Managing and Marketing Tourism

Introduction
Defining tourism is not a simple matter, as tourism is a complex industry made up of different
businesses. Although the most widely accepted definition given by the World Tourism Organisation
Tourism comprises the activities of persons travelling to and staying in places outside their usual
environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes. It is a
rapidly growing industry. The industry has found itself take the prime position in many countries.
Countries such as the U.A.E. have evolved themselves into a tourist hub and invite people from
across the globe to do trade and business. Since the unification of U.A.E. 42 years ago, it has risen
to become an international tourist destination for business and leisure travellers. The tourism
industry not just helps in globalisation but also provides opportunities for businesses to prosper.

In 2013, the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) stated that the tourism industry saw a 5%
increase in annual arrivals of international tourists and reached the figure of 1.087 billion. The
future forecast of international tourists arrival shows promising steady growth of 4.5% to 5% in
2014. Not just this, the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) in 2011 announced that the
international tourism receipts surpassed the mark of 1trillion dollars. The 21st century has seen the
tourism industry reach new heights but the coming 10 years have tough challenges and surpassing
them would provide stability and growth to this industry. Not just this, the tourism industry is one of
those few industries that have to keep changing according to the customers needs and keep on
improving the services to maintain customer satisfaction level by improving their services such as
transportation, accommodation, eating, drinking and other hospitality services.

CHALLENGES FOR TOURISM INDUSTRY

In the second half of 2008, there was decline seen in international tourism which soon intensified in
the early 2009 due to global recession. A sharp drop in international tourist arrival, length of stay
and tourist spending. Due to this many people became unemployed, economic and social insecurity
started to creep in and the average household income dropped. Fortunately, the sector was in a
position to take advantage of the given opportunity and minimise the effect of global crisis on this
sector. For example the Italys tourism industry has promised to improve the working conditions of
the employees and subcontractor by increase the moderate pay increase April 2013 and many
developing countries have taken measures in the field of marketing, directed towards domestic
market and public-private partnerships.

Despite all these changes in the market, the tourism industry has some challenges which they need
to address and make sure they overcome it. The challenges we are going to address are as follows:-

The shifting needs and demands of consumers

Technology and social media
The extent in collaboration in the industry

THE SHIFTING NEEDS AND DEMANDS OF CONSUMERS

The consumer is the one who acts as the catalyst in the tourism industry. In Tourism: Principle and
Practices (2005) it has been clearly stated that the tourism managers have to research and
understand the needs and demands of the consumer to make vital decision towards tourism
products. By understanding the needs of the consumer, the impact of different promotional tactics
can be recorded and the managers can improve their chances of market success.

Last few years has seen an increase in the number of new tourists entering into the tourism industry.
One of the main reason has been an increase in the average disposable income. According to a
research done by Jeremy Bennett, the average household disposable income has risen by 1,761
after recession in UKs top 40 towns and cities. This is because there has been an overall increase in
the salary and essential goods such as clothing and food which have relatively become cheaper. All
the necessities are taken care of with easy functioning of the system and thus people have more time
and income to spend. There has also been improvement in the travel technology thus encouraging
new tourists to consume tourism products. Motorways around the country has linked places well
with each other and adding to that airlines like Easyjet and Ryanair have made air travel cheaper
and made it available to a larger section of the society. All these factors increase the likelihood of
people becoming tourists.

New tourists have shown interest in new type of tourism such as voluntourism, farm stays and eco
tourism. Voluntourism is tourism for a charitable cause. The popularity of this is on a rise and the
tourists share the same desire to do something good and explore new places which they otherwise
cant do.

TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIAL MEDIA

The development of technology and social media has been the highlight of most recent 50 years. As
the technology improved, the opportunities in the tourism industry began to show up significantly. It
has profited as well as goes about to act as a platform for small businesses to showcase their product
and services. Social media has the power to reach to global audience with just about no time slack
and being easily accessible, it conceals a large section of the society.

There are more than ten thousand destinations around the world and each one is trying to catch the
attention of the tourists. What separates them is known as brand tourism. Destination brand equity
is the valuation of the overall effect of tourist behaviour which includes length of stay, expenditure
level and number of tourists arrival. This information indicates the value and popularity of the
destination. But the growth in brand tourism can be precarious. It can surely increase the sales of all
the tourism products but the it can prompt to a backlash from the local natives which are actually
the core customers and without them the industry cant make due for a very long time. Case in
point, the Government of India in 2002 launched an international marketing campaign to promote
tourism in India named Incredible India. The campaign showed different parts of India
showcasing their culture and heritage such as spirituality, dance forms, food etc. It received
appreciation from around the globe and in March 2006 according to data released by Visa Asia
Pacific 4, India became the fastest growing market in Asia-Pacific in terms of international tourist
spending.

As the World Wide Web developed considerably, there is a genuine need to improve the market
intelligence and market research for both private and public tourism organisations to enhance the
choice making of the consumer. Tourism organisation cant stand to overlook the advancement in
user generated content, peer to peer web applications, video and photo sharing. Recent studies show
that the consumers prefer websites with reviews over expert aides as they are perceived to be more
credible and dependable then conventional marketing communications. Be that as it may, however
there has been criticism about the fairness, quality and negative reviews. To help our point we can
take into record the case of TripAdvisor. It is an America travel website which provides reviews
related to travel content. It claims to be the biggest travel site in the world with more than 60
million members but they still face the limitation of user-generated content. In 2011, the UK
Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) propelled an investigation against TripAdvisor after
receiving grievances about its claim to provide legit and trustworthy reviews are false. Before long
the organisation was compelled to transform its slogan from reviews you can trust to reviews
from our community.

The tourism industry has gone through massive transformational changes which has been the
highlight of last two decades. Something which has been equally improved and become more
accessible are, smartphones. According to United Nation Telecommunications Agency by 2010,
77% of the worlds populations owns a cellphone. Since travel is so on the go nature, it is little to
ponder that cell phones can incite immense changes in tourists and tourism organisations alike.
Keen and Macintosh (2001) stress that the issue is that mobile commerce (m- commerce) is
marking the start of another era of innovation in business and that m-commerce will continue to
extend the way organisations conduct business and change the relationships between companies,
customers, suppliers and partners.

REFERENCE

Prof Chris Cooper (2005). Tourism- Principles and Practice. Edinburgh: Pearson Education.
The United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) www.unwto.org/
I.
II. http://www.brandywilliams.net/volunteering-pros-and-cons.html\
III. Tourism Branding: Communities in Action- by Liping A. Cai, William C. Gartner, Ana Mara
Munar
IV. Marketing and Managing Tourism Destinations- By Alastair M Morrison
V. User generated content: the use of blogs for tourism organisations and tourism consumers by
Gary Akehurst available on http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11628-008-0054-2
VI. Keen, P., and Mackintosh, R. (2001), The Freedom Economy: Gaining the M-commerce Edge
in the Era of the Wireless Internet. Berkeley, CA: Osborne/McGraw-Hill.