Marketing Mix for Tourism

sunandaC

New member
Tourism Products:
1. Accommodation
• Hotels
• Motels
• Boatels
• Flotels

2. Destination
• Natural Scenes
• Historic Excellence
• Artificial Beauties
• Social Cultural Excellence

3. Transportation

• Infrastructural
i. Airways
ii. Railways
iii. Roadways
iv. Waterways

• Local

i. Local transport

4. Tour operators

• Travel companies

• Travel agents

• Guides

5. Shopping

• Handicrafts

• Handloom

• Books

Marketing mix for tourism product:
The designing of the marketing mix variables in case of tourism is significant as it helps the marketer in conceiving the right ideas, particularly to raise the acceptability of the tourist product by stimulating and penetrating the demand. Framing of a proper marketing mix is significant because it helps the tourist organization in accomplishing the objective and projecting a fair image.

Product Mix:

Tourism is a composite product with components like attraction facilities and transportation. Attraction deserves an intensive care. It includes natural site, places of historic interest, events and cultural attraction.

The facilities compliment attraction. The facilities include accommodation, food, transportation and recreational facilities. The transportation component includes the vehicles and infrastructure. Innovation in the tourism product helps raising the sensitivity. The users of the service are looking forward to better and improved product.

The provider of the tourist is a travel agent or the package tour. A well conceived and designed package tour, covering a wide range of tourist attraction at an economic price, helps in attracting the potential tourist.

The travel agent performs numerous activities such as hotel arrangement and accommodation, site seeing arrangement, domestic transport arrangement, air travel arrangement etc.

In a true sense the tour agents and the travel agents are the vehicles who can give a fillip to the tourism industry, provided they are well trained.
Pricing:
Pricing of the tourist product is complex. Geographical location of the destination, seasonality and varying demand affects the pricing decision.

In India the pricing strategies become important for promoting or contracting the tourism industry, since more than 40% of the total population are below the poverty line. In order to develop the tourism industry more and more potential users are to be transformed into actual users.

When a tourist proposes to visit a particular place, the total cost of his traveling also include the expenses incurred on transportation, accommodation and communication.

Liberal pricing strategy is found to be a productive pricing decision, particularly in case of tourism industry. The pricing strategy which includes low income group people, student and retired persons can be more effective. This is possible if the government concessional and subsidized infrastructural facilities to the potential tourist below the average income.

The different pricing methods generally used are cost based pricing, demand based pricing and competition based pricing.

Promotions:

The promotion mix includes advertising, publicity, sales support and public relations.

The purpose of promotion is to make available the information to the user. Advertising the sales promotion can be effective when supplemented by publicity and personal selling.

Radio, TV, newspapers, cinema and printings are some of the important vehicles for traveling of messages. Effective slogans raises the effectiveness of advertisement.

Another important component of the promotion mix is public relation. It helps in projecting the image of an organization. Public relation and publicity include regular articles and photographs of tour attraction, use of TV and travel journalists to promote editorial comment.

Public relation officer plays an important role. He should be efficient, active, impressive, intelligent and well-behaved.

Good image projection can be made if the PRO manages the affair like a professional. It is said that word of mouth is the best form of publicity. The word of mouth promotion is
an important tool in tourism marketing.

Place:

The tourist centers should be located at suitable points if the tourists spots are natural there is no question of selection. In a vast country like India with a divergent socioeconomic and cultural patterns, the promotion of domestic tourism encourages unity in diversity.

Infrastructural facilities, transport and communication are important for development of tourist centres. The site selected should have natural surroundings, increased accessibility and improved amenities. At the same time it is also important that the ecological balance is not disturbed. Since growing ecological imbalances leads to pollution, some important steps like promoting afforestation, promotion and beautification may be undertaken in countering the side effects of atmospheric pollution and maintaining ecological balance.
 
Marketing mix proved to be effective and the outcome is always positive but, if is used efficiently and constructively. Marketing mix consist of 4 P's and it is derived by philip kotler.
These 4 P's commonly used in any company and yes, it is mandatory. Now why it is important to conduct marketing mix,then let's hear the answer. Here are some advantages which will prove this that it is mandatory for any organisation to draw marketing plan.

Advantages of Marketing Mix

1) Design Effective marketing plan
2) Provides solution to problem
3) design ways to generate more business
4) Differentiate your brands from others
 
Top