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
To
To
To
To

create awareness,
generate interest,
stimulate sales,
meet competition,
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.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Advertising
Public relations
Sales promotions
Personal selling
Merchandising
Direct marketing

Advertising: Is a Paid Non-personal communication

for mass market by an identified sponsor.
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.

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