Marketing

Marketing is defined by the American Marketing Association as:

"the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating,

delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients,
partners, and society at large.“

Marketing concepts relate to the philosophy a business use to identify and fulfill
the needs of its customers, benefiting both the customer and the company. Same
philosophy cannot result in a gain to every business, hence different businesses use
different marketing concepts (also called marketing management philosophies).

The 'marketing concept' proposes that in order to satisfy the organizational

objectives, an organization should anticipate the needs and wants of consumers and
satisfy these more effectively than competitors. This concept originated from
Adam Smith's book The Wealth of Nations, but would not become widely used
until nearly 200 years later.
Marketing and marketing concepts are directly related.

Given the importance of customer needs and wants in marketing, we have to

understand them correctly.

They have been defined long time ago as this:

 Needs: Something necessary for people to live a healthy, stable and safe life.
When needs remain unfulfilled, there is a clear adverse outcome: a
dysfunction or death. Needs can be objective and physical, such as the need
for food, water and shelter; or subjective and psychological, such as the need
to belong to a family or social group and the need for self-esteem.

 Wants: Something that is desired, wished for or aspired to. Wants are not
essential for basic survival and are often shaped by culture.

 Demands: When needs and wants are backed by the ability to pay, they
have the potential to become economic demands.
There are numerous marketing concepts which are used by marketers as a
reference in the marketing field. Some of these marketing concepts exist to
date, while some others are outdated and have been taken over by other
marketing concepts.
 The five marketing concepts

The five marketing concepts are:

1. Production concept
2. Product
3. Selling concept
4. Marketing concept
5. Societal marketing concept

Let’s take a closer look at each one.

The production concept

When the production concept was defined, a production oriented business
dominated the market. This was from the beginning of capitalism to the mid
1950’s.

During the era of the production concept, businesses were concerned primarily
with production, manufacturing, and efficiency issues.Companies that use the
production concept have the belief that customers primarily want products that are
affordable and accessible.

The production concept is based on the approach that a company can increase
supply as it decreases its costs.Moreover, the production concept highlights that a
business can lower costs via mass production.

A company oriented towards production believes in economies of scale (decreased

production cost per unit), wherein mass production can decrease cost and
maximize profits. As a whole, the production concept is oriented towards
operations.

The product concept

This concept works on an assumption that customers prefer products of
greater quality and price and availability doesn’t influence their purchase
decision. And so company develops a product of greater quality which usually
turns out to be expensive.

One of the best modern examples would be IT companies, who are always
improving and updating their products, to differentiate themselves from the
competition.Since the main focus of the marketers is the product quality, they often
lose or fail to appeal to customers whose demands are driven by other factors like
price, availability, usability, etc.

The selling concept

Production and product concept both focus on production but selling concept
focuses on making an actual sale of the product.Selling concept focuses on making
every possible sale of the product, regardless of the quality of the product or the
need of the customer.

The selling concept highlights that customers would buy a company’s

products only if the company were to sell these products aggressively.This
philosophy doesn’t include building relations with the customers. This means
that repeated sales are rare, and customer satisfaction is not great.

The marketing concept

A company that believes in the marketing concept places the consumer at the
center of the organization. All activities are geared towards the consumer.A
business,aims to understand the needs and wants of a customer. It executes the
marketing strategy according to market research beginning from product
conception to sales.

By focusing on the needs and wants of a target market, a company can deliver
more value than its competitors. The marketing concept emphasizes the “pull”
strategy". This means that a brand is so strong that customers would always prefer
your brand to others’.

The societal marketing concept

This is a relatively new marketing concept. While the societal marketing concept
highlights the needs and wants of a target market and the delivery of better value
than its competitors, it also emphasizes the importance of the well-being of
customers and society as a whole (consumer welfare or societal welfare).

The societal marketing concept calls upon marketers to build social and ethical
considerations into their marketing practices. They must balance and juggle the
often conflicting criteria of company profits, consumer want satisfaction, and
public interest.
Conclusion
The five marketing concepts are a good example of how marketing has changed
throughout the years. It has shifted its focus from products to users.

Introduction

Company Orientations to the Marketplace

What philosophy should guide a company marketing and selling

efforts? What relative weights should be given to the interests of the organization,
the customers, and society? These interest often clash, however, an organization’s
marketing and selling activities should be carried out under a well-thought-out
philosophy of efficiency, effectiveness, and socially responsibility.

Five orientations (philosophical concepts to the marketplace have guided

and continue to guide organizational activities:

1. The Production Concept

2. The Product Concept
3. The Selling Concept
4. The Marketing Concept
5. The Societal Marketing Concept

The Five Concepts Described

The Production Concept. This concept is the oldest of the concepts in

business. It holds that consumers will prefer products that are widely available and
inexpensive. Managers focusing on this concept concentrate on achieving high
production efficiency, low costs, and mass distribution. They assume that
consumers are primarily interested in product availability and low prices. This
orientation makes sense in developing countries, where consumers are more
interested in obtaining the product than in its features.

The Product Concept. This orientation holds that consumers will favor
those products that offer the most quality, performance, or innovative
features. Managers focusing on this concept concentrate on making superior
products and improving them over time. They assume that buyers admire well-
made products and can appraise quality and performance. However, these
managers are sometimes caught up in a love affair with their product and do not
realize what the market needs. Management might commit the “better-mousetrap”
fallacy, believing that a better mousetrap will lead people to beat a path to its door.

The Selling Concept. This is another common business orientation. It

holds that consumers and businesses, if left alone, will ordinarily not buy enough
of the selling company’s products. The organization must, therefore, undertake an
aggressive selling and promotion effort. This concept assumes that consumers
typically sho9w buyi8ng inertia or resistance and must be coaxed into buying. It
also assumes that the company has a whole battery of effective selling and
promotional tools to stimulate more buying. Most firms practice the selling
concept when they have overcapacity. Their aim is to sell what they make rather
than make what the market wants.

The Marketing Concept. This is a business philosophy that challenges

the above three business orientations. Its central tenets crystallized in the 1950s. It
holds that the key to achieving its organizational goals (goals of the selling
company) consists of the company being more effective than competitors in
creating, delivering, and communicating customer value to its selected target
customers. The marketing concept rests on four pillars: target market, customer
needs, integrated marketing and profitability.

Distinctions between the Sales Concept and the Marketing Concept:

1. The Sales Concept focuses on the needs of the seller. The Marketing
Concept focuses on the needs of the buyer.

2. The Sales Concept is preoccupied with the seller’s need to convert his/her
product into cash. The Marketing Concept is preoccupied with the idea of
satisfying the needs of the customer by means of the product as a solution to the
customer’s problem (needs).

The Marketing Concept represents the major change in today’s company

orientation that provides the foundation to achieve competitive advantage. This
philosophy is the foundation of consultative selling.

The Marketing Concept has evolved into a fifth and more refined company
orientation: The Societal Marketing Concept. This concept is more theoretical and
will undoubtedly influence future forms of marketing and selling approaches.
 The Societal Marketing Concept. This concept holds that the
organization’s task is to determine the needs, wants, and interests of target markets
and to deliver the desired satisfactions more effectively and efficiently than
competitors (this is the original Marketing Concept). Additionally, it holds that
this all must be done in a way that preserves or enhances the consumer’s and the
society’s well-being.

This orientation arose as some questioned whether the Marketing Concept

is an appropriate philosophy in an age of environmental deterioration, resource
shortages, explosive population growth, world hunger and poverty, and neglected
social services.
Are companies that do an excellent job of satisfying consumer wants necessarily
acting in the best long-run interests of consumers and society?

The marketing concept possibily sidesteps the potential conflicts among

consumer wants, consumer interests, and long-run societal welfare. Just consider:
The fast-food hamburger industry offers tasty buty unhealthy food. The
hamburgers have a high fat content, and the restaurants promote fries and pies,
two products high in starch and fat. The products are wrapped in convenient
packaging, which leads to much waste. In satisfying consumer wants, these
restaurants may be hurting consumer health and causing environmental problems.
Definition of Marketing Process :

According to Prof. Philip Kotler, the ” marketing process consists of analyzing

marketing opportunities, research and select target markets, marketing design
strategies, plan marketing programs and organize, implement and control the
marketing effort ”.

For a better understanding, we will conduct a structural analysis of this definition:

1. Analysis of Marketing Opportunities :

This is the “first stage” or “Phase 1” of the marketing process.

It means a chance to marketing “when there is a high probability that someone

(person, company or organization) can get benefits to satisfy a need or desire” [3].

Moreover, it is considered as “an attractive market opportunity,” when there are

enough potential buyers (with purchasing power and willingness to buy) of a
product or service and few or no competitors it provided. This situation
dramatically increases the chances of creating a profit for satisfying the needs or
desires of this market.

What situations to identify a market opportunity?

According to Prof. Kotler, three basic situations that lead to market opportunities:

 A. When something is scarce: This situation can identify when people

do “row” to purchase a particular product or service.
 B. When there is a need for an existing product or service, but it is
provided for a new or better way: To detect this nothing more
appropriate to pay close attention to user complaints about a product or
service situation and / or craving that people have to be supplied to them
somewhat higher than they currently receive.
 C. When there is a need for a new product or service, but the market
does not know exactly what it is: These are the rarest ideas. Typical
examples are the Walkmans, CDPlayers, VHS, DVD and the like that
 people did not know that could possibly need in their homes or offices;
however, someone had the foresight to anticipate events.

2. Market Research :

This is the “second stage” or “Phase 2” of the marketing process and begins after
that identified a market opportunity. Its purpose is to measure and predict how
attractive is that particular market. For this, it is necessary to estimate its actual
size, its growth, its peculiarities and current preferences. A * market research *,
typically it includes the following basic tasks:
  – Collecting information
 – Interpretation
 – Communication

– of findings people who make decisions. It should be noted that without a market
research company would enter fully compete blindly, because not known the
different market needs, perceptions, and preferences. All critical to success in
today’s business factors.

3. Select Marketing Strategies :

After studying all information obtained in the investigation of the market, it’s time
to make strategic decisions to be addressed, differentiate and position in the
target market.

To do this, you must make decisions about four specific points:

 Segmentation: consists of define those segments to be served and in

which a superior firepower will apply.
 Differentiation: It consists in determining the areas in which you have a
clear difference from other competitors; provided that that difference
represents one or more key benefits that will influence enough for the
customer perceives is something for him
 Positioning: It consists of determining how to “record” the key benefits
and product differentiation . in the mind of every person that makes up
the target market
 Emphasis and flexibility: Refers to identify areas in which the company
will maintain a firm position (emphasis) and points that can be tailored to
the specific market context, etc … (flexibility).
4. Selection Marketing Tactics :

At this stage, the strategies of marketing must be transformed into programs. This
is done by taking decisions about the * marketing mix *, the * cost * and *
schedule of activities *.

The marketing mix : It is a set of variables or controllable tools that combine in a

way that would achieve a particular result in the target market, such as positively
influence demand, generates sales, etc. Among its tools or variables are the 4 P’s,
that will support and enable the positioning of your product; therefore, we will see
what each “tool”:

 Product: what is offered to the market, can be a tangible or intangible

product and services.
 Plaza: Also known as position, provision or distribution (as preferences
each author) refers to measures to be taken so that the target market can
access the product or service being marketed.
 Price: Expressed in monetary terms, includes all costs, its profit margin
and charges They make the delivery, warranty, and others. It should be
noted that price is the only tool of the marketing mix that
generates income, other expenses demand tools.
 Promotion: Are all communication activities are intended to inform,
persuade and remind target market benefits and providing the product or
service.
  Distribution of resources: refers to direct resources allocated to
marketing activities between different tools, for example, product,
distribution channels and means of promotion. To this end, need to
develop a budget for monthly, quarterly and annual expenses.
 Schedule of activities: Finally, we must develop a comprehensive map of
all planned and that can be expressed in the * schedule of activities * as
detailed as possible, which is included each activity to be held, the date of
completion, officials or managers and the resources allocated to each.

5. Application :

This is the stage in the marketing process in which the strategic and tactical plans
apply. Is the time when you have to produce or conceptualize the product or
service to meet the needs and desires of the target market; then assigned a price
that the target market can afford, we distributes it so that it is available at the place
and right time and promotes it in order to inform, persuade and/or recall target
market benefits.

Product and market availability At this stage we must not forget that the purpose of
business is to deliver value to the market;which translates into a commitment that
the customer achieve a “satisfactory experience” with the product or service
supplied; and all this in exchange for a profit for the person, company or
organization.

6. Control :
This last stage in the process of marketing is nothing more than monitor the
position in relation to the destination. According to Prof. Kotler, one can
distinguish three types of control:

 Annual Control Plan: A feature that allows verifying whether the

business It is reaching sales, earnings and other targets (eg Market share
and growth) were fixed. To do this, we suggest reviewing monthly,
quarterly and half-yearly results obtained and compared with planned.
  Control Performance: Function to measure and quantify the real
profitability of each product (if there is more than one), groups customers,
sales channels and sizes of orders. It is not a simple activity, but it is
necessary to refocus efforts and achieve greater efficiency.

 Strategic Control: Because of the rapid changes in the marketing

environment, it is necessary to assess whether the marketing strategy is
suitable for conditions market or if you need adjustments or radical
changes.

Finally, to maintain a dynamic marketing process is necessary to keep a continuous

learning, this means doing so sustained the following tasks:

 Collect information of the target market.

 Evaluate the results.
 Make corrections to improve performance.

Conclusions:

As we saw, the “marketing process” includes a set of orderly, sequential and

sustained action; which begin long before there is a product or service, and is used
by companies that aim to satisfy the needs and desires of its customers, quite
contrary to what happened with the business for more than 50 years ago, the aim
was to create a product today to sell tomorrow at all costs. Finally, two aspects are
advised to implement the marketing process:

– Start marketing activities long before conceptualizing (create and manufacture) a

product.
– Follow a sequence of steps culminating with control of all activities versus
planned.
 Service Characteristics of Tourism and Hospitality Marketing
1. Learning Outcome After completing this module students will be able to:

i. Understand the service characteristics of Tourism and Hospitality marketing

ii. Understand service characteristics unique/peculiar to Travel and Tourism

Services

2. Introduction The tourism and hospitality industry represents an ever growing

sector that comes well within service industry and is composed of activities like
accommodation, transport, event planning, theme parks, cruise line, and much
more. With the rise in the travellers segment coupled with the rise in the disposable
income, tourism and hospitality industry has become a multibillion-dollar industry
which has been further incentivized by the increased leisure time and better
connectivity across the globe. Understanding the nature of the product to be sold is
paramount in the success of the product category. Given to the complex nature of
the tourism and hospitality product, it becomes even more important to demystify
the hybrid nature of tourism product; especially the service like characteristics.
Since, tourism marketing is the application of principles and practices of marketing
management in the tourism and hospitality industry, it is very important to
understand unique features of tourism and hospitality products that differentaite
them from regular tangible products. The goal of marketing in the tourism and
hospitality industry is the production and placement of tourism and hospitality
products to better suit a broader range of tourism and hospitality customers. Since
tourism and hospitality product is complex in nature that spans over numerous
industries such as lodging and transport etc., marketing such a complex process
assign a very complex nature to the marketing activities as well. In the tourism and
hospitality industry not only the tourism product varies in its nature but also to
gauge at the diverse needs and preferences of the tourists adds more complexity to
the over all marketing process. As the number of international tourist arrivals is
already touching billions each year with highly positive growth forecasts in coming
years, there are countless opportunities in the tourism industry. Despite such
growth potential, many Indian tourism and hospitality firms don’t see another day
each year and struggle with consitent losses. A close examination reveals the
failure of such tourism and hospitality firms in appropriately marketing touris
destinations in a competitive market place. Marketing by such firms is usually
taken as a problem or burden, but it must be understood sooner than late that
marketing is a solution and not a problem. Tourism marketing was defined as the
management process through which the global Tourist Organisations find their
target audience, interact with them to determine and take note of their needs and
preferences in terms of likes and dislikes on global (global + local) levels to
develop and amend their tourism products to accomplish the objective of satisfying
the tourists thereby fulfilling the enterprise’s financial objectives (Wahab et
al.;2004). As per yet another notion, tourism marketing is the combined effort of
national, international or network of global tourism organiations to accomplish
growth in pertinent sector by identifying and satisfying needs and preferences of
tourists. In return, tourism organizations expect superior financial returns. Trying
to be precise, short and sharp in a wider sense, tourism marketing is the process of
enticing tourists to a particular tourist destination through strategic use of tools and
techniques offered by the discipline of marketing.

3. Service characteristics of Tourism and Hospitality

a) Intangibility: Tourism products are similar to any service product. However,

tourism products possess characteristics which are an amalgamation of the features
of a product as well as that of a service. Put in simple words, tourism products
possess both intangible nature as well as some tangible and concrete elements. The
job of any tourism and hospitality manager pretty much revolves around making
the tourism product more tangible to be better able to apply tools and techniques
available in the marketing mix to the tourism and hospitality services they provide.
An obvious outcome of the fact that tourism products are intangible is that the
tourism and hospitality products cannot be transferred, displayed or tested well
before the real service encounter. This simply means that the tourism products are
unique and unlike the tangible products, tourism products are actually composed of
memories. Intangible nature of tourism product also means that a buyer is never
sure of what he/she will get until the actual service encounter takes place. Probably
this is the only reason why customers start searching for the complete tourism
product information well in advance so as to avoid an uncertainty in the future that
might arise due to the intangible nature of the tourism product. Further, tourism
and hospitality services have been assigned intangible nature because a relaxed
stay in hotel in the woods, a week well spent on a cruise, a friendly and safe flight
with polite flight crew, and a friendly, warm and knowledgeable guide taking a
tourist to the amazon forests etc. all can be very well considered as experience that
is intangible. The products/services created/offered by tourism companies cannot
be replicated or reclaimed at a later stage. Tourists can simply attempt to store their
memories with photographs and videos but the real essence of such happy moment
is beyond capturing. Tourism hence is a very personal picture that customer creates
in his/her mind after a great tourism experience.

b) Perishability: Perishability is used in services marketing to define how services

are unpreserved and cannot be warehoused for future usage. Service products have
a very peculiar characteristic that it cannot be warehoused, refunded, or resold
once they have been used. Once a customer is provided with a service product,
another customer cannot be serviced with the same product thereafter. Service
products are attributed to be perishable in two ways. First, it has to be remembered
that a service gets wasted if not used in time. For example, a movie theatre can
only sell tickets before the show. The customers can attend the show during the
defined show timing only. An empty seat in the theatre cannot be utilized and
charged for after show has ended. Secondly, services get vanished once consumed
by a consumer. For example, as a tourist has been transported to his destination
through Indian railways, he/she cannot be transported again to this location at this
point in time. Perishability forces hospitality industry to operate in a way that they
must either sell at the market going rate or well in advance. The tourism services
must be availed as they are produced lest they get wasted. Hotel rooms availability,
international and national flight schedules, and movie theatre seats etc. cannot be
produced in the present and stored for future sales. Once a plane has left for the
destination, empty seat cannot be sold afterwards. As there will always be an
uncertainty in exact demand forecasting, tourism and hospitality firms have a
tendency to overbook available capacity.

c) Variability: Service delivery depends upon people. Hence services cannot be

separated from the people who deliver it. They are produced and offered by
individuals (service staff and the customers respectively). As a result, quality of
service differs from person to person, and from time to time with the same
individual and hence these cannot be standardized. Another reason for variability
of services is involvement of the guest or customer in the process of service
production, delivery and consumption system as this again varies from customer to
customer thereby differentiating the service experience from customer to customer.
On the similar fashion, products of the tourism industry are variable. Similar
cuisine in the same restaurant can taste differently due to the mood of the chef. Not
only the taste of food but also the way it is being served might vary being delivered
by a less experienced service staff than an experienced one. Rational service
product attributes like price and additional services can only be compared to a
minor degree. It is challenging to deal with the perceived quality as it is highly
affected by numerous uninfluenceable aspects such as weather, construction sites,
other customers etc. Therefore, the product is very inconsistent/variable and cannot
be standardized.

d) Inseparability: Buying and selling of tourism is not like buying and selling of
regular products. It is actually like buying of a service. Buying and selling of the
tourism product actually doesn’t involve any real transfer of ownership as
compared to other tangible counterparts. Moreover, most of the tourism and
hospitality services are created, sold and rendered at the same time. This feature
evidently differentiates a tourism product from tangible counterparts. Buying of a
new refrigerator involves production and shipping before the consumer can
actually see it in the company showroom/retail outlet or on the e-commerce
website. The consumption of refrigerator i.e. being able to refrigerate food items
takes place after purchase at user’s place. In contrast, a customer cannot take the
hotel room or a skiing site or a cruise at home. Tourism and hospitality products
hence can only be used up at the service provider’s premise.

e) Participation of Customer: Customer acts as one of the integral part of service

delivery process. In selling – production – consumption delivery system, the end
user is involved literally at every stage of service delivery. A person willing to take
a haircut must be present at the salon for getting this service. Similarly, a person
willing to fly to Paris to watch Eiffel Tower can ask a friend to book a ticket for
flight and a room in a hotel, at the time of actually availing the service, the person
must be physically present. The service cannot be produced and hence cannot be
consumed by the person while he being absent. Lack of Ownership: In real world
when a consumer pays for a car, the car after the transaction belongs to the buyer.
This simply means a real transfer of ownership takes place in such regular day to
day transactions. However, this doesn’t hold true in case of consuming a service.
This is possibly the reason lack of ownership is usually referred to as one of the
most commonly quoted characteristics of services like tourism and hospitality.
This characteristic is very much in sync with other service like characteristics such
as intangibility, perishability, inseparability. In addition to these basic
characteristics, people oriented nature of tourism and hospitality industry must be
discussed;

f) People oriented: Any service industry requires skilled manpower to be able to

deliver the service to the consumers and hence to be better able to compete
effectively in the market. The tourism industry is no exception as it also flourishes
on skilled and talented staff. This is the reason, People constitute one of the most
important P’s of the marketing mix of tourism marketing. It is the interaction
between the service staff and the consumers which is referred to as perceived
service quality. A tourism product’s quality is mainly determined by the quality of
personal interactions a customer makes right from information acquisition to the
final consumption of the service.

4. Unique Characteristics of Travel and Tourism Services Besides the basic

characteristics common to all services, there are some other features that are
particularly relevant to travel and tourism services. These are unique
Characteristics of Travel and Tourism Services

1 Seasonality and demand fluctuations

2 Interdependence of tourism products

3 High fixed costs of service operations

These unique characteristics have been discussed below:

a) Seasonality and demand fluctuations: Seasonality is one of the important factor

that governs the operating cycle of many industries. Tourism is one of the most
seasonal industries and these seasonal changes greatly affect the demand. Demand
of tourism product/service depends upon many factors such as seasonality, politics,
religion, socio-economic conditions and other special events etc. Seasonality is
very important factor to be taken care of while framing strategies in tourism and
hospitality industry as it may lead to creation of jobs during some seasons while
may cause unemployment in the season of slow growth, may develops idle
investment on staff, transportation, office charges and might increase the cost of
production. It is not surprising to know that in tourism industry demand fluctuates
greatly specially on inter-year basis. Such huge inter-year seasonal demand
variation lead to an increase in the occupancies in many tourism businesses to 90
to 100 per cent in the appropriate season but might as well drop to 30 per cent or
even less in the adverse season. These demand variations in tourism are an area of
major concern because of nature of the tourism product being perishable. Thus,
generating demand during low growth seasons is always the greater concern for
majority of tourism marketing managers.

b) Interdependence of tourism products: Tourism product is an amalgamation of

products and services that span over a varied group of industries like
transportation, food and lodging etc. The affluences of tourism industry thus
depend upon how collaboratively these products or services work together to create
a unique and satisfying experience. In simple words, it can be concluded that a
tourism product cannot be provided by a single firm but is the work of many
specialized products and services.

c) High fixed costs of service operations: Tourism and hospitality products

constantly confront the issue of having higher fixed costs and relatively lower
variable costs. This simply means that tourism firms must work towards generating
surplus demand. Majority of tourism and hospitality firms work on a strict margin
between total cost and total revenue caused by severe competition, even a slight
change in the average load factors makes a substantial difference between profit or
loss.

5. The Marketing Response to better deal with such complex Characteristics Given
to the characteristics of the tourism and hospitality services as mentioned above,
there is an immense need to devise unique marketing approaches that need to be
implemented in tourism and hospitality industry for better competitive position.
Some of such unique approaches in hospitality and travel marketing are discussed
below:

The Marketing Response to better deal with such complex Characteristics

1 Use of more than 4 Ps

2 Extensive use emotional appeals in promotions

3 Greater significance of word-of-mouth advertising

4 Increased importance of consistency

5 Increased importance of relationships with complementary organizations

a) Use of more than 4 Ps: Because tourism and hospitality products have particular
characteristics of inseparability, perish ability, seasonality etc., it calls for
developing an extended marketing mix. Most of the academic literature attributes
4Ps (product, place, promotion, price) as the main marketing mix essentials. Since
the services are different than products, the marketing mix of services must have
some additional component. On the same note, tourism and hospitality services are
attributed with additional marketing mix components which are: people, processes
and physical evidence.

b) Extensive use of emotional appeals in promotions: Because of the intangible

nature of services, customers tend to make purchase decisions on the basis of
emotional and experiential factors. Distinctive features of a tourism and hospitality
product are important to attract customers but creating a distinctive personality to
the product through excellent services showcased by integrated marketing
communication is far more important. E.g. Hilton is usually associated with a
personality attributing it as “America’s Business Address”.

c) Greater significance of word-of-mouth advertising: Since there are very few

sampling or testing opportunities in tourism and hospitality industry, customers
have to rely upon the review and advice of others, including peers, friends,
relatives, and business associates. That is why, positive “word-of-mouth” is very
important to the succeed for most tourism and hospitality organizations. Providing
a consistent quality of service and associated facilities as promised plays a key role
in getting positive “word-of-mouth”. It is also the basic fundamental of marketing
any product or service. The phenomenon has become even important with the
advent of web 2.0 and emergence of social media and online reviewing websites.
People write their positive experiences and share negative as well.

d) Increased importance of consistency: Being able to develop products and

services that not only satisfy the needs and preferences of current customers but
also appeal to the prospective and competitor’s customers is at the heart of
successful marketing. Those products and services should not only be designed
keeping industry benchmarks in mind but must be delivered consistently as well.
Consistency means being able to give same or higher level of service to customers
so as to create a very unique and positive image in highly competitive market.
Customers sometimes are known to assign an image to company on the basis of
their overall evaluation of service quality. Thus, it is extremely important to be
consistent in performance for firms in tourism and hospitality industry.

e) Increased importance of relationships with complementary organizations:

Organizations in tourism and hospitality industry have several unique relationships
with each other that might help decide how these firms are marketed. Creating and
sustaining such healthy relationships is an extremely important job that the tourism
and hospitality managers must perform. All key factors having any direct or
indirect impact on each other in tourism ecosystem (suppliers, destinations,
transportation service providers, visitors etc.) lend a helping hand in creating
overall positive service quality.

6. Summary As discussed in the chapter, tourism and hospitality is a part of much

broader services industry. The products of tourism and hospitality industry have
characteristics of typical services. Just like services products of tourism and
hospitality industry are well-known to be perishable. Thus, time element has great
implication in their marketing. Unlike tangible products, service cannot be
touched, tested or felt before they are consumed. A tourism and hospitality product
works in similar fashion and is an abstract phenomenon. Tourism and hospitality
products are inseparable sometimes call for simultaneous creation and
consumption. Since services are provided by people, service delivery suffers from
heterogeneity and hence is variable. Unlike in regular products, customer acts as
one of the integral part of service delivery process. In tourism and hospitality
industry, sales transaction does not mean buying things like regular products. It
doesn’t involve actual transfer of ownership. These attributes must be kept in mind
while defining the nature of tourism and hospitality industry and devising
strategies for effective marketing.