Definition Of Marketing And Tourism Marketing Segmentation - Tourism

Marketing definition:- Marketing refers to the activities of a company associated with buying and selling a product or service. It includes advertising, selling and delivering products to people.

TOURISM MARKETING

Tourism marketing is basically online and offline marketing that deals with promoting different tourist attractions, tours and activities, destinations, accommodation, etc. There are, of course, different approaches to online marketing when it comes to travel and tourism. That’s why having a well-planned marketing strategy is important.

You can use both offline and online marketing for this purpose. In today’s tech-oriented world, using online marketing strategies to promote your business goes a long way. Especially when you know that your competition is devoting all their energy and resources on social media marketing, publishing new content, making new videos, content curating, etc.
It’s not just that your competition is online — your potential customers are online.

Everyone is online. If you’re a tour operator or a small travel agency just starting out, you need a tool to create your own website. You also need to register a unique domain. Let’s be honest, a dedicated site makes a business more trustworthy than a Facebook page. Additionally, you can add a book now button to your website and sell your tours online. Don’t forget that your customers (and this is going to sound harsh perhaps) only care about themselves, about their travel plans, their enjoyment, etc. And of course, everything indeed should be about them.

The goal with a nicely designed website is to offer a tour business a brand people are going to love and trust.

In the Comprehensive Guide on Online Marketing in Tourism eBook you can find the answers to the following topics

Show them what makes your destination interesting and unique;  Use rich visual content to
promote sights and famous landmarks; Write about what people can experience and see
while they are visiting. Implement a “book online button” so travelers can book tours, activities, restaurants, and accommodation right away.

Give exposure to the attractions you think are noteworthy. Give out information how to contact you if they have any questions.

Link your social media accounts and display them on your website's homepage.

TOURISM MARKETING CONTINUES
In its broadest sense, tourism marketing is the business discipline of attracting visitors to a
specific location . Hotels, cities, states, consumer attractions, convention centers and other sites and locations associated with consumer and business travel all apply basic marketing strategies to specific techniques designed to increase visits.

Location Marketing
In many cases, tourism marketing centers on attracting people to a specific location without
recommending specific sites or accommodations. For some locations, the attractions are so well-known, the tourism marketer simply needs to remind consumers that the area offers a good time. Las Vegas, for example, uses the slogan, “What Happens In Vegas, Stays in Vegas.” Florida takes a more benefit-oriented tack, marketing itself as “The Sunshine State,” promising an attractive climate to those who want a beach, golf or other warm-weather vacation.

Activity Marketing
Some areas market themselves based on their attractions. For example, Williamsburg, Virginia, markets “Colonial Williamsburg” hoping to attract families and individuals interested in history. The National Park Service promotes destinations such as the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone National Park as camping, hiking and nature vacations. Resort communities such as Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, segment the tourism market, creating different campaigns to attract golfers, tennis players and individuals and families looking for a beach destination. Other tourism activities marketed to consumers include hunting, annual festivals and theme parks.

THE FOUR Ps:-

1) Product
Tourism marketing includes determining the unique selling benefit or benefits one area has
over its competition. A destination might offer people looking to combine business and
pleasure ease of travel to and from the area, ample convention halls and hotels, interesting
nightlife, and activities for adult partners and children.

2) Price
When trying to attract tourists, locales often use discounts, loss leaders and bundling to draw visitors. For example, a local chamber of commerce might solicit money from local businesses to hold a free concert, sporting event or festival that generates hotel stays, restaurant visits and other consumer spending.

A hotel might offer discount coupons to a local restaurant. The restaurant gets free referral
marketing, while the hotel offers a value-added service to its guests. Some hotels and resorts
offer guests free shuttle service. Tourist centers carefully analyze tourism trends and raise and lower their prices based on a busy or “high” season and an off-season, and based
on what their competitors are offering, to maximize occupancy rates.

3) Place
The “place” in the four Ps refers to where a business distributes its product or service , such as in a store, online, using catalogs or through wholesalers. In tourism sales, location and destination marketers sell through tour operators, travel agents, inside sales teams and by setting up websites and phone operators to handle incoming inquiries. Spring break cities are well known for working with packaged vacation tour companies that bring college students to specific hotels by the busload. Destinations often offer free “site visits” to meeting planners , providing free rooms at different hotels, meals, golf, tennis and guided tours to vetted business professionals who select the location of meetings, seminars, retreats, conventions and trade shows.

4) Promotion
Tourism marketing uses a wide variety of communications strategies and techniques to promote areas and destinations. A convention center might purchase advertisements in trade magazines for meeting planners and send direct mail materials to corporations that hold events. They might place ads in tennis or golf magazines to attract those consumers. Destinations build websites and place ads in consumer publications read by their target customers. Chambers of commerce are involved in promoting their areas generally and the businesses within their areas specifically. This often includes offering potential visitors packets filled with brochures, discount coupons and other materials. Basic marketing addresses four pillars of creating and selling a product or service: product, price, place and promotion. In tourism marketing, the four Ps are often applied in the following ways:

TOUR PACKAGE MARKETING

Tour operators do sales and marketing of tourist products. Tour operators buy individual travel components, separately and combine them into a tour package, which is sold with their own price tag to the public directly or through travel agency. Tour operators do marketing of tourist destinations and tourism product to attracts the attention of the tourists/travelers.

Tour operators market their tours (tour package) through travel agency's, though some tour operator have marketing department to market their package. However, tour package can be market (sell and adverts) through online (e.g in websites, social media, etc) and offline (e.g newspaper, magazine, billboard, posters, stickers, branded T shirts and face cap, etc).

TOURISM MARKETING SEGMENTATION

All tourists are not the same. Just as they may belong to different regions, they may be of different age groups and earn different incomes and have different tastes and preferences to live their lives in a certain manner; the tourists also have different choices when it comes to selecting the mode of travel, destination, and the activities at the destination.

Tourism market segmentation is the strategic tool for getting a clear picture of diversity among the tourists. The tourism researchers and the tourism industry use market segmentation information to study the opportunities for competitive advantage in the marketplace.