IMPACT OF MARKETING COMMUNICATION IN PROMOTING TOURIST DESTINATION

Abstract

This study was on Impact of marketing communication in promoting tourist destination. Two objectives were raised which included: To understand the impact of students awareness and their choice of profession in business education and to understand the relationship between students’ orientation levels and their choice of profession in business education. A total of 77 responses were received and validated from the enrolled participants where all respondents were drawn from ministry of tourism owerri. Hypothesis was tested using Chi-Square statistical tool (SPSS).

Chapter one

Introduction

1.1Background of the study

Marketing as an effective enforcement tool on the market and competitive environment has become in recent years as an essential part of the tourism. By suitable setting of the communication mix elements the tourism offer can be successfully enforced in the eyes of target segments and effective against direct or indirect competition. One of the main towns and cities actual objectives is to ensure their further development and make it to its advantage. Towns and cities are now becoming each other competitors who are trying to get new tourist visits from the ranks of the public with the help of various marketing tools. Several authors agree with the fact that in this case the communication is particularly important tool through which cities get into people’s awareness.

Through to the communication, they build and maintain relationships with its citizens, inform the public about its existence and offer wide range of tourism products. Cities have to communicate using channels where they have their actual target segment, which is now primarily online. With the combination of new online media a non-traditional communication mix can be achieved that provides complex effect on the visitor and transform it from potential to actual. Marketing communications is becoming an integral part of the development of the city and in the current information age plays an important role, therefore it can’t be avoided by the local government, in our case the town Banská Bystrica. The aim of this paper is to show through the application of a varied marketing communications mix activities how it is possible to ensure the success of the city on the tourism market.

Marketing and Marketing Communication of the towns and villages is a recently discussed topic and pays significant attention. One of the most famous Marketing theorists Mr. Kotler (1991), who argued that the concept of marketing is necessary to continuously extend as far as possible. In the sixties of the last century Marketing began to be applied in tourism. Another important place is mainly attributed to Mr. Kolb (2006). Author revealed the potential of tourism in the area and shows how attractive the specific characteristics of the locations and build a package out of them, which attract many possible visitors. It may be overnight visitors, business travelers or tourists looking for adventure. Meaning of the marketing in cities with the relation of tourism development deals the Czech author pair Foret and Foretová (2001). One of the major Slovak authors who have dealt with the marketing of towns and villages include Gúčik (2004), according to whom tourism development can not be realized without active communication. This represents communication methods and means for the presentation of the area and its products to existing and potential customers. Key instrument for penetrating the market has become a marketing mix. The basic marketing mix in a classic marketing literature known as the Four P: Product, Price, Place, Promotion. Loreto (2014) marketing tourism expands by additional Four “P”: People, Packages, Programming, Partnership. Their mission is to bring visitors to the destination and force him to buy products. Another author, Morrison (1995) also focused on this problematic and according to him the destination marketing mix consists of the following elements:

Marketing communications, also known as a communication mix, is formed by tools, which in combination, can produce the desired response of the target segments. The basic communication tools include advertising, public relations, personal communication, direct marketing and sales promotion. To communicate with the target groups the city can use a combination of marketing communication tools.

Kotler and Armstrong (2007) define the marketing communication mix as a “toolbox that consists of advertising, personal selling, sales promotion and public relations, which the company used to convince communication with customers and to meet marketing objectives.” Communication policy is the first and important element of the marketing mix destination. For the target segment it is the primary stimulus for the selection of its visits (Novacká 2013). The essence of towns and villages marketing communications is to promote the city as a product on the market to target groups, to build the image of the location, improve relations between citizens and government, strengthen citizens’ identification with the city to create a suitable platform for their participation in local development. The aim of the joint effort is to solve problems relating to the provision of services and products in collaboration with all development actors (Kutscherauer 2006).

Current functioning of marketing communications is significantly different from traditional forms of communication used several years ago. Communications environment has become a complex system. Ongoing changes and innovations have requested to extend the basic communication mix of new creative trends and tools. Suitable setting elements of effective communication mix can be successful in the eyes of the target segments offer and be successful against direct or indirect competition.

Since the essential prerequisites for success in the market includes orientation on the visitors, an effective communication with them is very important. Thus becomes a necessity to build relationships with visitors who need to adapt and differentiate all communication activities. Experts in marketing communications are searching for new ways to increase the effectiveness of these communication activities (Frianová 2011). It should be pointed out that in terms of tourism, the communication mix and its individual elements are tailored to the needs of specific market places and territorial units.

Several authors (Damster 2005, Goldblatt 2007, Lorette 2013, Šindler 2003, Gúčik a kol. 2011) now due to the new marketing trends indicate a higher number of tools of communication mix. These essential tool of marketing communication can also assign the use of the Internet and event marketing. When using these tools is most important to recognize the need for action all the instruments toward the target group. Internet is the most powerful and the fastest  growing medium in the context of use for the purpose of advertising, promotion and marketing communications. These characteristics have been reached after transformation of the so-called transaction medium to a social medium, which caused direct involvement of the customer to the marketing communications. (Leboff, 2011). Due to the high penetration of Internet (broadband and mobile) and the spread of tablets and smart phones, internet access is possible almost anywhere and anytime. It brought new forms and possibilities for interaction between destinations and client. The basis of success is to create a sufficient web presentation (web site, social media portals, etc..), follow-ups and traffic analysis. It is important to constantly improve individual components of the Internet presentation, which is based on the analysis. Equally significant is trending and flexible adaptation to market requirements. Strong competition in the Internet environment requires online destination presentation to be comprehensive, attractive, with relevant information. (Novacká et al. 2013). Researches shows that there are several principles that can help to achieve long-term effective online marketing communication: creativity and spontaneity, perseverance, originality. Important is the complexity, continuous analysis and optimization. It should not be underestimated that social networks like e.g. Facebook are no more just web sites with a limited number of visitors. In April 2013 there were almost 2.1 million registered users from Slovakia on Facebook, what is almost 1/2 of the Slovakian population.

Statement of the problem

There may have been previous researches in this subject. This work gives further explanations and analysis in awareness of professions in business education among secondary schools

Objectives of the study

1. To understand the impact of students awareness and their choice of profession in business education
2. To understand the relationship between students’ orientation levels and their choice of profession in business education

Research hypotheses

H0: There is no relationship between students’ orientation levels and their choice of profession in business education

H1: There is a relationship between students’ orientation levels and their choice of profession in business education

H0: there is no impact of students awareness and their choice of profession in business education

H1: there is impact of students awareness and their choice of profession in business education

Significance of the study

The study will be very significant to students, ministry of tourism and tourist. The study will give a clear insight on the impact of marketing communication in promoting tourist destination. The study will also serve as reference to other researcher that will embark on the related topic

Scope and limitation of the study

The scope of the study covers impact of marketing communication in promoting tourist destination

Financial constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).

Time constraint: The researcher will simultaneously engage in this study with other academic work. This consequently will cut down on the time devoted for the research work

Definition of terms

Marketing communication: Marketing Communications refers to the use of different marketing channels and tools in combination. Marketing communication channels focus on how businesses communicate a message to its desired market, or the market in general. It is also in charge of the internal communications of the organization.

Promoting: In marketing, promotion refers to any type of marketing communication used to inform target audiences of the relative merits of a product, service, brand or issue, most of the time persuasive in nature

Tourist: a person who is travelling or visiting a place for pleasure.

Related Project Topics :