Importance of Marketing in Travel and Tourism Industry

Questions: 1. Discuss the core concepts of marketing for the travel and tourism sector. 2. Assess the impact of the marketing environment on individual travel and tourism businesses and tourist destinations. 3. Discuss the factors affecting consumer motivation and demand in the travel and tourismsector. 4. analyse the principles of market segmentation and its uses in marketing planning. Answers: Introduction This task is based on a case scenario wherein as a marketing manager (assistant) the requirement for Thomson Management is to create a cultural package of 6 days to visit. 1. Core Concepts of Marketing in Travel and Tourism Industry Thomson Holidays is an operator in travelling industry in the United Kingdom. The organization had been found as a subsidiary company of the Thomson Travel Group in the year 1965. Since recent times, the organization has been showing willingness towards creation of different cultural package for a visit of six days to four different places that include Porto, Lisbon, Amsterdam and Denmark. In this context, this report will be exploring different concepts and considerations related to marketing in the industrial sector of travel and tourism. The centralized argument for the success in the future of tourism industry is a crucial point to understand the trends and utilizing their positive impact, while the negatives have to be annulled. Markets growing at fast rate need strategic management oriented with rapid growth. Strategy can be referred to as determining the basic goals of long term for the organization. This has to be done in alignment of the course of actions chosen and as per the need for the allocation of resources in order to implement the goals set (Keller, 2009). In context with the marketing of the organization for new cultural package, the organization of Thomson must take the opportunity out of mass migration amongst the tourists that will contribute in leading the policy of tourism at a large scale. The package must be fixed at a lower amount of price, dictating the increased level of interest amongst the tourists within the market for this category of products. This 6 day package will be for visit to 4 destinations which are inclusive of Denmark, Amsterdam, Lisbon and Porto. The package will be inclusive of cheap fair of transport plus accommodation in the destination places with lunch, dinner and breakfast inclusive. This can be done by the accumulation of additional participants within the market of tourism that had been conducted with the approach related to the requirements for uniformity in contents with respect to the conventional products (Roger, 2012). With the concept of mass migration, there can be reflection of loyalty related to the subject in making the choice of standardized concepts, and also by selecting products in a diversified manner of the acceptable products in favor of the new interests and the new conditions. 2. Impact of Marketing Environment on Business The organization of Thomson Holiday has been a big operator and one of the most famous organization in the industry of tourism. Still, developing the holiday package of 6 days to 4 destinations will be influenced by the external environment of tourism industry. As Thomson holiday exists in U.K, the external environment of UK for considerable factors needs to be studied. These external factors are inclusive of political, social, environmental, economical, technological and legal considerations. As a matter of fact, without the segmentation of market, the organization will not be able to prepare any sorts of plans regarding behavior, psychographic, geography, and demography of customers. However there are several issues influencing the marketing environment of travel and tourism but the most essential problem has a connection to understanding the origin country and patterns of travel. The place to which tourists are from is essential and their patterns of travel is also important for c onsideration especially with regard to outbound and inbound travel. Therefore marketing strategy selected here will be well-developed niche based marketing strategy leading to the growth of total market. In order to develop this, image of the customers will be measured with regard to these 4 destinations. This package with its appropriate marketing strategy will help in convincing the customer of the packages potentiality when purchased leading towards gaining confidence of customers and their trust. 3. Factors Affecting Consumer Motivation and Demand An important factor to take under consideration when marketing the new package will be to analyze the motivation of the tourists to take up the particular package. Factors from this perspective can be divided into 2 categories which are inclusive primarily of motivational factors that help in enhancing the motivation of the traveler for purchasing this packaged holiday and secondly determination factors that can help in determining whether tourists have the ability of purchasing the product as desired. In order to add motivational factors, the package holiday will be made complicated with tangible along with intangible elements, selling experience to tourist and not just a product, assisting the tourists whereas necessary, acknowledging the belief, attitude and emotional expectation of the tourists in terms of this package. Motivation will also be measured from the perspective of the purpose for which tourists will be visiting these destinations as included in the package holiday whi ch specifically is for recreating and holidaying. 4. Principles of Market Segmentation Segmentation is referred to as the involvement of activities to split the customers or the customers with highest potentiality within certain segments or groups. In this particular segment, the customers will be sharing a common degree of interest within the services or products being provided. As a significant principle of market segmentation, it is important to understand and identify the differences in categories (Roger, 2012). This is due to the fact that for the purpose of market segmentation, market has been categorized into three different categories. These categories are clustered market, diffused market and homogenous market. In the homogenous market, each and every single prospect or customer is similar in a number of different significant ways in relation with the services, products or the business. Diffused market involves those prospects or customers that are different in a number ways related to the service, product or business. On the other hand, the clustered market i s the one involving discernable clusters of prospects or customers across relevant characteristics, needs or opinions related to the service, product or business. For the purpose of this holiday package, the customers will be segmented on the basis of demographical and geographical features. Mostly travelers from U.K with high living lifestyle and high income groups visit the 4 defined destination in this package holiday specifically for leisure and recreation. Conclusion The organization of Thomson Holiday has been a big operator and one of the most famous organization in the industry of tourism. The tourism package holiday of 6 days catering to 4 destinations will be able to attract several targeted customers from U.K especially because it considers all the principles of marketing and motivational factors. References Keller (2009). A Framework for Marketing Management, 4th ed., Pearson Prentice Hall. Lee, Y. (2005). The rise of right-time marketing. The Journal of Database Marketing Customer Strategy Management, 12 (3): 212225. Roger A. (2012). Marketing: The Core, McGaw-Hill Ryerson. p. 31.