Download Marketing and promotion in travel and tourism

2. MARKETING AND PROMOTION IN TRAVEL AND TOURISM
Marketing and promotion in travel and tourism is finding out about your customers and
competitors so that you can provide the right product at the right place. You have to think
about the people you want to sell to - it is your target market.
Different products have different target market.
Questions to ask are:
Who are my customers? (age, sex, income)
What is the size of the market?
What do people know about my company?
You can find out this information through market research. It uses interviews to find out
about people’s attitudes and questionnaires to find out about their shopping habits.
You have to think about your strategy for meeting your objectives. You can find new
customers by making your product more attractive, take customers from your competitors,
persuade your customers to use more of your product.
There are many types of promotion, it is important to choose the right one - advertising on
TV, in newspapers…, direct marketing by post, telesales
(selling to customers on the phone), point-of-sale
material in shops (free samples or special offers),
competitions, discount coupons, displays and
exhibitions, lotteries, parties…
Advertisement
is a piece of information in a newspaper, on television, on a picture on the wall that tries to
persuade people to buy something, to interest them in a new job…
Most companies have to work hard to promote and market their goods in order to sell them.
Also political parties, charities and other organisations use advertising.
Many pages in newspapers and magazines are filled with ads or adverts and there are also
advertisements on radio and television called commercials.
Advertisements in newspapers and magazines are expensive and only the largest companies
can afford them.
Many organisations use newspapers to advertise jobs in the situations vacant section,
small companies advertise in the small ads columns = a few lines of text.
The wealthiest companies buy advertising time on television - commercial breaks - famous
people are sometimes associated with advertisements for a particular product. Some
advertising slogans are known by everyone.
Other ways of advertising include displaying large posters on billboards - large boards by
the side of the roads.
Small posters called flyers advertising local events or special offers are given to people in the
street.
Restaurants advertise in theatre programmes, shops advertise in their own magazines or on
the shopping trolleys.
Small firms advertise in local magazines and newspapers.
Many companies advertise on the Internet.
A sponsor - a person or an organisation that helps to pay for a special sport, culture, ….
event or individuals - it helps him advertise his products.
There are big ad agencies that prepare advertisements. Advertisements should be legal,
honest, truthful…
Many people are against advertising, partly because it adds to the cost of a product. People
also say that the influence of advertising is too great, and that children especially want every
product they see advertised.
The marketing process in tourism
Every day of our lives we can see examples of travel and tourism marketing
around us - adverts on TV, in newspapers, magazines, brochures in travel agencies, internet
pages, posters in stations, etc.
This is because all tourism businesses need to market their products if they hope to be
successful. But marketing is not only advertising, it is also about researching and identifying
the needs of a group of customers, and then creating a product that satisfies them.
A large hotel chain will spend a lot of time and money finding out what its guests want
- what kind of services and facilities do they need most, which location they
prefer, how much they are prepared to pay.
It will then develop a new product, and after it has the right product, it will use different
techniques to let its clients know about it.
Not only private companies use marketing. From a museum in a country village to the biggest
attractions in major tourist destinations, all travel and tourism products need good marketing.
The marketing process does not end after a product has been sold. Customers might not be
happy with it, and people’s tastes change. It is essential to evaluate how customers feel about
a product. With the results of evaluation, it is possible to improve your product and meet
customers’ expectations.