Thesis Profiling Tourists Uses And Advantages

Profiling tourists: uses and Advantages

In writing this thesis, I have approached the subject from the general, to build the context of the topic, to the more specific topic and proceeded again to the general trend and direction of tourism in India.

Since the topic itself is of limited content, it has to be understood in the wider context of the Tourism metaphor. Moreover, profiling, as a marketing tool may be paraphrased with the segmentation, and cyber-marketing allegory to understand it’s depth and import for tourism per se.
The opening chapter, “Tourism Research” deals with the idiosyncrasies and peculiarities of tourism as a subject of research, to convey an idea of the given circumstances and state of development of this field of research that has only now matured to a level of independent subject of study.
Furthermore, in order to make this dissertation relevant, it has been preceded with a brief rejoinder detailing what has been mentioned in the Eleventh 5 Year Plan (2007-2012) with respect to tourism framework for development.

TOURISM RESEARCH
You are already aware of the diverse nature of the tourism industry and its long-term implications on economy, society, culture and environment. Whether it is a question of planning and developing sustainable tourism or managing varied tourism business operations, research is an essential component of all such activities. For example, to understand the impact of tourism, one has to go for research; for developing a product one needs market research and so on. Tourism, as a discipline of its own, is in an evolutionary stage and research in this area has to be inter-disciplinary. In many developed countries and for some destinations, a certain amount of research findings are available and the same is the case for some industry segments of significance. However, tourism research still remains fragmented and in many cases also lacks the sense of direction. Douglas G. Pears in his book on Tourism Research Critics and Challenges (1993) has pointed out: "much tourism research has been methodologically unsophisticated and not supported by a strong theoretical base. Such characteristics are explained, if not excused, by the infancy of the field but this temporal dimension alone is an inadequate explanation. A related and equally important factor has been the often uncritical manner in which much tourism research has been undertaken. The emphasis has been on the results with very little attention being paid to the way in which the research has been carried out."
J. Jafari (1989) has located tourism research and writings into four main "Platforms":
Advocacy Platform: This stresses mainly on the economic benefits and contributions of tourism and research from this point of view, describes tourism as a major form of development. However, it ignores the various other factors related with tourism.
Cautionary Approach: This kind of approach emerges as a reaction to the Advocacy Platform. It questions the economic benefits and looks into the negative social-cultural and environmental impacts of tourism.
Adaptancy Platform: This approach stresses on the changing aspects of tourism. It addresses questions like how tourism is changing to adapt to new demands. It further stresses the new forms of tourism like sustainable tourism, alternative tourism, eco tourism, etc.
Knowledge-based Platform: This approach emphasises on the inter-disciplinary research which takes a holistic view of tourism.
However, we would like to put another fifth platform i.e. Tourism Business Research. In this we use the various methodologies for research in business operations and management, but at the same time keep applying the first four approaches as per the requirements.
In fact, what is required is a critical approach for research in this area which takes into consideration both the positive as well as the negative impacts. Douglas G Pears strongly advocates comparative studies in tourism research. According to him, "the comparative approach has yet to emerge as a distinctive, readily recognisable methodology in tourism research, despite its application to a vide variety of problems". There are scholars like Frances Brown (Tourism Reassessed Blight or Blessing, 1998) who stress upon an international approach to tourism research and in favour of his arguments, Brown mentions that "Political and economic upheavals in one part of the world may affect travel to and from other parts, altering tourism flows and producing a knock-on economic effect. Governments can impose tourism 'sanctions' that are every bit as effective as commodity embargoes. Some countries have used tourism to help solve balance of trade surpluses, to project a particular image or to promote their own ideology. The very establishment and operation of a tourism industry can be viewed (depending on one's perspective and political leanings) either as a means to development, modernization and 'progress' or as an example of structural dependency and neo-colonial exploitation."
Tourism is used both as a political and an economic tool as also an instrument for image-creation by many nations.
International relations affect tourism in a variety of ways. Francis Brown gives the example of the fall of Berlin Wall in 1989 "which completely changed the tourism map of Central and Eastern Europe". Similarly, relaxation in travel restrictions by China or the end of apartheid in South Africa had a bearing on international tourism. Such political changes not only affect the movement of people but also have a bearing on tourism businesses like designing of new tourism products, search for new tourism markets both inbound and outbound, entry of multi-nationals into new tourism areas etc.
One must remember the fact that in addition to the big players or the multi-nationals the tourism industry constitutes of a large number of small scale businesses. These small businesses also need to be investigated and research data collected. However, as Francis Brown points out, "…for all its economic weight, tourism still is not taken seriously in many academic circles”. Hence, besides economic, social, cultural, business and environment one should also take into account political considerations in tourism research. Today the relevance of tourism research is being gradually acknowledged at all levels -- global, national, regional, local and site-specific. Yet, in the developing countries research still remains weak and this could be because of many reasons like lack of data, lack of debate, lack of financial resources, lack of political will or even lack of understanding about the potential and role of tourism research, etc. These limitations cannot be dealt with overnight. However, let us, as students of tourism, attempt to contribute in our own way whatever we can in the area of tourism research.

INTRODUCTION
At the start of the new millennium, tourism has been stated as the number one industry in many countries and the fastest-growing economic sector in terms of foreign exchange earnings and job creation (WTO, 2005). “International tourism is the world’s largest export earner and an important factor in the balance of payments of most nations” (WTO, 2005). Tourism has grown and became an integral part of the fabric of modern life, its international dimension increased and national governments started to play an increasingly important role-their activities covering the whole spectrum from infrastructure to regulations (WTO, 2005). World Tourism Organization (WTO) plays a major role is to regulate between countries cultures, government and environment.
ROLE OF GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS IN TOURISM PLANNING
Tourism is a leisure based industry. Traditional manufacturing or other utilitarian service industries, which have provided a foundation for national growth, have depended largely on government policies, cooperation and monitoring. However, despite it being tagged as 'non-essential' industry for several decades by Government of India, its contribution to national economy is by no means negligible. In fact, the cascading effects of tourism in terms of direct, indirect and induced growth in the economy has been manifestly more than all the other industries that have received government patronage. However, there is a growing realisation of this oversight and the Central Government is now moving in the direction of granting infrastructure status to tourism industry. ‘The government has approved 28 mega infrastructure projects to boost tourism, and is on the verge of granting it infrastructure sector status, Tourism Secretary Sujit Banerjee announced while inaugurating the Great Indian Travel Bazaar 2009. ‘Apart from that, the government is very close to granting the industry the infrastructure status,’ Banerjee said.
In developed countries, the government has many responsibilities such as defence, economic development, education, health, and law and order, and these have always been the subject of public policy scrutiny.
Environmental sustainability (as a reduced impact on a destination’s environmental resources) and environmentally friendly tourists need to be made measurable. This recommendation is based on our empirical finding that a wide variety of alternative operationalisations was used to profile sustainable tourists and eco-tourists, some of which in fact do not seem to reflect the core idea of sustainable tourism. Guided by the definition agreed upon, a consistent operationalisation will significantly strengthen the insight derived from empirical work in the field. Such an operationalisation should then be used in replication studies in different contexts to enable the derivation of empirically generalisable knowledge that represents not only theoretical advancement but also provides destination management with a reliable starting point for their work. Currently a destination manager only knows to target highly educated people who want to learn, as all other characteristics appears to vary from study to study.

INTERESTING SNIPPETS ON WHAT ALL HAS BEEN SAID AND REPORTED ON THE TOPIC:

Tourism Customer Profiling and Prospecting. Program at UW-Extension. Want to know: 1. Who are customers in terms of their demographics? ... http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/geoinfo04/docs/kures.pdf Perpetual Traveller: The World's Best and worst Tourists
As former a former Director of Festival Cruises, I remember all too well profiling tourists of each country by their habits, culture, customs and traditions ... www.perpetualtravellernews.com/2009/04/worlds-best-and-worst-tourists. html
CNN.com - Australia ponders 'profiling' for tourist visas - August ...
12 Aug 2002 ... Visitors to Australia from high-risk countries may in the future need to produce financial and employment records before they are given ... edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/auspac/08/12/australia.visas/ The direction of strategic planning for tourism is given by the planning commission in the Eleventh Five Year Plan as stated (refer http://planningcommission.nic.in/aboutus/committee/strgrp11/str11_tourism.pdf) hereunder:

REPORT OF THE STEERING COMMITTEE ON TOURISM INTRODUCTION
Tourism has been a major social phenomenon of the societies all along. It is motivated by the natural urge of every human being for new experience, adventure, education and entertainment. The motivations for tourism also include social, religious and business interests. The spread of education has fostered a desire to know more about different parts of the globe. The basic human thirst for new experience and knowledge has become stronger, as technological advances are overcoming communication barriers. Progress in air transport and development of tourist facilities have encouraged people to venture out to the foreign lands. Tourism’s importance, as an instrument for economic development and employment generation, particularly in remote and backward areas, has been well recognized the world over. It is the largest service industry globally in terms of gross revenue as well as foreign exchange earnings. Tourism can play an important and effective role in achieving the growth with equity objectives, which we have set for ourselves. Tourism is one economic sector in India that has the potential to grow at a high rate and can ensure consequential development of the infrastructure at the destinations. It has the capacity to capitalize on the country’s success in the services sector and provide sustainable models of growth. Tourism has the potential to stimulate other economic sectors through its backward and forward linkages and cross-sectoral synergies with sectors like agriculture, horticulture, poultry, handicrafts, transport, construction, etc. Expenditure on tourism induces a chain of transactions requiring supply of goods and services from these related sectors. The consumption demand, emanating from tourist expenditure, also induces more employment and generates a multiplier effect on the economy. As a result, additional income and employment opportunities are generated through such linkages. Thus, the expansion of the tourism sector can lead to large-scale employment generation and poverty alleviation. The economic benefits that flow into the economy through growth of tourism in the shape of increased national and State revenues, business receipts, employment, wages and salary, buoyancy in Central, State and local tax receipts can contribute towards overall socio-economic improvement and accelerated growth in the economy.
Tourism has also become an instrument for sustainable human development including:
• Poverty elimination.
• Environmental regeneration.
• Job creation.
• Advancement of women and other disadvantaged groups
Tourism is overwhelmingly an industry of private sector service providers, although the public sector has a significant role to play in infrastructure areas either directly or through Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode. It is a multi-sectoral activity characterized by multiple services provided by a range of suppliers. It is quite similar to manufacturing industry, where the supply chain is as important as the end product. The related sectors include airlines, surface transport, hotels, basic infrastructure and facilitation systems, etc. Thus, the growth of tourism cannot be attained unless the issues related to all the related sectors are addressed simultaneously.
11TH PLAN STRATEGY ON TOURISM
The 11th Plan strategy on tourism is to achieve International tourist arrivals of 10 million by the end of the 11th Plan through diversification of source markets increase per capita spending and length of stay of international visitors and by reducing seasonality. The Plan also proposes to achieve a level of 760 million domestic tourists by 2011 at an annual growth rate of 12 % and to increase accommodation units.
Strategy For Tourism Development In The 11th Five-Year Plan
During the 10th Five Year Plan, a doubled pronged strategy of upgrading the tourism infrastructure and vigorous marketing under the banner of ‘Incredible India’ campaign was followed to position India as a global brand. The following four-point progress was sought to be achieved to a large extent among the target tourists and in source markets:
• From non-awareness to awareness.
• From awareness to interest.
• From interest to desire.
• From desire to final action i.e. booking a holiday.
The Working Group on Tourism for the 11th Five Year Plan 2007-12, felt that keeping in view all variables in the environment, the product opportunities, the market scenario, the Indian planning and national objectives, following quantifiable goals may be set for the 11th Plan for India tourism:
INTERNATIONAL TOURISM
Visitation
• Achieve international visitor levels of 10 million in 2011, at the end of 11th Plan.
Source Markets
Diversify principal source markets to include countries such as South Africa, Israel, Spain, China, Japan, S. Korea, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, etc. which offer high growth potential and from where present level of inbound tourist is below par.
Concentrate on countries like South Africa, Mauritius, Kenya, Malaysia, Fiji, etc with a large Indian Diasporas for higher tourist arrivals from those countries. Similarly target the PIOs and NRIs elsewhere to create greater resonance in them to visit the country of their origin and discover their roots. Target the ‘Baby Boomers’ group in Europe and North America by creating in them the desire to discover one of the oldest civilizations of the world and to enjoy the plurality of cultural enjoyments, which this country has to offer.
Revenues
• Maintain and increase per capita spending of international visitors.
• Attract higher quality tourists, increasing per head spending, resulting in higher revenues.
Concentrate on cruise tourism and MICE sector which are considered to be higher revenue generating sectors of tourism.
Seasonality
• Reduce the seasonality in international tourist arrivals by targeting markets such as Australia, Spain, etc. It should be ensured that the drop in arrivals during “lean season’ is not more than 15% of the annual average.
Average Length of Stay
• Maintain and initiate measures to ensure that the duration of stay is sustained, if not extended.
Purpose of Visit
• Retain focus on Leisure Travellers.
• Promote business related travel, including MICE market by promoting Convention Centres of international standards in major cities or at major tourist centers.
• Encourage medical tourism.
Expenditure
• Prepare strategies to increase per capita expenditure on shopping and other non-accommodation, non-transportation heads, to match international benchmark of 30%.
DOMESTIC TOURISM
Visitation
• Achieve a level of 760 million for domestic tourist visits by the year 2011, the end of 11th Plan at an annual average growth of 12%.
• Complement international travel with domestic travel so that the seasonality is eliminated.
• Promote greater dispersal of domestic visitations in order to spread the benefits of tourism to all areas.
OTHER GOALS
Accommodation Units
• Increase approved quality accommodation units from the current level of about 100,000 rooms to at least 200,000 rooms by 2011, to meet the increasing demand.
• Set up hotels on the surplus land with Airport Authority of India near International Airports as per the international practices.
• Promote development of budget hotels at the surplus Railway Land at specified Railway Stations.
• Create land banks in the States and encourage Single Window facility for the investors in tourism projects. In order to achieve all these objectives, the Working Group felt that it was necessary that the momentum generated in tourism sector during the 10th Plan period is sustained. The recommendation of the Group is to adopt and apply sustainable practices and principles, and identify and resolve the constraints. The Working Group also felt it necessary that beside development of world class infrastructure and launching aggressive marketing campaigns, access and connectivity to India need be improved; new forms of tourism like rural tourism, cultural tourism, adventure tourism, cruise tourism, MICE tourism and medical tourism are taken up with renewed zeal and efforts; India is made a full year destination rather than a Oct.-March destination by diminishing the seasonality factor and promoting the Himalayas and the beaches during summers and the coastal regions during the monsoons; and India’s competitiveness as a preferred destination is enhanced with rationalization of taxes, liberalization of visa regime, improvement of airports, removing barriers to travel, enhancing tourist safety & security, improving signage’s, etc.
To achieve all these, the following six key strategic objectives are recommended: -
1. Positioning and maintaining tourism development as a national priority activity;
Provide effective linkages and close coordination between various Departments and Ministries of Government;
Plan and implement a professionally managed integrated communication strategy to increase awareness about tourism and its social and economic impact on the society. ii. Enhancing and maintaining the competitiveness of India as a tourist destination;
• Take effective steps for easier and faster availability of visas;
• Increase air connectivity and seat capacity from major overseas markets;
• Improve facilities and quality of services at international and major domestic airports;
• Rationalize taxes;
• Remove restrictions like RAP/PAP/ILP. iii. Improving India’s existing tourism products further and expanding these to meet new market requirements;
• Develop sustainable beach, coastal and cruise tourism;
• Package and market India’s wide variety of traditional cuisines;
• Encourage adventure and rural tourism;
• Develop and promote round-the-year tourism;
• Pursue medical tourism vigorously;
• Take advantage of MICE segment; iv. Creation of world-class infrastructure;
• Identify travel circuits for development as international standard destinations;
• Construction and improvement of highways for good connectivity with tourist destinations;
• Introduction of special tourist trains and establishment of budget hotels. v. Develop strategies for sustained and effective marketing plans and programmes;
• Maintain and develop the tourism brand position established with the ‘Incredible India’ campaign;
• Evolve and maintain a system of market research activities in India’s major source markets to continuously receive, analyze and respond to information on pricing, security issues, health, safety, quality of tourism services and products etc.;
• Make use of the various technological tools, including the Internet, for advertising for greater and wider impact. Encourage e-commerce portals to extend effective marketing support to small and medium enterprises and also offer competitive packages. vi. Develop Human Resources and capacity Building of Service Providers
• Making craft and hotel management education integral to the school system as an early vocational choice.
• Create a pool of teachers for hospitality education.
• Training of trainees to be introduced at IHMs/FCIs &other major institutes.
• Re-work curriculum of existing degree/diploma courses and building an image of the profession.

TOURISM MARKETING

At the World Tourism Organisation seminar held in Ottawa in 1975, on Testing Effectiveness of Promotional Campaigns in International Travel Marketing, tourism marketing was defined as “a management philosophy, which, in light of tourist demand, makes it possible through research, forecasting, and selection to place tourism products on the market most in line with the organisation's purpose for the greatest benefit.”
Tourism, according to the above definition, covers:
1. Both the needs of the tourists and the needs of the destination/the needs of the organisation designing and providing the services.
2. Tourism research, which ultimately identifies the target markets based on market segmentation.
3. The marketing concepts of positioning and product life cycle for proper placement of tourism products and services.
Tourism marketing coverage must account for its following features:
It is not possible to evaluate or demonstrate the tourism product in advance. Hence a tourism product relies on recommendations for its promotion, which is where “Fam trips” (familiarisation trips) of travel writers, are useful as a “test drive” counterpart of an intangible service.
The tourist not only buys the product, but also feels the product and is intimately involved in it. For example, a customer may buy oil for body massage, but he is involved and can have a feels of the massage service.
The tourism product cannot be stored, and its demand is highly elastic and seasonal in nature. For example. A heritage hotel, Hotel Devigarh Palace, owned by Boutique Hotels Pvt. Ltd., is a 5 star luxury hotel, that enjoys upto 90% occupancy during winter, while in summer the occupancy drops down to just 20% even at 50% discounted price of its rooms. If only it would be “carry forward” part of the occupancy of winter months into the summer months, there would be no need to give loss-making discounts! Thus “skimming pricing” is the only option available for increasing revenues during season, and that again is subject to the competition setting the ceiling price and during off-season, the cost and maintainance of a luxury property sets limits the floor price.
The tourist buys the experience and does not own the product. This feature allows the tourist to avail the use of the product, such as lodging in a hotel room for a week, while allowing the hotel owner to “sell” the room accommodation as many times as he wants over the life of the hotel.
The tourism product is a combination of several services, e.g. a tour package may consist of a return flight and accommodation in a five star hotel at the destination with breakfast included.
Designing and packaging a tourism product involves a number of intermediaries, e.g. logistics in event management. Bad experience even at one level, can spoil the entire image of the product or service.

Given the more holistic approach towards marketing in general, it is now seen as a pervasive function covering the marketing research, marketing planning, advertising and promotion planning, public relations, product development, etc.

Today tourism marketing has matured to the level of social marketing concept. In other words, the provider of tourism services must not only satisfy customers, but also do so in such a way so as to preserve and enhance the well-being of not only the customer, but also that of the society. For example, despite the medical tourism in India offering cheap and quality treatment to patients from western countries, it should be developed in such a way so as to not only benefit hospitals from getting rich, high yield patients, but also the poor Indian citizens who need basic affordable treatment. Hence, it wouldn’t be wrong for hospitals to treat foreign medical tourist as cash-cow, profits from whom can be used to develop social medicine and public health, and cross-subsidise treatment for poor Indian citizens, thus fulfilling a social objective as well, apart from the narrow objective of short term commercial gains.

With a steady increase in competition, relevance of marketing is being acknowledged more as an important activity for the success of the enterprise, with new concepts as marketing for isolated exclusiveness.

The consumer of tourism products and services in future is going to be different from that of today, with greater awareness of consumer protection laws and eco-friendly practices.

ASPECTS IN A GOOD MARKETING PLAN

A well thought and prepared plan achieves two main objectives:

First, it provides the organisation with a vision. Second, it allows identifying road blocks in the long term goals. Broadly, each marketing plan starts with addressing three basis questions:
Where are we now? Where do we need to be? How do we get from where we are to where we want to go?
It also may include question like:
How do we make sure that we get there and how do we know we got there?
Every good market plan will have the following aspects:
Market Analysis: The analysis of the market in terms of size, buying power, and market segments. In case of expositions, it would mean determining the kind of exhibitions the place would get and whether or not there exists a market for it over there.
Consumer Analysis: It is closely related to market analysis. Once current users are identified, further analysis is conducted with current and potential users to determine how product attributes are perceived.
Competitor Analysis: A products competitive position is determined after the analysis of competitor's product and market served, with the goal to uncover the consumer segments that are not being served. For example, an area in a large city may be lacking an art gallery, leaving scope for all art exhibitions in the area to be held in a hotel in that area. Thus an unmet demand has been uncovered and planned for by the hotel concerned.
Opportunity Analysis: It is simply an exercise to determine the strengths and weaknesses of a business. There are different methods to identify opportunities. The most common is SWOT analysis. SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. In a nutshell, SWOT is a featuring process that helps business to determine the core strengths and identify areas that need attention.

Theoretically, marketing plans appear programmed to succeed. However, various difficulties need to be accounted for, or pre-empted by prompt identification, e.g. lack of awareness, declining sales, pricing too low. After identification of the difficulties, these must be prioritised or ordered, with the highest priority problems being addressed first. This problem identification process calls for honesty and candour and is the basis for subsequent marketing activities. On a more philosophical note, truth hurts sometimes, but it can also set you free.

Planning a convention is a very responsible job and has to be done with absolute alertness, because if anything goes wrong, because if anything goes wrong, it not only has the wrong consequences, but would also lead to a lot of wastage of time and money.

PROFILING A BUSINESS TRAVELLER VIS-A-VIS A TOURIST
The needs of a business traveller are fundamentally different from a leisure tourist, although they both co-exist in parallel. Certain services, such as hotel rooms and airline seats are similar and common for both tourist types. Other times, business travellers use services unique to them, such as convention centres, and special provisions such as WiFi computer networks within their bedrooms.

MARKET RESEARCH: Market research is systematic collection and analysis of information that is ultimately used in evolving some marketing decisions. A market can be taken as being defined as the actual and potential users of a product or service. Research with actual and potential customers and their behaviour is thus defined as market research.

The basic purpose of market research is to base oneself on a strong foundation, removing as much guess work as possible, out of the marketing exercise, 'guesstimates' can be very dangerous in the long run. Fundamentally, market research is said to aim at minimising risk while planning and monitoring operations after implementation of the plan. Hence, it is an ongoing process, involving reassessment of chosen strategies.

Stages of Research Study: Although there is confusion amongst marketing gurus and researchers in establishing the stages of research study, a broad consensus has evolved. The most simplistic one as tabulated by Reich is as follows:
Decide on Research
Purpose and set objectives
Design a research plan
Collect the data
Analysis and Interpretation
Report Research Findings

Application of Market Research: While market research attempts at gathering facts about markets and the forces operating, therein; like competitors and government, some of the likely areas of market research can be:
1) Determine the size of both current and potential market, e.g. how many inbound tourists from UK and the effect of swine flu on this.
2) Assessing the market trends – e.g. if adventure holidays are popular world wide, can this trend be incorporated?
3) Ascertaining the strengths and weaknesses of competitors marketing strategies, e.g. trying to study the tourism policies, plans and strategies of competing destinations.
4) Trying to assess the role of government and its policies towards the industry.
5) To determine demand and sales.

Market research is usually carried out in times of crisis or changeover, but what is neglected is the fact that market research if routinely and religiously carried out, it could help avoid crisis situations. ROLE OF TARGETING AND POSITIONING FOR AN UP BUDGET TOURIST MARKET
According to S. Dolnicar, University of Wollongong, in her paper “Profiling the One- and Two-star Hotel Guest for Targeted Segmentation Action: a Descriptive Investigation of Risk Perceptions, Expectations, Disappointments and Information Processing Tendencies”....”Identifying the target segment is the basis of developing efficient market segmentation strategies and efficient market segmentation is vital in an industry that is becoming increasingly competitive, as in the case of international tourism. In Austria, hotels in higher star grading categories have addressed this need through systematic market research designed to identify the needs of their consumers. Not so the hotels in the one- and two-star category: these typically do not segment the market and tend to assume that increasing their star grading will lead to increased market demand instead of investigating the specific needs of tourists who very consciously choose low star graded hotels.” http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1070&context=commpapers Thus we see that targeting and profiling go hand in hand and the need for profiling is felt when a certain level of growth and maturity is reached in the tourist product. A product can be sold more effectively if efforts are concentrated towards those groups with the most potential.

CASE STUDY: In April 2007, one of India's private sector budget airline, Air Sahara, was acquired by Jet Airways for Rs.1,450 crores and renamed, JetLite, and positioned as a value carrier, a tad higher than Low Cost Airlines, to build it as a dominant player in the domestic and regional international (neighbouring countries) market. It's clear cut objective was to woo passengers away from other Indian carriers and to give tough competition to regional international LCAs such as Air India Express, Air Arabia, and Tiger Airways by dint of spruced up on-board and airport services for the discerning flyer. Furthermore, in mid-August 2007 the airline would launch a major branding and marketing exercise to catapult it as the preferred choice for passengers, weeks after rival Simplifly Deccan of Air Deccan would start operations to West Asia, South East Asia, and other neighbourhood countries. JetLite has received Indian government permission to fly into West Asian countries. The airlines would also acquire 10 new Boeing 737 aircrafts from 2009 onwards, enabling it to run a fuel efficient fleet.
CASE STUDY: India Bets on Corporate Travel to Boost Tourism
Why MICE is nice – An up-market segment
Meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions (MICE) is the acronym for that segment of travellers who hit the road to do work, or because travel is offered as an incentive for this up-budget tourism market.
A typical conference delegate spends 2.5 to 4 times the amount spent by a leisure traveller.
No need to build places. India's existing resorts and hotels are good enough.
Global market in MICE tourism - $280 billion
Asia Pacific share in world MICE tourism market - $60 billion
India's share - $4.8 billion
Promotional Push: The city of Hyderabad, which has positioned itself as a key centre in MICE tourism, hosted Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) Travel Mart from September 16 to 18, 2008.

In the above two cases, the up-budget tourism of air-travel and corporate travel was augmented by targeting and positioning products, as opposed to mass marketing followed traditionally in the case of railway and leisure travel.

Various approaches are employed in the tourism industry to identify market segments. Segments can be defined either by descriptive or casual factors. Descriptive factors simply describe the characteristics of the person found in a segment. The “why” of a person’s action, however, is better obtained through additional use of causal factor information which identifies the motivation behind a decision.

A practical and Actionable Segmentation requires profiling of both:
• Past visitors, and
• Prospective visitors.
This is done to ensure proper matches and to determine the actual size of each high potential segment, in terms of:
• Geographics,
• Deomgraphics
• Psychographics, and
• Travel Habits.
In other words, we can say that the:
Target for Marketing = Characteristics + Demographic profile (of Consumers, Products and Services)
The studies of marketing experts like Kotler and Chisnall show that in order to make any segment actionable for marketing, each segment must be:
1) Discrete, i.e., the separate identity of the sub-group must be established by using any criteria like income, purpose, interest, etc.
2) Measurable, i.e., the characteristics that distinguish the sub-groups should be measurable through the available data.
3) Viable, i.e., the projected earnings to be achieved should be more than the costs of designing the market mix.
4) Appropriate, i.e., showing the inseparability of the tourism product which should contribute to the overall image in the market.

MARKET SEGMENTATION: Market segmentation may simply be understood as the division of a market into groups or segments based on distinct wants and needs. Organisations should identify the most parts of the market they could effectively serve, instead of trying to reach everyone. In their growth to maturity, organisations pass through the following three marketing stages in the given order:
1. Mass Marketing: Logically followed the impetus of mass production to satisfy the mass demand following the end of World War II. This was an era of mass production, and mass distribution that paid no attention to individual customer preferences.
2. Product Differentiated Marketing: In this marketing style the organisation produces two or more products for the entire market. Instead of a single product, the buyer now has an alternative, although this is still a tentative step in the direction of target marketing.
3. Target Marketing: This process includes:
Determining the characteristics of segments in the target market. Then separating these segments in the market based on these characteristics.
Checking to see whether any of this market segments are large enough to support the organization's product. If not, the organization must return to step one (or review its product to see if it's viable).
Once a target market is chosen, the organization can develop its marketing strategy to target this market.
A crucial aspect of target marketing is deciding the grouping characteristics for market segmentation. Customers may not be mutually exclusive and the grouping is merely probabilistic projection of trying to decide what is wanted and for whom.
One of the grouping characteristics can be price as the customer may be thus segmented as:
(i) High spenders – Those who may be targeted for high-priced products.
(ii) Low spenders – Those who may be targeted for low-priced variations of these products.

MAJOR VARIABLES USED FOR FRAGMENTING MARKETS FOR TOURISM PRODUCTS AND SERVICES:
According to Kotler, “There is no single way to segment a market. A marketer has to try different segmentation variables, singly and in combination, hoping to find an insightful way to view the market structure.”
The major variables used for fragmenting markets for tourism products and services are:
1. Geographic Segmentation: This segmentation is based on the idea that customer needs differ according to geographic regions. For example, mountain resorts will be marketed not in Switzerland or Himachal Pradesh, but in countries or states having no mountains, such as Dubai or Madhya Pradesh.
2. Demographic Segmentation: Demographic variables of age, sex, family size, family life-cycle, income, occupation, education, religion, race, nationality, etc. are important for direct impact any or all of these have on consumer wants, preferences, usage rates and other measurements and interpretations. For instance, examining the family life cycle of inbound tourists, nowadays it is observed that the majority of Western tourists who travel long haul destinations like India are DINKS (double income no kids – i.e. married, earning couples without children).
3. Psychographic Segmentation: In this case more subtle parameters sucg as social status, lifestyles, personality characteristics, and/or attitudes. Generally, extroverts are better inclined to tourist products than introverts, and even tend to spend lavishly compared to their introvert counterparts.
Then again, in terms of sheer numbers, the allocentric metaphor or those who venture first to unknown destinations may be small, but are sought for their impact as favourable trend-setters for future visitors or psychocentrics, who willingly follow in their footsteps in large numbers.
Tourists are segmented on the basis of attitudes, for example, those in the age group of 18 to 26 years would generally be the intrepid, “foot-loose fancy free” metaphor that can be large enough to be treated as separate segment.
4. Behavioural Segmentation: Prospective buyers of tourism products are segmented on subtle basis of their knowledge, attitude, use or response to the tourism product. Behaviouristic variables of occasions and benefits are used for market segmentation. Three core benefit segments are often recognised in markets – those who seek quality, those who seek service, and those who seek to minimize costs (Kotler and Andreasen 1996). The first segment includes those who are concerned with product image only, the second segment wants a service that matches the cost, while the third would like to keep the costs down and wants the cheapest option.
Characteristics of user status, usage rate, and loyalty status also have a bearing on buying behavior.
The degree of loyalty may be segregated into hard-core loyals, soft-core loyals, shifting loyals and switchers in the order of lowering of product loyalty.
Buyer readiness stage, which could be an index of priorities, etc., is another behavioural determinant.
Finally, attitude, which may be enthusiastic, positive, indifferent, negative or hostile is also a qualitative determinant.
5. Price Segmentation:

REGION-WISE PROFILING OF INBOUND TOURISTS FROM DEVELOPED COUNTRIES:

Japanese Traveller and India:
India is a favoured destination of Japanese traveller due to India's position in the Buddhist circuit.
According to the survey by Travel Journal, the reason given by Japanese traveller for travelling to India is its culture, link with Buddhism and history.

Table 8: Number of Japanese traveller to India
Unit : 1,000 people

1995
1996
1997
1998
1999

People %
People
%
People
%
People
%
People
%
INDIA
52521
123.4
61196
116.5
76156
124.4
63428
83.3
66658
105.1
* Source: JATA-NET
There are other factors too, which give some reasons to celebrate. For example, in the annual “Japan Travel Survey” by road travel magazine in 1994, the Japanese consumers listed:
Delhi in the top 50 places they want to visit;
India ranked as number five in the “new areas” visits;
India rated as giving a very high travel satisfaction by those who have visited,
Nearly 80% of potential visitors to India are now aware that India is good for holidays and cultural tours.
According to a survey conducted by Ministry of Tourism in early 1990s, both positive and negative factors about the perception of India by the Japanese tourists came forth. The analysis of the research survey revealed the following general consumer perceptions, both positive and negative factors, which helps in taking the necessary action: Positive factors
• Rich Cultural Heritage
• Attractive Nature and Environment
• Inexpensive, comparatively
• Deep Religious Background and Spiritualism
• Excellent Ethnic Entertainment
• Energy or Power of the Indian People and their Philosophy Negative factors
• Unsanitary (Public) Conditions – Public areas are not clean
• Heat and Dust
• Poverty, Population Congestion
• Bureaucracy
• Language Problems and Confusion
• Shopping and Tourist Guides – cheating complaints.

According to the same survey, a few bottlenecks need to be taken care of to form a better picture in the minds of the travellers. The bottlenecks are:
• A limited number of airlines operating to India, with only Air India providing direct access from Japan.
• A perception that airfares to India are too high. An ad from the Japan Times says, “Delhi is the most costly, in comparison to London, Milan, New York, etc.” This creates an expensive image in the minds of the consumers,
• The poor hygienic conditions, heat and dust, and lack of clean wayside facilities to support long road travel in India are a constant problem for Japanese tour operators, and which we regularly hear about the meetings,
• Bad feelings towards ground arrangement services in India like guides and shopping, particularly the negative feedback after just a few defaults in India,
• Language difficulties prove to be a great hindrance. Although improving, Japanese still feel uncertain in situations where they are forced to speak a foreign language. Japanese-language guides and hotel staff are much needed,
• Many Japanese still do want access to their cuisine. While it may not be possible for many hotels to have a complete Japanese restaurant, they can learn and prepare some of the simpler Japanese dishes.
• Difficulty in procuring visa many a times discourages a tourist from travelling to India. Korea and Taiwan have both dropped visa requirements for Japanese tourists, as the US already has done.
This would smooth their departures if India also removes the visa requirement for Japanese which is a suggestion from the Japanese travel trade. Anyway, it is a bilateral matter. India’s Tourist Profile

India receives the largest number of overseas tourists from the United Kingdom, which is its largest source market, followed by the United States, Sri Lanka, France, Germany, Canada, Japan, Australia and Singapore. Of the tourists coming to India, 27.5 per cent are in the age group of 35-44 years, 23.4 per cent in the age group of 25-35 years and 20.8 per cent in the age group of 45-54 years. Women constitute only 30.5 per cent of India’s total international arrivals. Repeat visitors account for 44.9 per cent of the overseas visitors. A substantial number of these may be non-resident
Indians, as hotel reservations do not correspond to the number of international arrivals in the country. The average length of stay of foreign tourists in the country in 1998 was 31.2 days. Domestic tourism, on the other hand, is largely pilgrimage-oriented and requires improvement in travel facilities and pilgrimage destinations.

TENTH PLAN OBJECTIVE

Tourism in India has tended to be regarded as an elitist activity conducted primarily for the purpose of earning foreign exchange. Its vast potential as an engine of growth and employment generator has remained largely untapped. Although India ranks second in terms of number of persons employed in travel and tourism, yet the contribution of the sector as a percentage share of all employment is amongst the lowest in the world.

Profiling the UK Outbound Travellers
Demographic profiling wherein a study of the birth, death and such statistics is done to understand the state of a community is the first step towards the profiling of tourists.

Demographic profiling of UK tourists
The UK has a relatively small population. The United Kingdom, which has a population of approximately 61 million people. The average age was 39 years, up from 37 in 1997, a decade ago. Children aged under 16 represented around one in five of the total population, around the same proportion as those of retirement age. UK has a similar demographic profile to that of the United States and other Western nations. It now as a low infant mortality rate (5 deaths per 1000 live births), and a life expectancy at birth of 78.7 years, and a literacy rate of 99%.
The British “Baby Boom” happened later than in North America. Like the US, the UK experienced a post-war “Baby Boom” and a subsequent “Baby Bust” in the 1970s. However, the British “Baby Boom” happened in two stages – a mini-boom from 1951-1961, when the average number of live births reached 839,000 per year, and a larger boom from 1961-1971 (963,000 live births per year.) Only about 785,000 children were born per year in the 1940s and a mere 736,000 were born annually in the 1970s. In 1976, deaths actual exceeded births in the UK. While birth rates increased slightly in the 1980s, the total fertility rate (the average number of children born per woman) has decreased substantially. Today, the UK has a low annual population growth rate of 0.3% (Source: Infoplease.com – United Kingdom: History, Geography, Government and Culture).
Travel markets to follow include over-45s and the student market. The traditional family market is expected to shrink.
Clearly, as a result of the decline in this group. From the data collected over the years it becomes clear that the travellers ex-UK: aare affluent, educated, and have high social status.
Mmostly tend not to have children.
Rregardless of destination, report that they are in the highest income bracket, middle or upper class, and have a middle or upper level of education. of short-haul travel are most likely to consider themselves lower class and to report a lower level of income are in either the lower or lower middle group. llong haul travel is more common among the middle and upper strata of the society.

THE UK OUTBOUND TRAVEL FOR INDIA
India and UK share a bond due to their common history. India projects the image of mysterious east, combined with glorious Raj.
Although not growing at the same rate, there is still substantial VFR traffic between the UK and non-EU destinations – of which approximately one-quarter was travelling to and from the US in 2007. Other key destinations are Australia, Canada, India and South Africa.
The increase in VFR passengers to destinations outside the EU of 2.5 million is similarly offset by a decrease in the number of UK–EU VFR passengers of 500 thousand. The five destinations with the largest increases in VFR traffic at Heathrow accounted for over a million new passengers between 2000 and 2007 – India, United Arab Emirates, Canada, New Zealand and the United States.
India – historical ties with the region along with ongoing immigration to the UK show how established migrant communities and their descendants can potentially act as a reservoir of demand for long haul routes carrying relatively high proportions of VFR passengers. The table shows passenger numbers on direct routes, although, since autumn 2008 Air India has suspended its scheduled services (reported as a temporary move to protect its slots at Heathrow), and a planned replacement – a joint venture between Monarch and Bilga Air has not yet commenced operations. CAA Passenger Survey data indicated that in 2006 India was the joint most popular final destination (alongside the United States) for passengers travelling from Birmingham via a non-UK hub. Popular indirect routes included travel via Turkmenistan and Dubai. In the absence of direct services, it is likely that the number of passengers travelling indirectly will increase.
An example of this, of particular relevance to VFR passengers, is the liberalisation of the UK–India air services agreement between late 2004 and mid 2005. Using CAA Passenger Survey data, the estimated proportion of passengers travelling UK–India for VFR purposes is 50% and, as noted in Chapter 2, the proportion at Birmingham, a city with strong migrant links to the country, the proportion is very much higher.

The numbers of travellers from Japan to India have always b been steady but it saw a sharp decline in 1998. The political social and economic conditions play a vital role in that. At present the industry seems to be getting back on its feet.

There are other factors too, which give some reason to celebrate. For example, in the annual “

Profiling tourists: Cultural Tourists and other VisitorsFindings from PICTURE case studies

Barbara Del Corpo, Elena Bellini, Ugo Gasparino, William Malizia
Luxembourg 21 | 09 | 2006

Preliminary considerations
Conceptual framework
Results
Lessons learned

Preliminary considerations

typologies
ETC Research Group and WTO (2005) definition The purposeful cultural tourist

CT is the primary motive for visiting a destination and the tourist has a very deep cultural experience
The sightseeing cultural tourist
CT is a primary reason for visiting a destination, but the experience is less deep
The serendipitous cultural tourist
A tourist who does not travel for cultural reasons but who after participating, ends up having a deep cultural tourism experience
The casual cultural tourist
CT is a weak motive for travel and the resulting experience is shallow
The incidental cultural tourist
A tourist who does not travel for cultural reasons but nonetheless participates in some activities and has shallow experiences

The stereotypical heritage tourist (the “Baedeker/ Michelin tourist”)

MOTIVATION IN TOURISM

aged 45-65 higher than average disposable income, education, and travel experience holidaymaking independently in a group of two staying in hotel

The emerging heritage tourist (the “Lonely Planet” or “Rough Guide tourist”) young backpackers, aged 20-30 different and lower patterns of expenditure staying in small, inexpensive bed and breakfast

Conceptual framework

Motivation
By virtue of the unique nature of the tourism product, motivation plays an inspiring role in obviating the various limitations of the tourism product, such as intangibility, intransferability of ownership to the buyer, and irreplacability. Motivation involves addressing the misapprehensions and concerns of the prospective tourist, or even educating him or her of the benefits of getting away from the daily grind of mundane activities to induce travel based on his or her soci-economic or psychological order.

Motivation seeks to bestow legitimacy to an activity that is mostly viewed as an unproductive, leisurely indulgence for the affluent. Travel motivators are highly personal in nature, e.g. depending on whether a tourist is seeking relaxation or excitement he or she may be taken to “The Water Kingdom” which is an amusement park, or The Lotus Temple, both of which are in Delhi.

Market segmentation takes into account travel motivations as its base for profiling the tourists, hence it is integral to marketing.

RECENT TOURISM TRENDS: It is imperative for the marketer to understand, percept and carefully analyse the current tourism trends. This is relevant because of a number of reasons:

a) Value Addition: To help the marketers upgrade or add value to their product; e.g., tour operators need to know the latest fads and likings of their markets. With more and more specialised tours coming into the picture, the golden triangle tour circuit, e.g., would have to be made more viable and profitable by adding new attractions. Similarly, with such special interest tours such as bird watching tours, a tour to the national parks need to be further improved upon.
b) Enlarging the Market Segment: This can be done through understanding latest tourism trends, e.g. nowadays foreign tourists are looking beyond the mere commercial aspects of their tour and want to make their tours ecologically sustainable. In this scenario, if a hotelier in a remote corner of Cherapunji relying totally on biodegradable items and environment friendly construction can tap the eco-tourists, who are an emerging number in the developed Western nations. It could not only enlarge the market segment, but also earn carbon credits for the destination or the hotel!
c) Older trends in themselves incubate new ideas. And being alert would mean that a marketer would be able to create new trends. Holding of events comes in this category. With the populace being more aware of exhibitions, festivals and fairs, event management organisations can come up with new trends. For example, mobile telephone manufacturer, Nokia, sponsored a contest whose winners were flown to Kolkata to the 20-20 Indian Premier League 1, semi-final cricket match held on 20.05.08 at the Eden Gardens there. This reward covered stay at the Hotel Oberoi Grand apart for the spectator tickets to the match. Hence, the age-old trend of India being a cricket crazy nation, this idea suggested itself.
d) Familiarisation Trips: Or Fam Trips are 'free of cost' trips used to drive traffic to a remote destination, organised for highly visible celebrities, whose attention grabbing observations mould public perception.
f) To motivate those who have not been to a particular destination or flown a particular airline or visited a particular attraction also needs an understanding of the new trends. However, in this regard marketers have to be very judicious and upright in their promotional campaigns.

In certain cases the tourism industry can initiate new trends. Heritage/eco hotels, palace on wheels, healthcare and tourism, etc. can be cited as examples in this regard. In case of heritage accommodation the hotel industry started this trend where as in case of eco-friendly accommodation the industry was fast to incorporate this trend in business.

Tour/unique destination
Organization (package/self-organized)
Length of stay
Accommodation
Expenditure level
Activities
Age
Education
Employment

Support to Cultural Tourism
CT becomes part of a number of synergies including local economic development, environmental conservation, the enhancement of heritage and cultural production, and even the senses of identity and well-being of local communities.
It has lower local costs (while Sun&Beach tourism may either ignore or even damage ‘heritage’ resources) and higher benefits, more spread over local business activities; thus it is more clearly in the economic, cultural and political interests of local communities.

Increase expenditure for cultural activities and transport
Cultural tourists not only move into and out of destination regions and resorts, they move around when on holiday. On the contrary, the traditional beach holiday is by its nature spatially concentrated and relatively static, generally offering almost all of the components of the holiday within a single resort or even a single hotel; little transport required during the holiday. The pursuit of policies for enhancing excursions, many of which will be to heritage sites and attractions, with social and cultural events and experiences and with evening entertainment facilities cannot other than increase the transport demands of tourists.

Cultural tourists show a more dispersed seasonal pattern of arrivals; their mobility also means a more evenly, spatially and socially spread impact.
It is possible to increase the daily expenditure of Sun&Beach tourists too: offering dedicated short day and half-day excursion possibilities focusing on heritage, nature, shopping, folklore or culinary attractions to heritage sites, or exhibitions.

Sustainable tourism?
With a length of stay at any one site measured in hours and even minutes – and this is especially true for cruises –, local tourist expenditure is minimal and is frequently claimed to be less than the local costs incurred in receiving such tourists.
Cruise tourists on the one hand don’t have time to visit museum or other attractions. They cause congestion and a not evenly spread impact, with disadvantages for the resident community.
On the other hand, his presence is soft: less environmental impacts (consumption of natural resources such as water, rubbish).
In the case of Bergen, anyway, this type of tourism doesn’t seem to be compatible with the cultural image and the rich heritage the destination could and would like to communicate.

Longer and repeat visits
«every visit would be a unique experience» (Malta Tourism Authority, 2002, p. 6). On the contrary, beach resorts may develop substantial numbers of return visits to the region and even to a specific resort or hotel.
Short stays and non-repeat experiences need a response in an equally rapid continuous extension and differentiation of the heritage product. Sites and attractions need to be combined within larger packages Increase the cultural offer of the destination
Cultural (mega) events and festivals offer interesting opportunities for city destinations in attracting both first time and repeat visitors (ECT & WTO, 2005).
Cultural festivals and events are important reasons for cultural tourists to choose to specifically visit a place:
(totally) disagree 4% neutral 5%
(totally) agree 88% no opinion 1%
(Source: ECT Internet poll)

Before launching different cultural tourism activities, it is important to reflect on the aims and desires behind the launch: specifically see whether the people using tourist infrastructure or visiting tourist sites are residents or come from abroad and whether they stay long or not, to make sure tourism brings economic benefits and improves the quality of life of residents the risk is the creation of events and activities thought to attract the tourist, with no/little link with the local culture, and consequent loss of local identity.

Apart from typologies, customers may be profiled on the basis of communities. This is is tremendously useful for India, given its multi-culture, mult-ethnic, plurarity.
Community Profiling
Assists tourism planners to determine:
How to involve people—general meetings, individuals, groups
How best to communicate information—medium, languages
How to promote the plan—relating the plan to issues of importance to the community.

Community Consultation
Community workshops and consultative processes assist in identifying:
Primary values - what do residents and visitors value about the destination?
Aspirations - what role do residents wish tourism to play in the economic and social development of the community?
Fears - what concerns do residents have about the impact of tourism on the community?
Possibilities - what are the special characteristics of the area that locals wish to share with visitors?
Warts - what are the things that detract from the area being a desirable place to visit? (Tourism South Australia 1991:31, Hall 1998:259,260)
The profile can help to capture the destination’s ‘Sense of Place’.

ROLE OF TECHNOLOGY IN TOURISM MARKETING

Twentieth century has witnessed unprecedented developments in technology. In the last decade of this century, advancement in electronic microprocessors has enabled very high speeds and accuracy in information processing capabilities with manifold uses and application across various industry segments. For example, an initiative aimed at enhancing the processing of visa applications in some South East Asian countries has started from April 2009. According to Jessica Sim, Area Director – Northern & Eastern India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal, Singapore Tourism Board, “The e-visas are designed to enable partners, including visa service providers across India to submit online visas and print the approved visas through the SAVE (Submission of Applications for Visa Electronically) system.” This saves an applicant personal trips to the consular office to submit visa documents and collect approved visa. The approved e-visa must be printed and produced at the airline counter before departure.

Hospitality and tourism have gained significantly from the internet revolution and convenience brought in by technology. Whether it has revitalised flagging sales, or revolutionising the delivery mechanisms in traditional mode of sales, technology has penetrated all aspects of tourism marketing. For example, a marketer can today keep track of millions of customers in real time, segment them online with the aid of office automation, offer customised products to individual customers based on the customer profile, and even deliver the products to individual customers instantaneously through the internet.

With the advent of WiFi internet and mobile internet, cyber marketing has grown exponentially because of freeing up the internet devices from the limitation of confining wire connectivity.

New opportunities arise to enrich and strengthen traditional marketing to the consumer communities, i.e. the special features of internet, or 6 I's of internet:
Interconnectivity: For customers it translates as access to a very large number of diverse markets, other information sources and fellow customers, overcoming all kinds of geographical boundaries.
Interactivity: The interactivities gained by both marketers and customers have the potential of unleashing very high levels of energy in the marketplace restricted only by the creative limits of the market players.
Involvement: Since it is an interactive medium, it is attention centric. This increased level of involvement helps the cyber marketer to address his efforts to more serious customers.
Information: Internet is the largest repository of indexed information. Data based marketing, which had taken off even before the advent of internet, has really gone to greater heights through cyber marketing. On the other hand, because of the empowerment of customers through such rich information, database consuming has also found true meaning now.
Individualisation: The advantage of mass customisation is made possible through internet for both customers and the marketers. The customers can identify the optimum provider for his unique sets of needs. Customisation, i.e. exacting the product to customer needs, at a price affordable and with a payment mechanism most convenient to him, when offered on continuous basis becomes service to the customer of significant commercial value.
Integrity: Authenticity of data, wherein customers get assurance about transparency and reliability of the marketers' offers.

Cyber marketing allows for greater flexibility and innovation in the following traditional areas of marketing:
i) Customer Profiling, Segmentation and Targeting: Various data mining and data warehousing tools utilise the processes of sorting, clustering, and association seeking with consumer data to generate rich information for systematised customer relationship management. ii) Product Planning: The products sold through 'brick and mortar' outlets may have digitised aliases for 'click and order' fulfilment of transactions that could incorporate online display and presentation of the product.
Another interesting product related possibility with 'click and order' format of product sales is providing a worm's eye view of each product to view each detail of the product for the discerning customer while providing a bird's eye of the entire array of products to choose from. iii) Branding: Online brand promotions use artificial intelligence to push packaged products towards receptive customers and prospects on the basis of the relevance of the brand to the searched products, with innovative 'hooks' aimed at getting the prospect to buy into a deal. iv) Pricing Decisions: Cyber marketing has led to the coinage of a new term – monopsony, reverse auction, etc. In the former case, many sellers are competing with each other to get a buyers patronage. Thus, prices are driven downwards and the customer is the king, with informed choices that meet his or her needs.
v) Advertising and Sales Promotion: Like products and prices, customisation of advertising and promotion are very much possible in cyber marketing. Besides customisation, the customer is contacted when he is giving full attention to the computer screen, as happens with ‘opt in’ mails and ‘sticky’ promotions that are not just ‘hot’ insofar as they ubiquitously pop up on the screen to entrap a customer, but also that are dependent on widgets that track the profile of customers that visit such websites and iteratively, interactively, and automatically build relationships with the customers of the desired profile. vi) Distribution: Cyber marketing has made global promotion and distribution possible especially with digitised products, extending pinpointed reach to customers, eliminating lead time between ordering and delivery, all with far reaching consequences on marketing. Hence, with business intelligence gathering techniques at the disposal of the techno-savvy, profiling customers is no longer the luxury activity, but a necessity for survival tool in a market where each customer wants to be treated as an individual. vii) Marketing Research: Using various computer assisted data collection and data collating tools available today, that can be embedded with data processing softwares, progressively relevant, and fewer questions based on the profile of the customers, may be asked to service the customer.

NEED FOR TOURISM STATISTICS, METHODS USED AND PROBLEMS FACED WHILE DOING MEASUREMENT:
Statistics aims at deriving meaning and certainty from a mass of data.
Tourism is a social phenomenon with significant economic consequences. Statistics and measurements in tourism have a bearing on future plans, destination development, indirect employment, and investment decisions.

i) Understanding the Perspectives: For a proper perspective, it is necessary to evaluate its various parameters in terms of magnitude and significance.
The basic measurement of volume is “tourists visits” or “tourist arrivals” - i.e. at a given destination, usually in one whole year.
The second volume statistics is the “length of stay”. The value of tourism to an economy is mainly reflected in the “tourist expenditure” at the destination or the “tourist receipt”.
The tourism expenditure in case of domestic tourists includes the cost to and from destinations as well as expenditure at the place of visit.
Average expenditure per tourist per day = Total tourist expenditure/Number of tourist arrivals
Or
Total tourist expenditure/Number of tourist days.

ii) Development and Planning: Involves and objective assessment of the existing demand for various tourism products and their levels of supply. The demand can be either actual or potential, depending on whether it has actually fructified into tourist visits or whether it is assessed in terms of travel plans of target population, etc.

iii) Evolving Marketing Strategies: This is the next step in succession, to maximise the economic gains from tourism. Identification of market segments, product postioning, evolving effective communication and marketing strategies are the essential elements of a marketing plan. The global trends on international tourism are usually obtained from the publications of international agencies like WTO, PATA, etc.

iv) Facilitating Investment Decisions: Based on perceptions of return on investment and payback periods. These calculations require statistical data on profitability of existing units, occupancy rates, industry profiles, etc., which are collected through surveys of existing units.

Methods of Measurement: Statistical measurements of tourist floes and their impact are generally obtained b surveying the visitors or the tourism production units at one of the following three places:
i) Surveys/Studies at Destination:
Counting by controlling the visitors at tourist sites.
Surveys of visitors at tourist sites.
Census and registration of accommodation units.
Survey of tourism production units.

ii) Surveys at Points of Travel between destination and origin:
Counting by controlling the visitors at tourist sites.
Surveys of visitors at tourist sites.
Census and registration of accommodation units.
Survey of tourism production units.

iii) Surveys at Usual Place of Residence:
Household surveys of residents in this country.
Surveys of companies, public administration units and institutions.
Survey of tourism intermediaries such as travel agents, etc.

Problems of Measurement: Measurement poses several problems. The identification of tourists from other travellers and the local population, especially in the case of domestic tourists in India, where there are no state border controls or regulations on their movements, thus requiring cooperation of tourists in gathering primary data through surveys.

INBOUND AND OUTBOUND TRAVEL REGULATIONS:

A traveller who is also a tourist is governed by the laws and regulations in force in the country which he visits.

Passport and Visa Requirements
It is mandatory for all visitors (except from Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh) from abroad to possess a valid passport issued by their respective countries prior to entering Indian territory through land, sea, or air route.
Currently, visa is an essential requirement for people of all nationalities for entering India. Indians visiting Bhutan do not require a visa, and need to carry just a passport. Visa and passport requirements change from time to time, depending on mutual relations. There are several kinds of visas available to foreign nationals, as listed below:
Entry Visa
Tourist Visa
Business Visa
Long-term Visa - maximum duration of 5 years with/without multiple entry facility, and
Collective Landing Permit.

A few SAARC nations accept Indians with PIO (Person of Indian Origin) card, instead of a visa, as a reciprocal arrangement for good bilateral relations with India.

Indian Consular Offices in different countries issue Indian visas for a fee.

Tourist visas are issued for a maximum duration of 180 days. If a visa is issued for a lesser duration, it may be extended upto 180 days by putting an application at Foreigners' Regional Registration Office, in any one the cities of New Delhi, Mumbai and Calcutta, at no extra fees. Beyond 180 days, fees charged varies within a fixed scale, in proportion to the duration of extension sought. In Chennai, the above cases are dealt with by the Chief Immigration Officer who checks and endorses the final permission for the same. FRROs and CIOs handle visa renewals and extension cases, which in other state capitals and district headquarters are handled by district police chief (Commissioner of Police/Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP)/SP).

In the cse of border states, such as Punjab, and the two groups of islands (Andaman and Lakshadweep), a visitor requires a special entry permit, which is valid for a maximum duration of 15 days. This criteria varies from time to time, depending on the political and security interests of the country, e.g. presently it applies to the state of Jammu and Kashmir due to it suffering from cross-border terrorism from Pakistan since last two decades.

ROLE OF FORECASTING IN RELATION TO TOURISM MARKETS
At the onset of 21st century, tourism has shown particularly rapid growth and development, with many forces changing its structure and manner in which it functions, for example timeshare or vacation ownership has redefined the tourism product, adding exponentially into its fold millions of customers worldwide, since its conception a few decades back. Forecast data from the World Tourism Organisation shows that the share of tourism volumes and related receipts, gross domestic product, employment and export earnings is expected to move away from the developed countries towards the less developed countries as a result of favourable economic, motivational, technological and policy factors in the latter.

Given the rapid economic, technological and politically spurred changes in the markets, forecasting becomes more and more important in managing change, especially because of the larger role envisaged for tourism in the world economy. WTTC status paper, “The India Imperative” has analysed India tourism seeking to enhance its employment potential within the tourism sector as well as to foster economic integration through developing linkages with other sectors such as infrastructure, information technology, etc. The policy document takes into consideration seven key areas that will provide the thrust to tourism development. These are: Swagat (Welcome), Soochana (Information), Suvidha (Facilitation), Suraksha (Safety), Sahyog (Cooperation), Samrachana (Infrastructure Development) and Safai (Cleanliness).

Taking cognisance of its intrinsic limitations such as intangibility, perishability, inseparability from consumer, leakages, etc., demand forecasting becomes all the more necessary to factor in losses and expenses associated with high investment involved in tourist infrastructure and superstructure. Forecasting is necessary to decide on the scale of investment needed, and in its absence, implementation of plans may go awry. For example, following decades of terrorist insurgency in Kashmir, the Cease Fire Agreement of the year 2007, between India and Pakistan, accross the Line of Control, improved the forecast of tourism inflows, based on which Welcomegroup brand of hotels introduced Gorkha Houseboats on the Dal Lake in Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir, and thus succeeded in benefiting from the forecast.

Tourism marketing involves planning, an analytical activity, and strategy, a synthesising activity. These 2 activities are based on quantitative and fundamental forecasts engendered in rising to meet the future opportunities.

The development of new products will result from:
Changing tastes of tourists, as is now the trend in 'volunteer vacations', or 'voluntourism', wherein tourists work on projects which are good causes, such as conservation, spreading literacy, etc. as means of self-actualisation, or attaining spiritual goals, or maybe even as pursuing a hobby.
Availability by the industry,
Technological innovations,
Social and environmental concerns, as in the case of 'Ethical Holidays' where the tourist is concerned with the impact of their trip on the host community.

Thus, a major forecast for tourism markets would be the development of new tourism products.

PROFILING TOURISTS: USES AND ADVANTAGES
Profiling of tourists makes it easier to segment the tourists/travellers and accordingly segment and select the target market. To market and promote one's country product it is important to first understand the tourists taste and needs. Profiling helps in regressively determining the floor and the roof of the acceptable quality standards. In the absence of profiling the tourist, one may spend lavishly on an needless appurtenance that figures low down in the priorities of the visiting tourist. Our aim is not to mould the tourist, but to orient ourselves to the likes and dislikes of the tourists, after we have attained a basic minimum standard according to our own tastes. Thus profiling

Unlike mass tourism, which can thrive on one strategy for diverse consumers, special interest tourism requires distinctive strategies for each of the well defined consumer segments in the overall market. Our tour operators need to make extra efforts in market segmentation, product differentiation, tourist profiling, and customised product development in order to meet the global tourist who is more exposed and selective nowadays. Stakeholders now need to identify the source markets for tourists, map customer motivation, and expectation and customise the product to make it fit the customer requirements, as evidenced in the concept of “bespoke holidays”.

In the marketing continuum, statistical analysis of demographic factors, motives, orientation, needs, etc. of travel of tourists is is known as profiling of tourists. In the year ended 2000, such a study revealed that globally 35% visitors leave home to visit friends and relations (VFR) and 50% seek holidays. The latter segment is showing the greatest growth. In India, however, VFR dominates. Globally, the majority travel in their own automobiles, while in India, approximately 2% travel in their own automobiles, while trains are more popular for domestic tourists in India, approximately 20 times in percentage terms, i.e. approximately 40% of domestic tourists.

China's focussed and intensive domestic tourism drive is supported by lavish schemes of developing roads and railways. On similar lines, in India, the Golden Quadrilateral Project linking the 4 metro cities with over 5,841 kms length is nearing completion would have a salutary effect on automobile based tourism. Similar surveys and research has envisaged great potential for transport service providers, location based themed leisure/entertainment, recreation and conferences could fill the nascent demand as identified. Thus we have Alleppey – The Venice of India, with a huge potential for drawing high spending foreign tourists, while the low yield domestic tourist, given his low spending capacity, complemented by large volumes, still lacks enough tour intermediaries offering a competitive package for this heavenly abode.

TOURISM MARKETS:
Tourism markets are the superset of tourism generating markets and tourism receiving markets. Within both these markets we have domestic tourist markets, regional tourist markets (intra-regional markets and inter-regional markets. If we go in to further classification of tourist markets you will see that in domestic or regional tourist market we have pilgrim tourist market, cultural tourist market, business/corporate travel market, youth tourist market, special interest tourist market so on and so forth. Same is the case for foreign markets.

The tourist markets can further be classified on the basis of type of services required by them, for instance, 5-star tourist market, budget class tourist market, incentive tourist market, etc. This clearly indicates that different tourist markets react in different way. Hence, markets are heterogeneous rather than homogenous. No buyers or potential buyers of a product are ever identical in all respects. Therefore, it becomes imperative to know your markets well to be a successful marketer of your product. Adequate knowledge of markets also makes possible for you to tailor your products and marketing programmes or service that are suitable for each segment you intend to cater to. Since a market is not only an aggregate demand for a product but also the sum of the demands of different market segments, therefore, for getting a positive response in the market, it is essential that you as a marketer are well aware of your markets.

MARKETING OF WHISPERING PALMS RESORTS, GOA
SITUATION OVERVIEW
Offer a convention center for over 150 people
Excellent destination for MICE needs
Prime Location
Cuisine - Goan, Continental, Sea food, Chinese and Tandoori delicacies.
Unlimited flow of Spirits and Beer (House Brands) from 1100 till 2300 hrs.

IMMEDIATE ISSUES
Fill in Lean periods
Increase Brand Presence – Online/Off
Increase captive base
Increase Traveler preference
Increase comprehensive promotions
Efficient Strategy and Follow through

ORGANISED SECTOR
UNORGANISED SECTOR
Cidade de Goa
Multiple. Research required.
Jupiter Resort & Spa

Dona Sylvia Beach Resort

Holiday Inn Resort

Club Mahindra Varca Beach Resort

Goa Marriott Resort

Radisson White Sands Resort

Ramada Caravela Beach Resort

Majorda Beach resort

The Leela Kempinski Goa

Aguada Hermitage Beach resort

Devaaya Ayurveda Spa Resort

Kenilworth Beach Resort & Spa

Taj Exotica

Intercontinental The Lalit Goa resort

The Majestic

Vainguinim Valley Resort

Bogmallo Beach Resort

Fort Aguada Beach resort

Park Hyatt Goa Resort & Spa

Taj Holiday Village

ROADMAP OF WHISPERING PALMS BRAND GROWTH – A
BRAND BIRTH –
Urgent need to indentify, create, confirm and establish the brand.
Step 1 – Confirm the logo.
Step 2 – Confirm a catch line for WP
Step 3 – Confirm a company policy which will attract customers.- Example – Welcome drinks, welcome vouchers and Welcome TV program

IDENTIFICATION –
Step 1 – Understand our customers 100% via tracking methods (Refer slide 7)
Step 2 – Understand, review and edit our products and services.
Step 3 – Customer feedback about Property Issues, improvements.

GROWTH –
Step 1 – Customer Retention methodologies to be applied
Step 2 – Generate and create WP reward points and Tie ups.

ROADMAP OF WHISPERING PALMS BRAND GROWTH – B
EXPLORATION –
Step 1- Explore alliances and sort out what strategies work best for you
Step 2 – Implementation and ongoing reviews

DIFFERENTIATION -
Step 1 – Identify and see WHAT SPECIAL offers WP makes. Need not be expensive.
Step 2 – Market and Market it.
PLACEMENT –
Step 1 – Crucial in Media and Events
Step 2 – Highlight our awards, rooms and facilities on rotation to keep the customers interested.

ROADMAP OF WHISPERING PALMS BRAND GROWTH – C
PROMOTION –
Step 1 –In-house promotions such as POS, brochures etc
Step 2 – Outhouse @ First points of contacts – Airports, Reservations, Room check in
Step 2 – Outhouse Promotions @ Targeted Cities and locations via Agents, Potential Customers and Investors.( restaurants, bars, clubs etc)
Step 3 – Interactive activities for the customer to be involved.

RECALL
Step 1 – Aggressive follow-ups after the Check out
Step 2- Aggressive pricing and HOOKS.

SUSTAINENCE
Step 1- Customers by now should WANT or PREFER to return back to WP
Step 2- Referral benefits on CHECK OUT
Step 3- “Hope you had a great stay with” Built in questionnaires.

INTERNET RELATED ISSUES:
Search Engine Optimization: Can the world find your hotel?
Hosting and Web Development:

WP EVENTS OUTLINE FOR EVENTS –
Agents show road shows

Trade shows
Should have aggressive TRAFFIC FLOW & HOOKING elements.

Sponsorships in local / international events.

Piggy Back on targeted events for Data capturing Only.
Start with 1 – 2 HIGH END events KNOWN to be a WP event.
Promotional materials to be devised accordingly
Tie-ups in Airlines, Hospitality, Hotels, Restaurants and Luxury Sector.

Growth Trends To be FOLLOWED:

Healthcare Initiatives
A number of reasonably priced wellness centers such as 20 by Facet Lifestyle and health spas are coming up in several destinations increasing patient arrivals.

Study by Deloitte revealed that there's a significant rise in patients in India from the US, UK and Europe apart from the usual inflow of patients from neighboring countries and West Asia.

The hospitality sector is expected to rise to US$ 275 billion in the next 10 years. The domestic hospitality sector is expected to see investments of over US$ 11 billion in the next two years within 40 international hotel brands making their presence in the country in the next few years.

Government Initiatives

According to the Tourism Secretary, Mr. Sujit Banerjee, the government is offering attractive packages to foreign tourists and has organized road shows in major markets such as the UK, Canada, Australia, Singapore and Malaysia.
The ministry is offering free air ticket for companion, travel to additional places and extended stay at hotels.
WP NEEDS TO EXPLORE AND PIGGY BACK
Now, foreign medical tourists will be offered one additional treatment for free. Apollo, Manipal, Moolchand, Fortis and Wockhardt among others have forwarded their proposals for the same.

The government has also taken a number of steps to minimize the impact of the slowdown. This year has been designated as the ‘Visit India’ year.

To strengthen the Indian tourism sector ahead of the Commonwealth Games in 2010 and to double foreign tourist arrivals from 5.37 million in 2008 to 10 million by 2010, the ministry is taking measures such as rationalizing taxes, increased focus on infrastructure and easy visas.

INDUSTRY TRENDS – 2009
According to the Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report 2009 brought out by World Economic Forum, India is ranked 11th in the Asia-Pacific region and 62nd overall in a list of 133 assessed countries in 2008, up three places since 2007. In terms of travel,
India stands 9th in the index of relative cost of access (ticket taxes and airport charges) to international air transport services, having almost the lowest costs in the world.
RANK 14th - India has been rated well for its natural resources (RAN 24th - cultural resources (24th),
RANK 37th - particularly given the country’s stage of development, and a reasonable ground transport infrastructure (ranked 49th). RANK 7th - India is ranked 7th in terms of number of World Heritage cultural sites, according to a UNESCO report (2008).
RANK 1st - with regard to tourism fair attendance.
RANK 33rd- PER International Congress and Convention Association in terms of number of international fairs and exhibitions held in the country annually (average for 2006-07).
The World Travel and Tourism Report for 2009 for 180 countries worldwide also ranks the Indian Travel and Tourism economy
14th in absolute size worldwide.
The report also states that real GDP growth for travel and tourism economy is expected to be 0.2 per cent in 2009 and to an average 7.7 per cent per annum over the coming 10 years.
Export earnings from international visitors and tourism goods are expected to generate 6.0 per cent of total exports (almost US$ 16.9 billion) in 2009, growing (nominal terms) to US$ 51.4 billion in 2019.

SERVICES NEEDED FOR PROMOTION:
Brand Management for WP
Brand Management for WP Spokesperson (INBUILT)
Ongoing Market trends research
Provide market news, keep WP ahead of the curve
Leverage Client relationships for WP benefits.
Access to HIGH END consumers
PR activities on a PRESS Plan programs
Placement in Events
Organizing and producing Pan India Events
Providing Aggressive Ad campaigns with Built in ROI
Online Marketing, PPC, SEO, Newsletters Campaigns
Promotional Materials incl. POS , OOH etc.

TOURISM TRAFFIC TO GOA TO INCREASE IN 2009

Goa is one of the most attractive destinations for both domestic as well as international tourists. However, the ongoing recession have created havoc on this beach and heritage destination, especially during the last two months of 2008. The pinch was severely felt after the terror attacks in Mumbai last November.

“We noticed a huge drop in charter traffic mainly from Scandinavian countries in November and December 2008. Keeping this scenario in mind, we have ventured out for new markets. From January onwards, the traffic has been increasing. Significantly, more traffic is coming from Russia, which is an emerging market for Goa,” informs Swapnil Naik, Director, Goa Tourism. In terms of inbound tourists to Goa, Russia ranked second only to the UK and followed by Germany.

Goa Tourism has doubled its efforts to market Goa in Russia, the UK, Germany, Scandinavia and other nations of Europe, along with newer markets like Portugal, Middle East and South Africa. For the current year, Goa Tourism Development Corporation (GTDC) will lay special focus on attracting tourists from Portugal by highlighting the heritage and cultural aspects of the state. The GTDC has a budget of Rs.20 crores for overall marketing initiatives for 2009-10 which will include business to business (B2B) and business to consumer (B2C) marketing and promotional activities in domestic and international markets. The state will participate in all major travel shows like WTM, ITB Berlin and ITB Asia. Goa Tourism is also organising roadshows in South Africa and Scandinavian countries.

The Goa government will lay equal emphasis on infrastructural developments to cater to future demand. The state government will invest Rs.48 crore for tourism infrastructural development this year. Additionally, the state will receive Rs.46 crore from the government of India's Central Financial Assistance fund for the same purpose. Goa Tourism is expecting Rs.30 to 40 crore from the state budget of 2009-10.

Commenting on the initiatives the state tourism is taking in relation to product building, Naik said that an artificial snow park may come up in the near future in association with private players. Naik declined to give details. “It is still at a nascent stage and nothing has been decided yet,” he said. Goa Tourism also plans to develop backwater and rural tourism in a big way. The state government has started special initiatives to stengthen heritage sites and road connectivity to these sites and hinterland areas. Goa Tourism received three lakh international and 22 lakh domestic tourists in the year 2008. “We are expecting about 5% growth in overall tourist traffic this year despite the ongoing slowdown,” added Naik.

TOURISM MARKETING:

Someone once defined marketing quite briefly as “knowing what the customer wants”. Simple as this may sound, it assumes a clear understanding of the complexity of the tourists needs and, most importantly, the ability of your organisation to deliver what is promised. Thus, like in the case of any other product, it is critical that there is substantial marketing input at the product planning stages of tourist accommodation, precisely because of the complexity of tourist behaviour and needs.

In addition to the above, in today's world of tourism it is not just whether you have the right customer, the right location, and the right price. The tourism professional is also required to take into consideration whether particular accommodation being promoted is ecologically and environmentally sound.

Ecological and environmental “correctness”, while important for any segment of tourist accommodations, becomes more important where its impact is increased. And the impact increases, it should be pointed out, whenever the location is remote or exotic. The same would apply for host/guest culture relations. By definition, a place that is remote or “exotic” is the ultimate tourist destination.

COMPETITIVE MARKETING STRATEGIES
Competition is fait accompli to any business today. Businesses need to resort to various marketing strategies to survive and thrive in the market. Managing competition is increasingly becoming the art of the possible, and broadly speaking there are 3 possible approaches in facing competition:
1. Legal Approach: Almost all countries have their set of rules and regulations. Patent law is one such regulation, which promotes and protects the interests of inventors and innovators. Under this law, no firm other than the patent holder or the licensed firm is allowed to make use of the process. India has its own legal barriers and it has certain laws like Industrial Licensing Regulation and Reservation of products, which restrict entry and thus protect the incumbent firm from competition.
Industrial licensing that used to be common in India in the 1970s and 80s is another example of such a barrier. By giving a license to a firm the government provided exclusive rights to that firm or a few firms to produce. This restricted the number of players in the market through industrial licensing, thus creating a legal entry barrier.
2. Cooperation with Competitors: In today’s competition, when the going gets tough, rivals may decide to cooperate with each other to stave off external threat, mostly in oligopolies.
Recently, the Ministry of Science and Environment (MOSE) discovered pesticide residues in colas manufactured by the two cola giants in India, who were traditionally fierce competitors all over the world. These 2 cola giants, Coke and Pepsi, came up with integrative arrangements to temporarily set aside their rivalry to jointly fight the MOSE allegations that these beverages were laced with pesticides.
In the tourism sector, as seen during the Incredible India campaign launched worldwide in the year 2007, various hotels, tour operators, destination management companies, travel agents, etc. joined hands to share advertising costs of promoting India as a destination to the rest of the world.
4. Competition with Competitors: In the case of pure competition, the customer gains with the better products at lower prices, while the competing companies need to consider their goals first and their strategic options next. They may approach the competition reactively or define it in a proactive way to set their own standards and gain market share.
For example, Devigarh Resorts, a premium heritage hotel property under the management of M/s. Boutique Hotels Pvt. Ltd., may define its goals as:
1. Developing the market segment of domestic FITs (free individual travelers).
2. Recommend promotion mix to cover larger areas and key contributors to sale such as high net worth individuals.

GENERATING INFORMATION ABOUT TOURISM MARKETS Tourism related information is being largely generated by governments, both at centre and at state levels, at Centre, Department of Tourism has a Statistical and Implementation Division to collect, compute, administer and manage the information collected. This information generated is used by the Department in planning, production and development of tourism goods and services both at national and international level. The information generated by Department of Tourism broadly focuses upon:
i) Destination Information, ii) Booklets on availability of hotels, restaurants and other services both primary and ancillary available at destination. iii) Tourist guides and maps showing sites and their accessibility. iv) Procedural formalities for international tourists, permits for entry in restricted areas, etc.
v) Specially developed tourism products like heritage properties, vi) Tourist profiles and other related data, etc.

Department of Tourism provides this information free of cost. This enables you to select and pick up information material of your interest and use the relevant information. In fact, for most of the countries such information is available on their websites.

ADVANTAGES FOR PROFILING TOURISTS: Quite logically, “what the customer wants” is determined by who the customer is. Profiling tourists and using information the involves:
1. Assessing socio-economic and demographic particulars of international tourists thus targeting and attracting them with suitable packages that also respond to the economic pulls and pushes of individual tourist segments.
2. Understanding guest-host relationships and tourism impact on a destination.
3. Developing a destination by identifying places visited, duration of stay, and accommodation used by the targeted customers.
4. Assessing the levels of satisfaction or otherwise of tourists and taking remedial action where necessary.
5. Working out a scaled model for constructing a resilient consumer price index for international tourists following the dictates of their buying trends, e.g. 4 times as many tourists visit beaches as those who visit hill stations. Hence we have greater leverage in pricing at beaches than at hill stations.
6. Finally, to assess the demographic particulars of transit tourists and ascertaining their reason for avoiding India as a long haul destination, and taking remedial action.

FAM TOURS

The nature of the tourism product is such that it cannot be physically demonstrated, experienced, or felt by the prospective buyers in advance. Hence, it is important that at least the intermediaries used in the distribution must have full product knowledge and if possible, an experience. It is here that familiarisation tours (Fam Tours) play a major role in providing the experience, not only to the intermediaries, but to certain other opinion leaders whose words matter in a tourist market.

Fam trips are aimed at acquainting, intimating, informing, and providing first hand experience of the tourism products and services to the opinion makers and business providers. In the process, the latter can decide the strengths and weaknesses of the product and inform or influence the prospective buyers accordingly. The purpose of a Fam Trip may vary according to:
The aims of the organisation destination, say the market segment an organisation wants to target, and
The stage of the product life cycle a product/destination is in. For example, launch stage or rejuvenated stage, etc.

CONCLUSION:

THE WAY AHEAD

INDIA TOURISM, in its ongoing endeavours to boost domestic and international tourism, is launching a series of initiatives ranging from training programmes to special campaigns. Devesh Chaturvedi, additional director general, ministry of tourism, government of India, shares details with TRAVTALK.
Special trainings and new campaign to boost tourism figures
Amongst the many initiatives that India Tourism has taken is a training programme for service providers called Capacity Building for Service Providers (CBSP). Additionally, India Tourism is also looking at undertaking participation in international trade fairs like the recently concluded ATM in Dubai, hosting familiarisation trips for the travel trade and media, conducting promotional activities overseas, subsidised participation at international trade fairs etc.

“Tourism contributes 6.3 per cent of the GDP to our country, which is admirable considering the world average is about eight per cent. We have undertaken a training programme called the Capacity Building for Service Providers wherein we had allocated Rs 9 crore for the year 2008-09. Our budget for the next year has not been sanctioned as yet. Under this scheme, we have undertaken training of service providers like the tourist information officers posted at domestic and international offices, training cooks, drivers, guides, etc. Members of the travel trade are supplied with all the latest information, promotional schemes and other relevant information. A major initiative will be undertaken before the
Commonwealth Games in Delhi where 3,000 graduates and undergraduates will be trained on various aspects of tourism under a ‘earn while you learn’ scheme. In addition to this, we will also train taxi and coach drivers along with other support staff in a 3-4 day training capsule,” elaborated Chaturvedi.

The ‘Visit India 2009’ scheme launched by the ministry of tourism is offering huge value additions. These value adds are on offer to tourists visiting the country during the period April to December 2009. Chaturvedi further highlighted that in spite of the global slowdown, the number of Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTA's) in 2008 were 5.37 million as against 5.08 million in 2007, showing a lower growth of 5.6 per cent as against a growth of 14.3 per cent in 2007.

MOT’s marketing campaigns have a track record of doing well. The Incredible India campaign undertaken by the ministry of tourism had won them the ‘Bronze Lion Award’ at the 55th International Advertising Festival at Cannes and the ‘World Travel Award 2008’ in developing and promotion of responsible tourism at the 29th edition of the World Travel Market (WTM) in London in November 2008. “We have always balanced electronic, print and outdoor marketing of our campaigns well, giving each its due importance,” said Chaturvedi, adding, “Initiatives such as outdoor advertising campaigns at airports, railways and bus stations, building and bus wraps etc are being undertaken in all important cities worldwide.”

Aware of the challenges facing the tourism industry, enhanced financial support to service providers is being offered to encourage them to undertake promotional activities overseas while subsidised participation in international trade fairs is also being given by the ministry, along with encouragement to promote MICE and medical tourism.