secondary market areas are non-adjacent Indian States and
foreign countries.
The term marketing mix was first introduced by Prof. Neil Bordes in the year 1953
when he got the cue from a study of Management of Marketing costs which described
the marketing executive as a mixer of ingredients. Prof. Kotler (2003) has defined
marketing mix as the set of marketing tools that the firm uses to pursue its marketing
objectives in the target market. Marketing mix can also be defined as a mixture of
elements which interact and complement each other to achieve targeted results. So,
marketing mix for a destination is unlike that of the product. Destination as a bundle
of facilities and services or a bunch of attribute need better coordination, control,
direction, and flexible planning. So the preparation of an effective marketing mix
necessarily the result of the analysis of the tourist product(s), customer segment(s),
coordination between public sectors and private sectors and all intricate managerial
issues. Very often, Indian tourist destinations lack the full range of managerial and
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professional control and don’t consider or assess the important variables and
attributes because of the well formulated planning and sequential measures.
Figure 6.1: Marketing Mix and Destination Marketing Mix
Marketing Mix
Product
Destination Marketing Mix of Sikkim
Formulation
of
product
comprises
development
of
destination keeping in view the proper line, length, width,
depth etc.
Price
Selection of types and forms of tourism, extent of mass
tourism, tolerance and involvement level of residents,
polluter pays cost, taxes and surcharge from/ outside the
destination have major influence over the price level
Place
Place largely implies how to get access to the convenient
point of sales and customer access.
Promotion
Destination promotion mix is how we offer destination
products and create destination imagery. It largely
contributes
to
the
positioning,
image
and
identity
development of a destination.
People
The term people include various stakeholders and broadly
hosts, guests, industry and destination developers.
Process
Process includes synergetic values exuberated from better
coordination and participation among all stakeholders
Physical evidence
Special attention to tangibilize the total experience
(i.e. destination imagery) that should be long lasting and in
turn ensure word of mouth communication and retention.
Distance and access Distance and Access ( largely destination specific but the
(Not applicable)
relationship with competitive advantage found )
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6.2 Destination Marketing Mix and Sikkim
As described by Wahab et al. (cit. in Pike, 2004) tourism destination marketing is
a management process through which the National Tourist Organizations and/or
tourist enterprises identify their selected tourists, actual and potential, communicate
with them to ascertain and influence their wishes, needs, motivations, likes and
dislikes, on local, regional, national and international levels, and to formulate and
adapt their tourist products accordingly in view of achieving optimal tourist
satisfaction and thereby fulfilling their objectives. Tourism destination marketing has
traditionally been heavily oriented towards the promotion function and the same
tendency will, no doubt, continue well into the future. But growing recognition of the
need for a more holistic approach to destination management in the era of ‘‘new
tourism’’ (Poon, 1993) has led destination marketing organizations to focus on
achieving greater destination competitiveness (Haahti, 1986; Hassan, 2000; Ritchie &
Crouch, 2000) in order to improve the probability of success on a sustainable basis.
Destination marketing mix is a mixture of destination elements which interact and
complement each other to produce targeted results, may be as authentic visitor
experience, or high profitability, or some other broad objectives. That is why
destination marketing is unlike product marketing and not easily achievable or
controllable as far as its planning, control and other marketing management issues are
concerned. Place marketing is multifunctional functionalities and comprises
attractions; so too a hotel/guest house, transport sector etc (Frank Howie 2003).
Howie F.( 2003) intended to stratify the destination elements in explaining place
marketing.
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Figure 6.2: Elements of a Tourist Destination
 Available
 Manpower
 Ancillary
 Safety and
physical and
resources.
services
security measures
natural resources.
 Visitor
 Informal
including tourism
 Infrastructure
accommodation.
services
police or security
and superstructure.
for environmental
protection.
Ashworth and Goodall, (1988) opined that Tourism is just one function within the
multi-functional place to be managed on the basis of professionally determined norms
and political decisions about the role it should play in the wider spatial setting for the
attainment of municipal goals. According to them there are several philosophies for
place management. Preservationist philosophy emphasizes the natural and cultural
resources and their intrinsic values in determining the nature of the place; their
preservation is a measure of success.
Redistribution philosophy asserts the
unacceptability of social exclusion i. e. the existence of a sizable percentage of the
place’s population who are excluded from social and other basic ‘rights’ on account
of limited educational and other opportunities which determine their earning power.
The Marketing philosophy is superficially similar to that of planning, but Ashworth
and Voogd (1993) expressed it in this way.
It is not merely a matter of substituting a new terminology and renaming the various
procedures of the planning process. Tourism supply becomes the tourism product to
be positioned in relation to competing products, demand becomes the customers,
which need segmentation according to product purchasing behavior, and
management becomes market planning undertaken in a development or promotion
department.
...marketing simply takes a new set of planning procedures that claims to be customer
or client oriented…existing and potential demand conditions are compared with
product analysis, i.e. inventories of the facilities and attractions of places.
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Deficiencies are thus highlighted and dealt with by a mixture of new investments on
the supply side and market promotion on the other.
Tourism as a product has been defined as “an amalgam of three main components: the
attractions of the destination, the facilities at the destination, and the accessibilities of
it.”So, the core products of Sikkim is its attraction features which can broadly be
categorized into environmental, cultural, social and man-made resources. A diagram
representing the most happening resources/ tourist products of Sikkim is given here
under.
Figure 6.3: Tourism Product Mix Contributing to the Search for Unique Selling
Proportion (USP) of Sikkim
Product Mix of Sikkim
………Move towards sustainable development approache……
Leisure and
Heritage,
Adventure and
Alternative
Recreation
pilgrimage
Sports
forms of
and
tourism
tradition
 Holidays
 Buddhist  River rafting
 Ecotourism
and
pilgrimag
relaxation
e
 Increasing  Exotic,
 Mountaineering  Rural
trend of
quaint
and
rock
tourism
MICE
Buddhist
climbing
tourism in
heritage,
Sikkim as a
culture
resort areas
and
tradition
 Pleasure,
 Buddhist  Kayaking
 Sustainable
entertainme
village
tourism
nt and sight
areas, its
seeing
uniquenes
s
 Trekking,
camping
Special
interest
tourism
 Fairs
and
festivals
 Researchers,
scholars,
students or
such other
tourists in
group
or
individually
 Ethnic
tourism
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The planning and development of a destination are involved in a large degree in the
physical resource or product components of tourism. Equally important are analyses
of potential visitors, costs of development, pricing policies, competitive destinations,
and other financial aspects to analyze feasibilities of development. Recently effective
destination marketing is also considering environmental, cultural, and social aspects.
Destination marketing considers almost all steps involved in market planning process
but factors involved in each process are different and often varied keeping in view its
relevance and importance. A market is a set of buyers and sellers. In tourism sellers
are often multidisciplinary; demand is actual or derived, unstable, varied and not
necessarily related to the transfer of ownership; supply is lumpy and influenced by
seasonality. So the marketing of a destination is also a continuous process to be in
line with the appropriate demand and supply equilibrium and it should be well
integrated with other tourism planning and development approaches. Marketing a
destination largely depends on how it communicates its image. Based on numerous
studies on destination image and the above literature reviews (Echtner and Ritchie,
1991, 1993; Gallarza et al., 2002; Pike, 2002; Tasci et al., 2007), we summarize, a
destination image is a perception by the tourists of what could be experienced at the
destination; takes on different forms based on who portrays that image how, e.g.
induced, covert, organic, authentic, etc.; is mostly measured on quantitative structured
scales; is measured with adjectives perceived as real by the researcher or marketer;
has cognitive, affective and co-native dimensions; has a core identity, attributes that
confirm the identity and an overall
gestalt; has dimensions that are sometimes
confused with other constructs.
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Figure 6.4 : Factors Affecting Destination Marketing Mix of Sikkim
Macro environmental factors
 Typical interaction between
destination(s) and tourist
generating market(s).
 Emergence of substitute
destination(s).
Micro environmental factors
 Landscape, topography, geology,
physiology, drainage system etc.
 Presence or absence of important
tourism legislation.
 Socio-economic, political and
cultural conditions of
neighboring countries or states.
 Implementation and/ or adoption
if international conference,
convention, declaration etc. for
tourism.
 International convention,
conference, declaration etc. for
tourism.
 Collaboration, cooperation and
joint effort among the members or
stakeholders within a destination.
 Collaboration, cooperation,
joint effort between member
countries of an
agency/organization operating
at international and regional
level.
 Political and economic condition
of the destination area.
 Economic, political and sociocultural discrimination between
destinations and market areas.
 Market assessment and link
between a destination’s domestic
market and its international
market.
 Emergence of new types and
forms of tourism and tourists
worldwide i.e. trends of world
tourism.
 Analysis and assessment of
tapping the international market
keeping in view the important
trends.
 Competitive cooperation of
different Indian states and
Union Territories.
 Through Incredible India
campaign the central
government has been
promoting India as a tourist
destination.
Development and adoption of marketing approach extensively include a demand –
supply equilibrium and as such takes into account tourism system. Destination
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marketing is unlike a marketing of FMCG1 products as it considers and move towards
services. Again, in many cases the adoption and control is not fully devolved upon
corporate sectors. As a service marketing it includes customer relationship
management, internal marketing (with respect to a destination where all stakeholders
are part of the product and contribute to the image and identity), increased importance
of strategic alliances/ linkage etc.
Destination marketing should be a part of
destination management but in Indian destinations the concept is not in vogue and
very often management and marketing are wrongly conglomerated with each other.
There are very few destinations well managed by scientific research and background
analysis. The country including Sikkim has poor quality database and only in few
cases the available data have been scientifically analyzed and interpreted as majority
of destination planners and government officials are not from tourism background.
So, an understanding of the demand for Sikkim as a destination and the capacity
levels (physical, biological, social, psychological, financial) largely contribute to the
overall marketing strategy.
The government of Sikkim is one of the very few Indian states trying to optimize
benefits from tourism for their local people. The recently adopted policy to position
the state as an ultimate ecotourism destination was really a committed responsibility
towards sustainable development. Next to this is rural tourism and adventure tourism.
Almost all these tourism will contribute to the alternative tourism development in the
state and the changes in types and forms of tourism will automatically have an impact
on the activities of the tourists, duration of stay, the number of tourist arrivals and the
tourism industry as a whole.
So a proactive environment friendly approach has
already been adopted in the marketing mix and Unique Selling Proportions (USP) of
Sikkim though there are many things remaining. The major task for the government is
how to coordinate and control interest of all participants and infuse the idea of
sustainable practices in the state. The priority area is really confusing as there is a
traditional clash between development and conservation. The destination marketing
should not only increase the arrival of tourists but also be proactive in selecting target
1
Fast Moving Consumer Goods
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groups and introduce sustainable practices including mass awareness for
environmental conservation. Destination marketing, in a micro environmental sense,
is not only to search the USP ( Unique Selling Proportion) and choice of a suitable
promotional mix but also to develop product, formulate distribution mix and setting
prices. The development scenario of a destination changes over time and so its
marketing strategy.
6.3 Marketing Environment of Sikkim
While analyzing the marketing environment, the SCEPTICAL Analysis 2 is a more
comprehensive approach. All such factors are change agents but the real challenge is
devolved upon how to disentangle the elements of threats from the elements of
opportunity within the changes in the wider world. These discontinuous changes
characterized by surprises and departures from past developments and trends should
be analyzed with all change agents in which tourism is also considered as a change
agent. Strategic option chosen for a destination is a reflection of the market
environment in which the destination finds itself. Developing individual place in a
broader concept of destination requires the concept of strategic business unit (SBU)
within a broad framework of a destination. Cost leadership should be an important
part of destination development strategy to achieve market leadership of Sikkim as it
is basically a leisure destination where the majority of tourists are price sensitive.
Evans et. al. ( 2003) suggested following means of cost savings. Using less expansive
resource inputs; Producing products with ‘no frills’, thus reducing; labour costs and
increasing labour productivity ; Achieving economics of scale by high volume sales;
Gaining volume purchasing discounts; Locating activities in areas where costs are
low; Obtaining experience curve benefits; Standardizing products or source inputs. In
contrast, a differentiation strategy implies setting high price for destination
experience and can be achieved through- Superior product performance ( whether
2
SCEPTICAL Analysis encompasses social factors; cultural factors ; economic factors; political
factors; technical factors; international factors; communication and infrastructure factors;
administrative and institutional factors; legal or political factors influencing tourism industry or a
destination.
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through superior product quality, durability or performance); Superiority of product
perception (achieved through marketing communications and the direct experience of
customer groups); Augmentation of the product through higher service levels, better
offer sales support and more affordable financing.
Whenever a tourism firm/organization begins to analyze a potential market or selling
situation, it must have a strategic plan regarding its approach to the market. In tourism
industry, we find a general trend of depending more on tactical approach and
consequent adverse effects (Moutinhoo L. 2000, Strategic Management in Tourism,
1st edition, CABI Publishing). There should be different levels of strategy
development viz. corporate strategy among strategic business units (SBU), business
strategy among various departments of a firm, marketing strategy dealing with its
considerable mix. The destination management is increasingly focusing on resource
stewardship and resultant visitor satisfaction (Fyall and Garrod 1997; Crouch and
Ritchie 1999; 149). Bieger (1998; 7) argues that destinations may be seen as strategic
business units ( SBUs) from the management point of view. The strategic success for
mountainous region has to be related to economic development into which quality of
life for the local community, quality of visitor experience and environmental concern
are simultaneously integrated ( Flagestad and Hope 2001: 450).
After liberalization, privatization and globalization (LPG) India has become an
integrated part of the global open economy. India’s large market is its strength and
tourism is no exception to that. Even in this period of recession its large domestic
market has been showing its prowess and large scale informal sectors heavily
contributing to recoup and retain its economic strength. India’s tourism economy is
also largely informal and as such not heavily affected like developed countries. Of
course, this service sector is incomparable with other informal sectors where the risk
of being small in size can aggravate the risk of uncertainty, deteriorated service
quality and competencies to adopt ever changing technological advancement.
Traditionally inbound segment of tourism largely contributed to the promotion of
service standard, foreign exchange earning, alternative income and employment
generation, provision of infrastructure, cultural exchange etc. But the recent world
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wide economic meltdown is not only affecting the inbound tourism itself but also
adversely affecting all those contributions. The effect of the recent economic
meltdown has direct and indirect impacts on tourism or tourism economy of India
will change its directions being influenced by the recession. Direct effects include
less foreign exchange earnings, invest leakage (may be resulting from increasing
outbound tourism and decreasing inbound tourism), increased importance on
domestic tourism, negative balance of payment, dwindling multiplier effect resulting
from international tourism, negative input-output ratio etc. Indirect effects with
respect to tourism include adverse effects on other industries that will reduce travel
propensity for leisure tourists, the frequencies and number of business travelers.
India is not going to remain one of the exotic destinations as new destinations are
mushrooming up all over the Pacific and existing destinations are increasing their
marketing efforts. Backward infrastructure and technology in airports, insufficiency
of airports and space have resulted in technical constraints and negative image.
Drastic reduction in airfares, poor quality services, ever fluctuating oil prices, poor
airworthiness maintained by the DGCA and unhealthy competition have resulted in a
tough condition for civil air transport operation in the country. After becoming 25 th
state of the Union Government of India in the year 1975 the rapid development
activities ushered in a new era of tourism in Sikkim. Increased accessibility by
roadways and air transport, rapid socio-economic development, competitive
advantage both from the side of the destination and geographical proximity to tourist
generating states contributed to the development of tourism in Sikkim. Recognizing
the increased tourist arrivals, accommodation units were set up in Gangtok and a few
towns mostly by outsiders without proper land use planning and architectural design.
Ever increasing tourist arrival and increasing dependence on tourism as a powerful
industry and employment generating source, restoration of peace and harmony,
hospitable people, plenty of diversified natural and cultural resources, a typical
interest of the people of Indian to discover the unknown hidden Sikkim brought about
a new dimension for the development and marketing of tourism in Sikkim. Despite of
all such optimistic factors, Sikkim has been under-performing in attracting a
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significant number of tourists having high per-capita spending. The trend is evident as
the poor number of foreign tourist arrivals3 is very often masked by the high growth
rates over the years. Again, the top overseas generating market were the United
States ( 860), Australia ( 491), Britain ( 1,127), France ( 1,041), Germany ( 770),
Japan ( 391), Italy ( 273), Switzerland ( 263) and the Netherlands ( 365) in the year
20024.
Prior to 2002, the rate of growth for domestic tourists were generally in the low
percentages. The growth percentages were found to have double digits mostly after
the year 2002. It is important to understand the reason for the surge in growth to
better manage the growth in domestic travels. In addition, it can also be seen from the
figure 4.5 that a consistent growth in the arrival of domestic visitors had been
achieved over the past decade without year in which visitor-ship had dropped. This
implies an upswing and confident domestic tourism market trend that can withstand
destination supply oriented issues and unavoidable weather changes, economic
slowdown, natural calamity5 etc.
3
The proportion of foreign tourist arrivals in Sikkim as a part of the overall visitors had been
consistent at about 4-6 % (average 5.6%).
4
Since this year, there were no data breaking down the visitors generating market for international
tourists.
5
This may include the recently occurred earthquake on 18 th September, 2011 in Sikkim and its
neighboring states and countries.
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Figure 6.5: Domestic Tourist Arrivals in Sikkim before and after 2002
Source : Sikkim Strategic Planning: Tourism, May, 2008
As Sikkim has already emerged to be a mature destination, tourist arrivals over the
years are found to be seasonal. The month of May is the highest peak with about
21.21% ( See Fig. 4.6) of the visitor numbers over the past decade. April and October
are also notable periods with high number of visitors.
Domestic visitor arrivals to Sikkim also experience high peaks and deep troughs. This
uneven spread of demand during the year will cause stress on the tourism and public
amenities and also create a lumpy supply and supply glut during the peak period and
lean period and advocating different destination management separately with proper
coordination. Meteorological records indicate that the months from late May till
September are generally wetter than other months, thus possibly contributing to these
months having less visitors. Nonetheless, it was also unclear from the data gathered
on the proportion of the domestic visitors as day-trippers, summer holiday makers,
religious travelers or VFRs. Each category of visitors would have different needs and
make different demands on the tourism and public amenities. More data need to be
gathered to assess in details their tourism requirements.
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Figure 6.6: Peaks and Though in Tourist Arrivals indicating Peak and Lean
Season
Source : Sikkim Strategic Planning: Tourism, May, 2008
Destination Life Cycle ( DLC) analysis is recommended to formulate strategies for
any destination as setting each destination, considering its characteristics, recommend
another stage and explore future consequences. A noticeable tendency for different
routes in Sikkim is notional and to categorize all routes broadly into two types viz.
conventional, popular routes for institutionalized forms of tourism along which
majority of tourist traffic is channelized and non-conventional, comparatively lesserknown destinations with a blend of more closeness to nature and society. Again, not
only
the purposes of travel, but also for activities of tourists like trekking,
mountaineering, river-rafting etc. classification of routes is equally important. The
same is true for safety, security of tourists also. In nutshell, categorization of different
routes with respect to the choice of destination, tourist activities, safety and security
of tourists etc. and Route Life Cycle Analysis ( RLCA) considering Destination Life
Cycle for each destination could be an unexplored areas of destination research and
strategies in Sikkim though individual destination area life cycle analysis is equally
important here. Route Life Cycle Analysis ( RLCA)6 will help National Tourism
6
It will include circuit development for mass and non-mass tourism and more specifically the
development of routes for trekking, river running etc.
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Organization, State tourism organizations or any tour operators or service providers
offering a specific route/itinerary/circuit oriented package/ service as marketing and
financial decisions are cohesive and generally route/ circuit oriented in nature.
Figure 6.7: Destination Life Cycle and Changing Importance of Market
of Tourist Arrivals
Number
Conditions
Predominated attraction Features………Multiplicity of attractions &
Facilities………Dominance of Services
The diagram of Destination Life Cycle (DLC) presented in Fig. 6.7 has broadly
addressed three main discussing issues of development strategies (based on tourists
arrivals), related changes in opinion among hosts and changes in importance of
specific elements of marketing mix. Marketing mix strategies, more specifically,
enter into the deep of demand-supply aspects of a destination and include destination
attraction, accessibilities, all other services and facilities along with the hosts ( as they
are part of attraction, hospitality, service provider etc.) in supply side and tourists of
different places in demand side. So, tourism demand as well as supply aspects have
diversified fields and wide ranging views to be explored or explored in Sikkim.
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6.4 Effective Marketing Mix Strategy for Sikkim
Marketing Sikkim is unlike the marketing of FMCG products and considers almost
all issues of general service marketing with its own distinct characteristics. The
economies of scale in relation to marketing costs and also the ability to raise the
profile of individual businesses through development of joint packages are key
advantages from the operators’ perspective, while the development of new,
innovative and interesting product reflecting the region’s attributes are advantages
from the consumer’s perspective.
In product marketing, each consumer sees a product as a bundle of attributes. The
attributes associated are generally ranked by different customers differently. They are
also likely to develop a set of belief about where each product stands (compared to its
competitors) on each attribute. The set of belief held about a product is known as the
product image. Consumer’s set of beliefs may vary because of the consumers’
experience, selective perception, selective distortion, and selective retention. The
tourist is assumed to have a utility function in product marketing. The tourists arrive
at attitudes towards the similar destinations through some evaluation procedures.
On the other hand the generic term destination is a problematic concept and its
marketing largely varies with its elements and important market conditions, far away
from its location. Gunn (1988) and Pearce (1989) suggest that tourism plans often
emphasize development and/or marketing but ideally both activities should be
together with a clear definition of goals and a broader appreciation of tourism’s place
in the overall process of economic and social development. In fact sound destination
marketing, development and planning are based upon good, up to date, reliable,
relevant information and knowledge. And this may come in part from experience in
most cases will need to be supported by research. A marketing strategy focusing on a
more organic perceived image would follow a societal marketing approach that does
not only target the needs of the tourists but provides benefits to the residents’ and
community as well. Again, tourists, interestingly, want a mix of distinctive or unique
or unfamiliar and sometimes familiar attributes of tourism product or services. Again
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“competitive cooperation” is not evident in supply sectors i.e. among different
principles. From the marketer’s perspective, the success of a destination depends
upon its ‘Pull factors’, or attractiveness and range of services and facilities etc. that
reduces gap between perceived quality and expected quality ( technically called
disconfirmation, Service Marketing by R.T.Rust, A. Zahorik, T. L. Keiningham, pp.
232) that ultimately contributes to the vacation satisfaction of the tourists. Destination
development is characterized by specific stage of its life cycle, level of competition,
involvement of the local people, measures for environmental conservation,
investment incentives and fiscal control, roles and responsibilities of the Government
authorities and the level of private sector participation. Marketing mix strategy is
broadly revolving around the reasons for travel, sources of travel information,
duration, pricing, booking contributing to travel distribution, retention and optional
excursion, spending pattern of tourists,
factors involved in tourist retention,
marketing strategy for accommodation.
Here, in this study the marketing analysis is based on the field survey. The study area
covered the reasons for which people travel, their spending pattern and related effects
on tourism multiplier, types of tour, types of booking they like, the source of
information before or during traveling to a destination in Sikkim, range of facilities in
accommodation units they are opting for and interested in, level of infrastructure and
superstructure needed for tourism and factors responsible for retention of tourists.
Some inter-conflicting issues like dual peak seasons (October-November and AprilMay) and related fluctuations in arrivals, over dependability only on one or two
tourist generating regions and its related effects on accommodation sectors, over
dependability on a specific type of tourism, low per-capita spending of tourists, and
resulted environmental problems are exhibited to be relatively new aspects of
marketing research for Sikkim. Widening the peak season for tourism in Sikkim is
found to be another important area of future marketing research. Controlled booking
system may be adopted or de-marketing at least for the busiest routes or redirection or
substitution of existing demand analysis is essential. The study also indicates the
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development or equally attractive routes, routes for alternative tourism so that other
districts will have no dependability on east districts for receiving tourists.
6.5 Conclusion
The search for destination marketing mix for Sikkim is expected to help the
formulation of Unique Selling Proportion (USP). Broadly various demand and supply
related issues, destination carrying capacity and sustainable orientations, changing
aspects of all such things are addressed in the formulation of marketing mix to be
effective and efficient to incorporate newly discussed issues and to delineate old
unsustainable practices. From a general view of arrivals and related growth statistics,
the study enter into the trend analysis and found the scope for two different peak
seasons. This seasonal influx is found to be significant in the increase in tourist
arrivals that can separately manage domestic and international tourists in Sikkim.
Empirical evidences also enlightened the reasons for travel, types of future tourists,
patterns of future trips, duration of stay, travel retention, booking related problems
and major sources of prior information, areas of infrastructural and super-structural
development needed (See, chapter VIII, Survey of tourists visiting Sikkim).
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