TOURISM

PROMOTION
Promotion is the mix of various communication activities
which tourist firms or national tourist organizations carry
out with a view to motivate or influence those target
customers on whom their product sale depends.
Promotion is interpreted to refer to informing, persuading,
encouraging or more specifically influencing the potential
customers and trade intermediaries like travel agents, tour
operators, reservation services, and hotel and charter
brokers, about the benefits of the product.
Promotion is defined as the coordinated self-initiated
efforts to establish channels of information and persuasion
to facilitate or foster the sale of goods or services, or the
acceptance of ideas or points of view.
 Objectives of promotion
To create awareness,
To generate interest,
To stimulate sales,
To meet competition,
To create image.
 Three Types of Promotion
Informative promotion is more important during the early stages of
the product life cycle when owners of new resorts and other attractions
will seek promotional outlets to inform the public of the facilities and
amenities that would make their vacation experience worthwhile.
Persuasive promotion is used when an attraction is in its early stages
of growth, so its owners put very much promotional effort in developing
persuasive messages and sending them through several channels.
Reminder promotion is important upon reaching a mature stage.
Owners will then remind people of their positive experiences. These
reminder messages serve to jog the memory and keep the product in
the public
 Promotional Mix
Promotional mix refers to the combination of the promotional
elements (advertising, sales promotions etc.
Promotion mix is the combination of different methods of
promotion.
Tourist enterprises use different methods of communication to
achieve their objectives.
1. Advertising
2. Public relations
3. Sales promotions
4. Personal selling
5. Merchandising
6. Direct marketing
Advertising: Is a Paid Non-personal communication for
mass market by an identified sponsor. newspapers,
magazines, billboards, sides of public transports posters,
TV commercials, radio and others.
Public relations (PR) includes all the activities that a
tourism or hospitality organization uses to maintain or
improve its relationship with other organizations or
individuals.
Sales promotions are short-term activities designed to
generate a temporary increase in sales of the
products/services.
Personal selling: Oral conservations, either by telephone
or fact to face, between salespeople and prospective
customers.
Merchandising: This includes materials used in-house
to stimulate sales, e.g. menus, wine lists, tent cards,
signs, posters, brochures, meeting planner guides,
displays, and other point-of-sale promotional items.
For example, some restaurants will have the tent cards
on the dining table to promote wines of the week or
desserts of the week.
Direct marketing is defined as all the media activities,
communications and responses which are directed at
individual customers or potential customers. Examples
using direct mail and e-mail.
 Advertising
advertising is defined as any paid form of non-personal
presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services
by an identified sponsor (Reid, p. 386).
Advertising can be in the forms of advertisement in
newspapers, magazines, billboards, sides of public
transports posters, TV commercials, radio and others.
ROLE/FUNCTIONS OF
ADVERTISING
Introduces New Product, Advertising introduces a new product to
potential customers. The prospective buyers are given information on
the attributes, qualities and prices of the product.
Increases Sales Volume, By stimulating demand, supplementing
other selling efforts, and creating a brand preference, advertising
influences in a positive way a companys sales volume.
Reinforces Middlemens Promotional Efforts, Advertising helps
middlemen to achieve better performance. They are informed about
the prices, qualities, etc., so that they may pass on the information to
customers.
Stimulates Demand, Advertising as a communication
medium informs consumers about the presence of a
product in the market.
First, it aroused latent needs and secondly, it reinforces
and strengthens the aroused needs.
Develops Brand Preference, Consistent advertising,
coupled with other selling efforts, makes consumers to
buy companys product. It also tries to create and retain
brand preference and brand loyalty.
Makes De-marketing Possible, Advertising is the
prime instrument of a companys de-marketing strategy.
Efforts may focus on trying to discourage visitors during
peak times or dissuade those tourists who will be less
profitable.
 Characteristics of Advertising
Paid form, It is a form of advertisement that company
paying for the space (newspapers and magazines) or
time (television and radio) and they have a complete
control over the printed advertisement.
Non-personal, A form of mass media advertisement
without any personal contact or interaction between the
seller and the potential buyer.
Identified sponsor, All advertising has an identified
sponsor, whether it is for commercial or non-commercial
endeavor.
Specific stapes for advertising plan include:
1. Decide target market:
The target market is often large as it allows reach at low cost
per buyer.
2. Decide goals of advertising:
Adv. is commonly used to create awareness, reinforce
messages, build and position brands.
A clear specification directs efforts towards these goals.
3. Decide theme, message and style:
Adv. offer large options in this regard. Out of many product
features, an appropriate combination is chosen for the target
market.
4. Decide media, vehicle and schedule:
- Any media such as print, audio, outdoors can be
used for advertising but factors of reach, frequency,
impact and cost are considered before selecting one.
5. Decide budget:
- Budget may lead to revision of plans if the costs
exceeds it.
6. Develop control and feedback system:
- Its very crucial to know if adv. is achieving its goals.
- This is done constantly to know if any corrections are
needed at any point of time.
Public Relations in Tourism

Public Relations It involves measures designed to

create and improve the image for the tourist product,
create a more favorable climate for its advertising and
sales support activities, especially in regard to travel
trade intermediaries and news media.
Public relations (PR) includes all the activities that a
tourism or hospitality organization uses to maintain or
improve its relationship with other organizations or
individuals.
Public Relations Techniques
A variety of PR techniques are available to tourism and
hospitality organizations. The following are the
techniques used in PR
Familiarization tours/ trip
Organizing familiarization tours for travel writers, editors,
travel agents, photographers and other key personnel
from different parts of the world as guests to visit the
country and to get first-hand knowledge about it.
These persons then write about the country visited in the
well-known travel and other general interest magazines.
Press Releases and Press Conferences
A press release or news release is a short article about an organization or
an event that is written in an attempt to attract media attention, which
will then hopefully lead to media coverage.
Travel Exhibitions and Roadshows
Many hospitality and travel organizations exhibit at travel trade shows,
exhibitions or conventions. Generally, these occasions bring all parts of
the industry (suppliers, carriers, intermediaries and destination marketing
organizations) together.
Hosting and Sponsoring Events
Event sponsorship is the financial support of an event (e.g., a car race, a
theatre performance or a marathon road race) by a sponsor in return for
advertising privileges associated with the event. Tourism and hospitality
companies can draw attention to themselves by arranging or sponsoring
special events
The winning of awards
The winning of awards has become increasingly important in tourism and
hospitality sectors as well. For individual operators, the winning of an
award is a campaign opportunity.
Celebrity Visits
Encouraging celebrities to use tourism and hospitality products can result
in considerable media coverage, and can therefore help to promote that
particular product.
Product Placement
Product placement is the insertion of brand logos or branded merchandise
into movies and television shows, and it is another tactic for generating
publicity. Product placement has become increasingly popular with many
companies. Tourism and hospitality companies have been quick to take
advantage of this growing trend. Example British Airways was one of the
first companies to be endorsed by James Bond in his movies.
1. Assisting in the launch of new products:
2. Assisting in repositioning a mature product:
3. Building interest in a product category:
4. Influencing specific target groups:
5. Defending products that have encountered public
problems:
6. Building the corporate image in a way that reflects
favorably on its products:
Sales promotion
Sales promotion is described as short term incentives to encourage the
purchase or sale of a product or service. a sales promotion usually has
specified limits, such as an expiry date.
Objectives Sales promotion
To introduce new product.
To attract new customers.
To reduce seasonal fluctuations in sales.
To stimulate sales of a mature product
To influence or induce the middlemen.
To counter-attack the competitors in some cases
The use of sales promotion is
growing rapidly for many reasons
it offers the manager short-term bottom-line results
it is accountable
it is less expensive than advertising
It speaks to the current needs of the consumer to receive more
value from products.
Sales promotions can also be extremely flexible.
They can be used at any stage in a products life cycle
it can be very useful in supporting other promotional activities.
 Types of sales promotion
Consumer sales Promotion
Consumer Promotion activities are those incentives which are intended
to educate or inform the consumers and at the same time stimulate the
product/service usage at the consumer level.
Trades Promotion
Trade promotions are incentives which are offered to wholesalers,
distributors, retailers, etc. and aim at motivating them to back up the
sponsored brand by giving more than their usual push.
the forms of promotion which attract them may include (1) offered of
cash discount on various bases (2) prizes and gift, etc.
Sales-force Promotion.
Sales promotion schemes can be aimed at a companys
own sales force these include broadly incentive
programmes and sales contest. The sales incentive
awards may be for the sales-force.

Sampling involves giving away free samples of a

product to encourage sales, or arranging for people to try
all or part of a service. Sampling for the travel trade often
comes in the form of familiarization trips.
Premium, It is the incentive to customers to buy the
product by giving away free goods or offering at a
reduced price. Customers need to make a purchase of
Price deals refers to the Price reductions offered for a limited
time and this encourages trial and increase sales
Examples: Many resorts offer special rates during the low season
to increase the volume.
Contests and sweepstakes
Contests are sales promotions in which entrants win prizes
based on some required skill that they are asked to demonstrate.
Sweepstakes are sales promotions that require entrants to
submit their names and addresses.
Patronage rewards are cash or other prizes given to
customers for their regular use of a companys products or
services. The intent of such rewards is to encourage loyalty and
to create positive change in the behaviour of the consumer
Coupons, These are vouchers or certificates that offer
the savings to customers and stimulate the customers to
purchase the product. Some coupons are sent to
customers by direct mail, some are place in newspapers
and magazines.
Example:
Coupons are widely used in foodservice industry. For
example, McDonalds offers $5-off cash coupon for every
meal purchase to boost the sales.
 Personal Selling
Personal Selling: It is the direct presentation of a
product to a prospective customer by a representative of
the selling organization.
Personal selling takes place face to face or over the
phone, and it may be directed to an intermediary in the
distribution channel or a final consumer.
Personal selling is a personalized form of
communication in which a seller presents the features
and benefits of a product to a buyer for the purpose of
making a sale.
 Types Of Personal Selling
Field sales, It is also referred to as outside sales or sales calls,
where the sales person will have face-to-face meeting the
potential clients to make the presentations.
Example:
The outside sales agents of travel agencies and hotel sales
representatives who call on corporations and
convention/meeting planners.
Sales representatives from airlines, cruise lines, tour
wholesalers, and
car rental firms who visit travel agencies.
Telephone sales, It is also called telemarketing where
the communications via the phone that lead directly or
indirectly to sales.
The phone is an effective way to reach the prospective
customers.
Inside sales, It is also called the internal selling which is
the efforts made when customers are already in the
premise, to either increase the revenue of a sale or to
increase the customers average spending levels.
Inside sales is suggestive selling or up-selling, where
employees suggest or recommend additional or higher-
priced items.
Example:
Most commonly use in the restaurants outlets, where the
 Factors That Influence Selection of
Promotion Mix
A marketing manager from one company might decide to focus on social
media, whereas a marketing manager from another company might decide
to focus her companys efforts on television commercials.
Why do companies select different types of media for what may be
perceived as similar messages?
Promotional Objectives
Fund Available for Market Promotion
Stage in the product life cycle.
Fund Available for Market Promotion
Level of Competition
Nature of the market
Discussion question
Advertising has become an essential marketing activity
in the modern era of tourism and hospitality industry.
Explain.