25. Marketing and promotion in tourism

Marketing

Every day of our life we can see examples of travel and tourism marketing around us – adverts on TV, adverts in newspapers and 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 just advertising; it is about researching and identifying the needs of a specific group of customers, and then creating a product that satisfies them.

Once the company has the right product, it will use different promotional techniques to let its clients know about it. All travel and tourism products need good marketing. The marketing process includes four stages:

1. customers’ needs and wants;

2. create your products and services;

3. promote your products and services;

4. obtain and evaluate feedback.

The marketing process does not end after a product has been sold, however. Customers might not be happy with it, and, of course, people’s tastes change with time. Because of this, it is essential to evaluate how customers feel about a product. It is then possible to improve your product, and in this way continue to meet your customers’ expectations.

Promotion

The idea of promotion is to sell your product. How do we do this? The answer begins with awareness, with making the customer aware that the product exists. It’s also about creating a demand. Another use of promotion is to make customers understand that your product is better than other similar products.

Creating a demand is a question of promotional techniques. Advertising is one of the things we do in promotion, but it’s not the only technique. Apart from advertising – you know, magazines, TV, the media in general – there’s also PR. There’s also what we call direct marketing. The provider – that could be a tour operator with a package holiday, or an airline with a special offer – the provider contacts the customer directly, usually by mailing information and news directly to the customers on their database. A lot of small tour operators use email, but for most big companies, direct marketing is letters through your door. There’s also personal selling. It is a travel agent sitting with a client. Personal selling’s your smile. It’s the human touch.