Tourism and marketing — a symbiotic relationship?

Tourism has emerged as a major industry throughout the world. Yet, as was demonstrated at the Globe ‘90 Confer- ence on Tourism in Vancouver, Canada, in March 1990, there is considerable criticism of the impact tourism has had on host communities. This article is written from a European perspective with particular reference to package holidays. Companies and governments in tourism have applied only part of the marketing mix to tourism, ie promotion, with little attention being paid to the other components of marketing, but if tourism is to survtve by generating satisfaction among interacting tourists and hosts, it must adopt societal marketing strategies.

Chris Ryan is Principal Lecturer in Tourism Studies in the Tourism and Recreation Studies Unit, Nottingham Business School, Burton Street, Nottingham NGl 4BU, UK.

Final version submitted November 1990; accepted November 1990.

‘F. Emery, ‘Alternative futures in tourism’, International Journal of Tourism Manage- ment, Vol 2, No 1, March 1981, pp 49-67; and S. Papson, ‘Tourism, worlds largest industry?‘, Futurist, Vol 13, No 4, 1979, pp 249-257. ‘K.M. Haywood, ‘Can the tourist lifecycle be made operational?’ Tourism Manage- ment, Vol 7, No 3, September 1987, pp 154-l 67; and M. Butler, ‘The concept of a tourism area cycle of evolution’, Can& dian Geographer, Vol 24, 1980, pp !%12. 3A. Renton, ‘At loggerheads with the turtle’, The Independent, 5 August 1989, p 39. ‘J.L. Sax, Mountains without handrails: Reflections on National Parks, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, MI, 1980.

continued on page 102

Tourism and marketing - a symbiotic relationship?

Chris Ryan

Tourism has long been recognized as a fast growing industry, and has been noted as possibly the world’s largest industry.’ It has also become a cliche that tourists destroy the very things that attracted them to a destination in the first place. Haywood and Butler are among those who describe a lifecycle for tourist zones which demonstrates that the destination zone is neither fixed temporally nor spatially, and that it changes its character so that it no longer appeals to the tourists that initially frequented it.2 Unlike many conventional instances of the product lifecycle, in the case of tourism the product evolves over time to become not simply a variant of the original, but a totally different product. One can argue that this is not a process of product rejuvena- tion, but of product destruction - destruction in many senses. The environmental carrying capacities are exceeded in terms of the ability of the natural environment to sustain the previously existing flora and fauna. For example Renton describes the threats that tourism poses to the natural habitat of the loggerhead turtle.3 As Sax comments, the city invades the country and the problems of urban areas with queues in shops and traffic jams supplant the previous mode of life.4 In short the social carrying capacity is exceeded. This is identified by Doxey as the point when the initial welcome extended by the host community turns to at best indifference, or latent hostility.’

What has been the role of marketing in this process? Generally it has been one of promotion of destinations in terms of attracting yet more and more tourists. It would seem that the tourist authorities have an unbalanced view of marketing, seeking simply to use promotional techniques and viewing price as supplementary to the target to attract additional tourist numbers. Ryan describes the means by which UK tour operators engaged in price wars both to enlarge the market and to increase market share.(j After engaging in such price wars from 1985 to 1989 the result was an increase in package holidaymakers from 8.5 million in 1985 to about 12 million in 1988.7 But the consequences also included decreases in the quality of the product, as the stories of unscheduled delays of many hours for holidaymakers in airports, chaos in European air traffic control, complaints about poor hotel food and accommodation, and increased mugging on and by tourists, began to be reported.* Profitability of the tour operators fell so that by 1989-90 most

0261-5177/91/020101-11 0 1991 Butterworth-Heinemann Ltd 101

Tourism and marketing - a symbiotic relarionship?

continued from page 707 5G.V. Doxey, A Causation Theory of Visitor-Resident irrifants: Methodology and Research Inference, The Travel Re- search Association Conference, No 6 lTRA, 1975, pp 195-198. ‘%. Ryan, ‘Trends past and present in the package holiday industry’, The Service In- dustries Journal, Vol 9, No 1, 1989, pp 61- 78. ‘Source: The annual International Passen- ger Survey, commissioned by the Depart- ment of Employment, UK. ‘J. Davison and E. Welsh, ‘Chaos in the air - nightmare on the ground’, The Sunday Times, 30 July 1989, ppA14-15; and T. McGirk and R. Whitaker, ‘Chaos looms as air-traffic controllers auit work’. The Inde- pendent, 13 July 1988. p 12. ‘P.L. Pearce, The Social Psychology of Tourist Behaviour, Pergamon, Oxford, UK, 1982. ‘ON. Cossons, address to the Tourism and Leisure Conference of the Association of District Councils, Plymouth, UK, April 1990. “L. Hossie, ‘Gringos in Paradise’, Report on Business Magazine, Toronto Globe and Mail, February 1990. ‘*J. Krippendorf, The Holiday Makers - Understanding the Impact of Leisure and Travel, Heinemann Professional Pub- lishing, Oxford, UK, 1987; R. O’Grady, Third World Stopover. World Council of Churches, Geneva, i981; and J. Lea, Tourism Development in the Third World, Routledge, London, UK, 1988. 13Krippendorf, op tit, Ref 12, p 148.

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of the top 30 tour operators in the UK were making losses. The same type of saga can be identified in various resort areas. Within Europe, Palma, Majorca which 40 years ago attracted middle class, middle income, middle-aged groups, today attempts to make a living by meeting the demand for cheap alcohol from generally younger holidaymakers on cheap package holidays. Small Greek islands are now open to large numbers of North European holidaymakers so that, for example, villages such as Nidri or Vassiliki on the island of Lefkas have become established holiday locations with a rapid change in host:tourist ratios in the past five years. The National Trust in the UK worries about the impact of large numbers of visitors upon its historic houses. Arguably attempts to diversify by adding tourist attractions simply mean attracting more tourists so that beaches become crowded and places of solitude become more difficult to find. In the case of the Gower Peninsula and West Glamorgan in Wales the development of alternative tourist resources has, it can be contended, provided places for tourists to visit when the weather is poor, but in summer, on sunny warm days, the pressure from increased tourist numbers and from an increased resident population attracted by the beauty of the area, has led to greater pressures on the coast line and the feeder road network compared to 20 years ago.

Tourism is not simply about places - it is about the experience of place, about meeting people, the interaction between host and visitor, and with fellow tourists. Of all the service industries, it is perhaps the most intangible of all. People save their money and their weeks of escape from work to buy what becomes a memory.‘Today, however, in many instances the quality of that experience is threatened, and the tourist is now not welcome. Slowly this is becoming recognized within the industry. Dr Neil Cossons, Director of the Science Museum, has spoken of preserving sites from ‘Atilla the Tourist’.“’ Tourists themselves are rebelling from the packaged resort product with its identikit tourist complexes. The new developments in areas such as Cancun in Mexico are now having difficulties in achieving high occupancy rates and resort increasingly to offering discounts, free or low-cost stays to personnel from air carriers and other promotional ploys to fill their bed-spaces.” As is evidenced by an increasing number of conferences and papers, ‘alternative’, ‘appropriate’ or ‘responsible’ tourism is becoming more widely acknowledged, at least by academics who may subsequently play the role of ‘opinion leaders’ in the dissemination of information and attitudes. Although tourism problems are easy to identify, it is much more difficult to identify the solutions.

Planning tourism - paradoxes and problems

For many writers the obvious solution is to plan tourist development, often within small areas so that host:tourist ratios are ‘held down’, while supplementing this by additional policies including education to make tourists more aware of their surroundings.‘* Krippendorf ends his book by proposing a ‘learn to travel’ course, and commenting:

The key to the humanisation of travel is the new, all round individual. Not just a

holiday person but a human being, aware of himself (and of others) and of his

travel motives and desires . .I3

There are however, many problems and paradoxes including the following:

TOURISM MANAGEMENT June 1991

Tourism and marketing - a symbiotic relationsI+?

0 Many host communities wish to generate revenue from tourism to help perpetuate desired patterns of life. Often, in the case of rural, agricultural communities, the societies wish to reverse depopulation that occurs when the younger members of the community are forced to leave to find work. However, if these attempts are successful, increasing visitor numbers generate changes within the host society so that even should it become economically viable, it becomes no longer possible to maintain the original lifestyle that its members wished to preserve. In obtaining economic viability it becomes socially unviable. This is as true of rural Yorkshire as it is of developing countries.”

0 The use of natural resources to attract tourists, if successful, leads to the imposition of an infrastructure upon ‘nature’. Over time, it is the manmade structures that maintain the attractiveness of the tourist resort, not the natural features that prompted the original tourism development.

0 Small-scale developments may be perceived as a solution posing little threat to the existing way of life. It might even be argued that small-scale development may permit tourism development on low- grade land - low grade from either scenic or agricultural viewpoints. The implications of this viewpoint are that communities are accepting limitations upon revenue that may otherwise be gained, while property developers are being asked to accept higher costs per bed-space created in terms of any development that may take place due to a lack of economies of scale.

l Zoning policies on a macro-scale may envisage areas whereby some locations are denied tourist development. To deny such development is to deny income to those areas. Yet arguably these areas make the adjacent area where tourism is permitted more attractive, both environmentally and financially - environmentally because scenic value is retained, clean air and water are possibly maintained, and flora and fauna are protected, and financially because competition among resorts is being curtailed by the non-development of potential resorts. But there is generally no financial compensation offered to those areas where tourism is prohibited.

l Policies which seek to maintain the environmental values of rural areas by enhancing the recreational and scenic areas of urban zones, eg by the development of urban forests, or tourism based on heritage as in Bradford, reinforce the economic supremacy of urban over rural areas, and may therefore inhibit economic development in rural areas.15

l Alternative tourism may be seen as a means of minimizing physical effects on potentially fragile ecosystems, but as Butler points out, the closer contact between resident and tourist in perhaps the more intimate surroundings of home rather than hotel complex may have a potentially greater impact on host cultures than is the case where tourists are safely isolated in the tourist ‘ghettos’.i6

l Tourism may be seen by members of the host community to offer opportunities for entrepreneurial activity but initial success generates a situation whereby, in order to contact markets beyond the reach of the small-scale entrepreneurs in the tourist receiving zone, the initiative passes to the larger organizations in the tourist generating locations. Locally owned businesses thus become secon- dary rather than primary in the context of the wider tourist industry.

“‘L. Ragan, ‘Despair in the dales on visitor onslaught’, Yorkshire Evening Posf, March 1989, p 8. “Countryside Commission, Forest for the Communitv. (CCP 2701 Countrvside Com- mission F%diications, ’ Manchester, UK, 1989. ‘%.W. Butler, ‘Alternative tourism - pious hope or trojan horse?‘, Journal of Travel Research, Vol 28, No 3, 1990, pp 4045.

TOURISM MANAGEMENT June 1991 103


“P. Wilkinson, ‘Centre and periphery: the impacts of leisure and tourism on Colling- wood’, in Bryan Smale, ed, Sixth Canadian Congress on Leisure Research, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 9-l 2 May 1989, p 6. “P. Hodgson, ‘The under-use of market research in the search for new products in the tourism industry’, Canadian Journal of Marketing Research, Vol 8, 1990, pp 22- 29. “V.T.C. Middleton, Marketing of Travel and Tourism, Heinemann Professional Publishing, Oxford, UK, 1988, pp 57-64. 20P.E. Murphy, Tourism - a community approach, Methuen, New York, 1985, pp 171-176. 2’C. Ryan and J. Groves, ‘Cruise line holidays - the characteristics of holiday- takers’, Nottingham Business School, Working Paper, No 1 (New Series), 1989; Emery, op tit, Ref 1; and DC. Belle and M. Etzel, ‘The role of novelty in the pleasant travel experience’, Journal of Travel Re- search, Vol 24, No 1, 1985, pp 20-36. **F. Barrett, ‘Guide to real holidays abroad’, The Independent, City Publishing, London, UK, 1988. 23Emery, op tit, Fief 1; Papson, op tit, Ref 1; and J. Zuzanek and R. Mannell, ‘Work- leisure relationships from a sociological and social psychological perspective’, Lei- sure Studies, Vol 2. September 1983, pp 327-344. 24A. Maslow, Motivafion and Personalify, 3rd edition, Harper and Row, London and New York, 1987.

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One possible implication is that tourism development becomes dominated by the culture of organizational growth where success is measured by numbers transported to any given destination rather than the local needs of the tourist receiving area.

0 Planned areas of tourism zones do not present a complete solution to the problems, because inevitably planning authorities are con- strained to specific and often artificially created geographical boundaries which are not recognized by drainage patterns, animal migration, wind direction patterns, cultural entities and tourist movements. In the USA, it may be argued that day trips and longer-stay visits to the canyons of Southern Utah, a state in part identified with Mormon colonies, are higher than would otherwise be the case due to the proximity of Southern Utah to Nevada and the gambling centres of Reno and Las Vegas. These attract large numbers of tourists from all over the world and present the opportunity to combine visits to two different attractions. Wilkinson gives an example of the failure of municipal boundaries to recognize the realities of tourism in his description of the developments in Collingwood, Ontario, where he notes that the town of Colling- wood ‘has little influence over development patterns in the township in which it is located’.”

In short, it might be stated that planning policies as produced by government bodies contain implicit value judgments about the merits of competing claims within a context of incomplete jurisdiction.

Marketing and tourism

Therefore, if such planning represents a subjective and incomplete redress of the problems posed by tourism, are there other mechanisms at play that may help? Often, as indicated above, marketing has been interpreted narrowly as being concerned with advertising and promotion and, possibly to some extent, with price. The market research function has often been overlooked.‘x Product development has often been interpreted in terms of physical, tangible components alone without reference to the types of tourists that are to be attracted.” Murphy argues strongly for the need of communities to be involved in tourism planning, but generally omits the role of marketing within product (tourism zone) development.*” Many authors have identified an increasing requirement among tourists for recognition of individual wants and a need for independence, and a flexibility in their holiday arrangements that cannot always be met by the typical package holiday with its characteristics of single site accommodation in airport-accessible destinations within specified time constraints.” It may be significant that increasing numbers of people in the UK are choosing holidays organized by small proprietor-managed holiday companies that offer ‘off the beaten track’ holidays ranging from horse riding in Spain to cycling ‘for softies’ in France. ** The move towards a post-industrial society may arguably undermine the escape motivation for holidays and reinforce the experiential nature of leisure time demand for ‘re-creation’ in its fullest sense.23 An important determinant of satisfaction with the holiday experience may be their ability to aid in the process of self actualization described by Maslow.

As the tourist industry moves into the latter part of the 20th century it will face the increasing problem of achieving not growth but a quality of



tourist experience that is consistent with sustaining both physical and social environments. The implication of this is that the industry must pay attention to the concept of ‘societal marketing’. Sommers, Barnes, Stanton and Futrell define this broadened marketing concept as characterized by

a philosophy whereby a company strives to develop an integrated marketing programme that generates long-run profitable sales volume by satisfying the long-run wants of the customer of its products and services (and) the other parts of society affected by the firm’s activities.2s

To

0

achieve this implies that marketing tourism requires:

enhancement of visitor satisfaction which may involve recognition that social carrying capacities are less than the physical carrying capacities; acceptance that a growth in visitor numbers is inconsistent with the objectives of maintaining environments and tourist satisfaction; more careful marketing of an attraction in the sense of matching tourist zone with types of tourists and their needs; the establishment of alternative criteria of success, so that mere numbers of tourists are not seen as the goal of tourism marketing, but rather the achievement of high rates of satisfaction; that residents as well as tourists are considered as the consumers of tourism. If national tourist organizations and tourist boards justify their existence in terms of generating employment and revenue for the areas they promote, then there is an implicit recognition that residents are consumers of both the benefits and disbenefits tourism generates. The interests of residents thus need a wider, albeit more difficult, sociological and sociopsychological definition of interest than the simple economic one, and a means of translating that interest into policy.

A large number of implications emerges from these objectives. The first is that there must be not simply a creation of awareness of tourist place in the mind of the potential tourist, but that any image must be consistent with the reality of that location. Geshekter provides specific evidence where this is not being done, quoting from travel brochures where exactly the same wording is used to describe two totally different African countries on opposite sides of the continent, containing cliched stereotypes about ‘Tarzan’ and ‘pulsating African drums’.26

Product design

An important part of marketing lies in product design, and all too often the tourism industry has lagged behind in concepts of tourism design, partly because of the fragmented nature of the industry. Examples of good tourist design do exist. Many theme parks maintain a high quality of environmental control not simply in terms of aesthetics but also control of pedestrian flow, queuing times and other aspects such as control of litter. Around the world are to be found examples of careful architectural design where, as is the case of the village of Portmeirion,

25M.S. Sommers, J.G. Barnes, W.J. Stan- UK, careful thought has been paid to sight lines from both the village ton and F. Futrell, Fundamentals of Mafkeling, McGraw Hill Ryerson, 1989,

and the surrounding woods to give not simply picturesque views of the

~581. village and estuary, but, arguably, has created an atmosphere that

‘SC Geshekter, quoted in Lea, op tit, Ref 12.’

regenerates the human spirit in a peaceful setting, at least for its holidaying residents after the day visitors have departed.



Center Parts in Sherwood Forest, UK, created a development which changed comparatively low grade commercial evergreen woods into a carefully considered mix of deciduous and evergreen trees around a newly constructed lake and water drainage patterns, which offers not only a woodland setting to tourists but also to deer. In both of these cases it is also probably significant that strong motivations other than tourism existed. The founder of Center Parts, Piet Derksen, was in part motivated by strong Christian principles which led him purposefully to develop tourist complexes that are in harmony with their surroundings, while Clough Ellis, the architect behind Portmeirion was inspired to make a protest in the most practical way that he could think of against the dehumanizing, utilitarian architecture that he saw becoming the vogue around him. Unfortunately, for each example of good practice there are many examples of poor developments. The Mediterranean coastline is characterized by developments which are almost uniform and could be easily interchanged from Morocco to Greede. The same style of developments are to be found in developing countries such as Sri Lanka or Mexico. The point is not that tourist complexes are by their nature to be condemned, because there are some social advantages that stem from them. It must also be recognized that the relaxation needs of tourists for sunshine and swimming pools away from the pressures of work and home are legitimate. 27 Rather, if each location is the same, why should the tourist go to one rather than another? There is no unique selling point. Often the only discriminatory factor is price, or rather, low price. This generates the pressures towards large-scale complexes to achieve profits from low margins and simply reinforces the whole process of overcrowding in certain locations - the drains upon developing countries’ resources to maintain water and electricity sup- plies for these new complexes and all the other problems that tourism creates.28 Better product design is better marketing, is better for the environment, is better for profitability and will create higher satisfaction levels for the tourist.

Function of tour operators

One problem with tourism is that one of its largest generators of tourist activity possesses few if any assets in the holiday destination. The tour operators may, through vertical integration, own airlines and possibly hotels, but if anything they prefer not to possess hotel buildings for that would make them hostage to changing patterns of demand between locations and potentially vulnerable to changing exchange rates. Such considerations are important when profit margins may be wafer thin as is the case of the UK tour operator industry. Essentially they perform a service whereby they lease hotel and aircraft capacities and package the travel arrangements for the tourist. They own little in the tourist receiving country, and thus have little long-term stake in the future of that area. If the complaints start to grow, they simply drop that location and find another for their brochure. In their defence, the tour operators

*‘C. Ryan, Holiday Tourism, a Social Sci- argue that they comply with local regulations, and that it is for foreign

ence Perspective, Routledge, London, UK, governments to determine numbers of hotel rooms, numbers of flights

to be published. and numbers of tourists to be catered for. Yet the tour operators will *“L. Tuting. Trekking tourism in Nepal, Western Achievement attitudes vs Ecolo-

negotiate with those same governments, usually for the right to take

gical Revival, reprint, Tourismus und Oko- more tourists to those destinations, and thus become indirectly responsi-

bgie, Okuzid 5, Focus Verlag, Giessen, ble for the building of the hotels and the infrastructure for tourism by Claus Euler, ed, 1989. promising to deliver more tourists. It may be argued that they possess



the means to influence decisions without long-term responsibilities. Their marketing practices have not, however, been successful even by their own requirements. The UK tour operator industry has become a classic case of a pursuit of market growth with competition aimed at increasing market share resulting in diminishing profitability. British Airways sold some of its brands to SunMed - the third largest company, Horizon, was subjected to takeovers by first Bass, and then Thomsons. The same problems can be found in other countries. In 1990 Thomson Vacations and Odyssey International Airlines in Ontario, Canada, collapsed leaving the Ontario government to initially fund the return of about 3000 tourists amd make refunds to a total of 20 000 individuals at a cost of C$7 million.29

Market segmentation

In the field of consumer goods marketing it has become a clichC that product design is not only concerned with the technically feasible, but also has to take into account the needs and wishes of the final user. Companies produce ranges of, eg shampoo to meet the needs of those with dry, normal or greasy hair. In addition, at the very least, lip service is paid to wider societal obligations by the provision of ‘green products’.

The market is divided and subdivided on the basis of life-stage, demographics, geo-demographics and psychographics. In the hospitality industry, restaurant owners know full well the importance of creating an ambience which appeals to certain groups of clientele. In the UK brewing industry the brewers have begun to realize that owning a series of pubs that simply duplicate each other in a city centre simply misses opportunities, and thus they are currently generating differences de- signed to appeal to different groups of customers.“’ Within tourism there are some examples of such product/client segmentation. Broad distinctions may be made between summer and winter holidays, between holidays for the over-50s and the 18-30 age group, but on the whole the main summer sun brochures show little discrimination between varying groups of clients. If anything, this need to appeal to a wide range of people produces a bland description of hotels with little information on the country or destination. It might be argued that the mass market only requires details of price and hotel facilities, but it might be that is all that they have come to expect from a brochure. It is becoming increasingly apparent that as consumers become experienced users of the tourist product, they are demanding more. Examples of good practice do exist. Within the UK the brochure produced by Falcon Sailing Holidays gives details of varying resorts and sea and wind conditions so that clients can select venues according to their preference for ethnic oriented surroundings and sailing conditions. In addition large companies do produce some ‘branding’ such as Thomson’s ‘Small and Friendly’ brochure. However, compared to other industries the degree of customer segmentation that is carried out by the major tour operators is embryonic.

However, a possible further defence of the tour operators might be that, on the whole, governments and property developers have rarely

“R. Mackie, ‘Travel fund allowed to spend considered market segmentation in the construction of tourist facilities $7 million’, Toronto Globe and Mail, 3 May in the tourist receiving countries. Where niche market products do exist, 1990, p AlO. 3oC. Ryan, A taste of the new licensing

it is normally because of the initiative of small businesses whose

laws, MRS Newsletter, Market Research entrepreneurs have often pursued their own interest to develop a Society, London, UK, January 1989. product that appeals to like minded people, eg it is unlikely that any



3’South Australian Tourist Development Board, Tourism in South Australia - the strategic plan, 1987-1989, 1987, Appen- dix 1, p 4. 3qourism Canada, Discussion Paper on a National Tourism Strategy, Industry, Sci- ence and Technoloav, Tourism Canada. _. Canada, 1989, p 23. 33D.J. Boorstin. The Imaoe: a Guide to the Pseudo-Event in Ame&, Atheneum, New York, 1975; and E. Cohen, ‘Towards a sociology of international tourism’, Social Research, Vol39, 1972, pp 164-182:

property company or government would have seen fit to develop the type of holiday produced by the Skyros Experience with its emphasis on holistic experiences. For governments and construction companies, the visible symbols of success in tourism often mean the development of tourist complexes featuring high-rise hotels with swimming pools. However, there has been official recognition of the potential problems. For example, under the heading of ‘key issues’ the South Australia Tourist Plan states that ‘a greater tolerance of the “develop at any cost ethic” . . . could work against the long-term interests of tourism in South Australia by putting the notion of quantity before that of quality’.31 Tourism Canada, in 1989, noted that ‘One of the most pressing public concerns currently affecting all economic activities and developments is their impact on the environment’.32 The problem is one of reconciling recognition of environmental imperatives with the requirements for generating additional economic activity.

Another problem facing tour operators is that, when booking accommodation, competition for bookings comes not only from those companies competing in the same tourist generating country, but also from companies operating in other markets. The potential bidding up of prices for accommodation in tourist receiving zones, with the need to maintain competitive prices in the tourist generating zone, imposes a strain on tour operators’ profits. More careful marketing stressing quality may allow the operators to support higher prices, societal marketing may help to offer a longer-term solution.

and thus

Societal marketing

Thus an implication for tourism development is that marketing in its

fullest sense of product design, customer identification, a recognition of customer needs and responsible promotional and pricing policies within a context of social and environmental constraints must be incorporated into tourism zone development from the initial phases of that development. Market research within tourism means not only an identification of a market in terms of consumers and competition, but also careful design of a product that is consistent with the environmental setting of the product. It can be done. To return to the example of Center Parts. The site was located in Sherwood Forest on the basis of criteria established over previous years of experience on the European main- land. The site was also analysed by looking at the geo-demographics of the designated catchment areas. The customer profile is well documented by the company, and their needs are monitored continually by market research. The company has a 95% occupancy level throughout the whole year, including winter. Center Parts may be termed an ‘environmental bubble’ in more than one sense. In tourism literature there has been possibly an implicit theme of elitism in the condemnation of the ‘pseudo-event’ and the tourist bubble (terms developed by Boorstin and Cohen), but it must be recognized that tourists confined within such purpose built complexes as Center Parts, or Club La Santa on Lanzarote, Canary Isles, actually reduce tourist-host contacts, and thus possibly reduce adverse demonstration effects.s3 Indeed, in the case of North Nottinghamshire, UK, some restaurant and other tourist businesses have privately stated to the author a degree of disappoint- ment in that Center Parts has not led to as great an increase in trade as they had hoped for.

108 TOURISM MANAGEMENT June 1991

Conclusions


At the Globe ‘90 conference in Vancouver in March 1990 the sessions on tourism showed not that tourism was a means by which international understanding was being generated, but rather that it posed threats to the environment and to host communities, and that only in those cases where careful planning had been involved had it fulfilled the expecta- tions of its promoters. Generally it might also be argued that tourism has suffered from an unbalanced marketing viewpoint on the part of many in the industry. Promotion of bed-spaces has supplanted the promotion of place and experience of that place. Product development has encouraged the construction of large-scale complexes to secure economies of scale to permit profits to be made in situations of low margins, while the same constructors and holiday companies have paid little heed to environmental and social costs. Pricing policy has been oriented towards goals of increasing tourist numbers. The consequence is that the quality of the tourist experience has diminished whereby tourists find themselves treated as numbers and not as individuals. If tourism is to survive the crisis caused by its success in generating numbers, then, at least as a partial solution, it must embrace the societal marketing concept as described above. This involves:


identifying types of tourist developments that are consistent with the physical carrying capacities of the area, and the requirements of the host community; identifying market segments that will be interested in the type of tourism product being envisaged, and conducting market research to assess that market’s requirements; accepting the physical and social constraints that arise, and seeking to devise products that can generate satisfaction for the market segment within those constraints - indeed the social and environmental constraints are the source of unique selling propositions for the product and accepting constraints may lead to avoiding problems caused by excess bed-space capacity; using pricing policies as part of the market segmentation and relating to profitability, rather than as a means of attracting increasing numbers of tourists; continually monitoring tourist satisfaction levels, and using these as part of the criteria of success rather than increasing numbers of tourists; continually monitoring host reaction to tourists, for host-tourist interaction is an important component of the tourist experience; maintaining the objective of sustaining the satisfaction levels of the target group of tourists that are consistent with both product and environment, and being aware that infrastructure development of tourism resort areas has implications for the types of tourists that will be attracted; developing promotional material that correctly reflects the tourist zone, and is targeted at the niche market required; developing products that have unique selling points and aiming at segmented markets to avoid the problems that accompany exceed- ing the carrying capacities of vulnerable locations; recognizing that limiting the growth of physical accommodation possesses advantages not only for the social and physical environment, but for profitability and costs - limited capacity generates


34D.C. Gilbert, ‘Tourism marketing - its emergence and establishment’, in, Prog- ress in Tourism. Recreation and Hospital- ity Management, C.P. Cooper,. ed, Belhaven Books, London, UK, 1989. 35J C Holloway and R.V. Plant, Marketing forTchrism, Pitman, London, UK; and G.A. Schmoll, Tourism Promotion, Tourism In- ternational Press, London, UK, 1977. 36Gilbert, op tit, Ref 34, p 84. 37A~ part of this monitoring current clientele satisfaction surveys based simply on responses of holidaymakers on returning flights may be cheap to administer, but are inadequate in terms of assessing (a) impact on tourist environments, (b) holidaymakers’ future plans and intentions, and (c) customer classifications in terms of lifestyles, attitudes or any other segmentation basis.

opportunities for pricing based on exclusivity while creating potential advertising and marketing economies where bed-spaces may be

filled from repeat demand, thus obviating the need to generate new demand.

Currently, as described by Gilbert, tourism marketing has been characterized by ‘custom and procedure’.“4 Holloway and Plant argue that the practice of recruiting staff straight from school and ‘training them up’ has led to a lack of innovation and skilled market analysis, while Schmoll argued that many of the changes initiated in the industry were undertaken by those who had initially worked outside tourism.‘” Gilbert quotes the UK hotel industry as an example where management equated success with the star status of their hotel. This product orientation led to a market gap for budget hotels of two-star quality.“‘j This gap was identified not by UK, hoteliers but by the French chain ACCOR.

Market research

To achieve the new directions required by a changing market requires in turn a changing culture within tour operators, tourist boards and other companies involved in tourism. Within manufacturing industry success has been increasingly associated with careful market research and quality consciousness. Profits are associated with repeat purchases and the generation of customer loyalty. In the case of tourism, since the demand for new places is an intrinsic part of tourism, the generation of tourist loyalty to a specific destination is difficult to obtain, although companies can seek loyalty to a brand-name or a type of touristic activity. Moreover, the continued satisfaction of members of the host society with tourism is important, as the nature of their interaction with tourists is in part a determinant of a successful holiday experience. Host communities are particularly sensitive to negative aspects of tourism and the concerns that they voice will become the very factors that begin to undermine the quality of the holiday experience for the tourists. Hence an early identification of such concerns is to the advantage of all. As a minimum companies need to ensure that:

they possess market research personnel as well as those concerned with promotional functions; market research is directed not only at existing clientele, but also non-purchasers; market research is also directed at the environment within which the tourist product is located - this will generate up-to-date information on the physical characteristics of the tourist destination and ideally will make the holiday company sensitive to the impact of tourism and the implications for their own existing customers; they should seek to identify unique selling points for holiday destinations and realistically identify the market segments for whom these points are attractive and promote accordingly; they should continually monitor reactions of customers, non- customers, hosts and their own marketing strategies;” the above process should itself be continually monitored for quality - many tour operators would claim to be undertaking some if not all of the above, but their current financial position and marketing strategies testify to weaknesses in this process; growth should be measured not simply by numbers of admissions or _ -.;

110 TOURISM MANAGEMENT June 1991


holiday makers carried, but by qualitative measures relating to satisfaction and perception of products by users, non-users and hosts. It must be further appreciated that longer-term profit and possibly survival as an organization requires longer-term viewpoints. Tourism is no different from other industries in that short-term profit taking without investment in the future usually ends in loss and potential liquidation.

Customer-oriented strategies

How might these prescriptions be translated into practical strategies. One method is to ‘think small’ and to be customer oriented. Arguably one of the problems for large-scale tourism promoters, and particularly tour operators, is to engender a company culture where this can take place. Nonetheless, examples can be found, eg Owner’s Abroad con- tinues to market holidays through brand names based on small-scale companies subsequently taken over by the company. However, in some instances the original founders of the small companies have been retained in an executive capacity within the company. In the case of Falcon Sailing Holidays, the founders of Sailing in Greece and Saronic sailing continue to have executive control and retain close links with the destinations in which they began operations a decade or so ago. A personal investment, a commitment to the family-owned hotels used in the destinations, and expansion by opening new sites rather than increasing numbers at existing holiday destinations, retains the advantages of small groups of holiday takers. These advantages in turn create a sense of personal attention, high levels of client satisfaction and loyalty, and the evolution of a distinct type of holiday experience. It also maintains a role for at least some part of the local host community. Yet these operations have the advantages of economies of scale such as mass purchase of aircraft seats, and access to the public through travel agents rather than direct sale. It is also interesting to note that the branding is not based on location, but on holiday experience, as is true of some other brands such as Thomson’s ‘Small and Friendly’. However, the image of ‘Small and Friendly’ is possibly diffused due to the fact that while the hotels used may be small, a number are located in, or near, mass destination resorts.

The success of such companies as Falcon Sailing, and larger-scale ventures such as Center Parts, may therefore be illustrative of the importance of an identification by individuals and companies with both the resort zone and their clientele on a continuing basis. In short, societal marketing requires possibly two dimensions. First sophisticated marketing and market research in an attempt to ensure tourist satisfaction and the long-run viability of tourist destinations as well as tourist companies and organizations. Second, in an attempt to ensure a mode of thinking that concentrates on the interests of tourist and host, there is a need to ‘humanize’ the operation, which becomes easier within an organizational structure that permits individuals to identify with locations. Under these circumstances societal marketing may be mutually beneficial for all concerned.


Tourism and marketing — a symbiotic relationship?

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