The Importance Of Tourism Marketing Essay

Let it be known that tourism usually represents a little over 50 % of direct investments by developing countries. In a variety of countries and regions (Egypt, Greece, the Caribbean, Polynesia), tourism is already the most important economic sector and provides the principal boost for development. For the longest while during the 80s and the early 90s it seemed that the future for Egypt would be the tourism industry.

Generally the importance of tourism will only increase in the future. This is because there is a continuing economic shift from the manufacturing sector to the services sector. Due to terrorism, governments are putting greater emphasis on the tourism and hospitality industry as they fear a loss of revenue in the tourism sector due to terrorism. Tourism industry also plays an important role in increasing the foreign exchange reserves of a country. Tourism has been projected as one of the few industries that will improve upon its performances in the future.

In this essay will discuss the ways of promoting and methods, considerations , awareness , appropriations for advertising for Safari Egypt as a fresh established travel agent based in Egypt.

Organisation Background

Egypt is a legendary holiday destination, attracting visitors from around the world to gaze in wonder at iconic sights such as the timeless Pyramids of Giza, the staggering temple at Abu Simbel and Luxor’s ancient Valley of the Kings – home to the tomb of King Tutankhamen. With over 5000 years of history, Egypt – ancient land of the pharaohs, cannot fail to captivate the imagination. Aside from incredible archaeological sites, Egypt has a wealth of other attractions. Whilst on tour sail aboard a felucca or cruise Egypt’s River Nile, climb holy Mt Sinai or float serenely over Luxor – the world’s greatest open air museum in a hot air balloon. Experience the world-class diving and snorkelling at Egypt’s Red Sea and soak up the year round sunshine, or shop until you drop in the exotic bazaars of Cairo and Aswan.

It is so much to offer which need some effort in marketing for it , like their tour programs, transport facilities, hotel accommodations , car rental, Nile cruise, international flight reservation …etc

Safari Egypt is a fresh established travel agency in Egypt, member of the travel agency association in Egypt, working under ministry of tourism. Safari is a complete service travel company; our foundation has the turn key potential which is divided into: Incoming, Outgoing, Air lines ticket sales, Nile cruises & Transport Division.

Services & Products

Safari offers hotel, resort & Nile cruises reservation at competitive rates. The Company arranges transfers, including meet & assist service by our multilingual representatives. Safari book the air line, ferry boot, rail way & sleeper train tickets. it guides you through its sight-seeing tours. Safari plans your desert safaris, diving & all water sport activities. And finally helps you handle your conference & congress arrangements.

Assets

A great transportation fleet is an important asset of our company to guaranty your comfort while being in Egypt. Safari fleet consists of 160 vehicles of well known brands, Recently join to safari’s group a one of greatest Limousine company in Hurghada it consists 55 of latest model of motorcars.

Marketing

Marketing is, in fact, the analysis of customers, competitors, and a company, combining this understanding into an overall understanding of what segments exist, deciding on targeting the most profitable segments, positioning your products, and then doing what’s necessary to deliver on that positioning.

How to do deliver on a positioning?

Well, this is where the tactics come in. By branding correctly, by advertising correctly, by communicating via email, letters, or whatever, but all done in a way that is consistent with the analysis that marketing is really responsible for.

If you want to get involved in tactics, that’s fine. But just think about artists, sports figures, doctors and scientists, and ask yourself whether in these other areas (which all, by the way, are as creative as marketing), it is just necessary to understand tactics. I think what you’ll find is that tactics alone won’t get you very far, but tactics along with a strategy based on great analysis will get you exactly where you want to go.

So before you go hiring consultants and network with other marketers (as suggested in this “other article”), make sure you understand what is marketing so you don’t just become a tactical pawn, but someone who can ultimately direct the entire marketing campaign.

Marketing Mix

The marketing mix is the organisation’s overall offer, or value, to the customer. Traditionally, the marketing mix represents in strategic terms, the total concept and application of the goods or services to be marketed. The basic marketing mix is often nicknamed “the 4Ps” (product, place/distribution, pricing, promotion); “these are elements in the marketers armoury – aspects that can be manipulated to keep ahead of the competition.”

Product

A product refers to the ‘total concept’ that is sold. The total product consists of both tangible (e.g. raw materials, features, accessories) and intangible (e.g. brand name, product line, customer service) parts. In general terms, product also refers to the needs-satisfying offering by a business to consumers. It is therefore more than the physical thing sold by the business.

Price

Price refers to the final cost of the product that is paid by the consumer. It represents the intrinsic value of a product or service to consumers. A business may implement a variety of pricing policies dependant on revenue goals.

Therefore in Marketing terms: PRICE = PRODUCT VALUE

Economic demand analysis (through market research) will indicate how much consumers are prepared to pay for a particular product or service at any given point in time. Here, the higher the price of a good, the fewer people that will demand the product. Their utility (satisfaction level) is not maximised.

Place

Place is broadly concerned with both the location of business and the method of distribution between producers and consumers. Only in rare circumstances does the initial producer or manufacturer of products also act as the first and final link to consumers. The complexity of modern society makes it necessary for intermediaries to act as a direct link between producers and the ultimate consumers of products and services.

Promotion

Most organisations and individuals relate promotion to direct advertising of a product. However, the decision to buy a particular product (from knowledge presented) is a complex and interrelated process. In formal terms, promotion refers to the communication of information between seller and buyer. Its aim is to influence attitudes and behaviour.

Communication refers to the transmission of information from a sender to a receiver. In most cases communication is not a direct process. The business will construct the desired message it wishes to convey and then encode the message into a particular promotional method. Consumers will then decode the information and a buying decision is made.

Methods of promotion are varied, and include:

Publicity: this refers to any unpaid form of non-personal presentation of ideas, goods or services, e.g. newspaper, editorials, celebrity ‘plugs’ for the product.

Personal selling: this involves direct face-to-face communication between sellers and potential customers, e.g. supermarket presentations, retail selling techniques.

Sales promotion: is aimed at final consumers or users and is usually used to increase demand or speed up time of purchase, e.g. banners and streamers in retail stores, sample packages, contests etc.

Advertising: this refers to the paid, non-personal presentation of ideas, goods and services by an identified sponsor e.g. TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, direct mail, signs etc.

Selling Concept

When the mass production had become commonplace, competition has increased , and there was little unfulfilled demand . That was the time when firms started practice the selling concept , which assumes that consumers typically show buying resistance and must be coaxed into buying, is also practicing in the non profit area by fund raisers , political parties, admission offices .

Most firms practices the selling concept when they have overcapacity of the product, their aim is to sell what they made rather than make what the market needs.

Marketing Concept

The marketing concept states that Safari Egypt should strive to satisfy its customers’ wants and needs while meeting the organization’s goals. The best way to meet the organization’s goals is also by meeting customer needs and wants. The marketing concept’s emphasis is to understand the customers before designing and producing a product for them. With the customer’s wants and needs incorporated into the design and manufacture of the product, sales and profit goals are far more likely to be met.

With the customer’s satisfaction the key to the organization, the need to understand the customer is critical. Marketing research techniques have been developed just for that purpose. Smaller organizations may keep close to their customers by simply talking with them. Larger corporations have established methods in place to keep in touch with their customers, be it consumer panels, focus groups, or third-party research studies. Whatever the method, the desire is to know the customers so the organization can better serve them and not lose sight of their needs and wants. The marketing concept rests on four pillars: target market, customer needs, integrated marketing, and profitability.

The Organisational Structure

The organisational structure is the way in which management is organised. The size of the business and the business environment are some factors that affect the organisational structure. There is not one structure that fits every business.

Safari Egypt organisational structure would divide into functional areas such as marketing, production and finance. Within each department there would be a fairly narrow span of control. This is useful as there would be effective supervision and less discretion and therefore less chance of mistakes. However, a narrow span of control is not a good idea as decision-making can be slow. There would be bad communication and this can cause failure to share idea.

Safari Egypt believe employee opinion is important and so I would use a democratic style of management, for example by using quality circles. This can help improve the business as a whole and the members of the circle can become motivated as they feel of value to the business and they would know what future plans are.

The Matrix organisational structure is a project-based approach. This is useful as it ensures that projects are better coordinated compared to the formal hierarchy structure where meetings have to be held occasionally.

Market Segmentation

Market Segmentation means breaking down the total market into self contained and relatively homogeneous subgroups of customers, each possessing its own special requirements and characteristics. This enables the company to modify its output, advertising messages and promotional methods to correspond to the needs of particular segments. Accurate segmentation allows the firm to pinpoint selling opportunities and to tailors it’s marketing activities to satisfy on consumer needs.

Through the process of market segmentation, there are certain variables to identify customer groups, such as needs, income geographical, location, buying habits and other characteristics as well, we can focus on the parts of the market that it can serve best and make great profit.

Importance of Market Segmentation

Due to the fact that resources are limited. Therefore, all business will minimize their resources and maximize their profit to gain their benefit. In order not to waste any times and money on promoting their production in the wrong direction. Market segmentation is needed to spot their product’s market opportunities, gain competitive advantage and target marketing activity on promotion.

Media

When anyone buys media, they buy access to an audience a certain number of times. From television to radio, it is time, from newspaper to magazines, it is space. The percentage of readers, listeners, or viewers who pay attention to an ad will depend on how well the ad is executed. For products that rely heavily on advertising, media buying is one of the most crucial steps in the marketing communication process for two reasons.

Five key decisions on the media strategy:

WHO? The target audience should be described as accurately as possible on the basis of demographic data.

WHERE? Here the choice of media depends on the geographic area in which the product is distributed and thus available.

WHEN? Some products are seasonal and other has weekly sales peaks. Ads should be scheduled to run with these fluctuations in mind.

HOW? Media choice is generally dictated by the type of creative message marketers want to communicate.

To WHAT EXTENT? Marketers must determine how much they will spend in which media vehicle. As part of media planning, the media budget is allocated according to such considerations as media categories, geography and time periods.

Advertising

Safari Egypt is concerned with delivering messages to defined target segments in terms of factors such as awareness attitude preferences. Intentions and knowledge there is need to consider “lagged effects” for brand building for the future

Have to consider while selecting advertising

The advertising effort is integrated with the other marketing mix elements, leading to a consistent and logical marketing plan.

Advertising budget can be determined more accurately.

Top management can appraise advertisements plans and can maintain control over advertising activities.

Why Advertising Objectives for Safari Egypt?

To ensure agreement among all about what needs to be done and why

To guide creative and media work

For financial control and evaluation of the degree of success achieve

To help smooth functioning of the entire marketing process

From the importance of setting the advertising objectives, it can be clear that without any objectives, it will be difficult for the advertiser and the agency to formulate, strategies for carrying out their marketing objectives. It is also important that at every stage the objectives need to be kept in mind during the entire advertising campaign.

Advertising and promotions for Safari Egypt will pivot around six key strategies: public relations, our shop front, an Internet Web site, customer relations, press advertising,

Agent shop front: We plan to have an exciting, informative, and actively managed display window. There will be a video display showing adventure vacations in Egypt. Different destinations can be selected from outside the window via a control panel otherwise the scenes will rotate on a random basis

Internet Web Site: this is fast becoming a major promotional channel we can use to promote for Safari Egypt and we believe it will increase in importance over time. Also , it is the most convenient way for us to have a global presence at the outset

Customer Relations: Safari Egypt keep records of every sales contact Data such as source of inquiry, client needs, previous vacation, job, and income will be included By having superior information on our clients and prospects, we intend to offer a truly personalized service. Our database will contain full details on all our clients, including the vacations they have taken and their post vacation appraisal data. We will use this data to encourage our satisfied customers to recommend our services to friends, relatives, colleagues, and employers.

Press Advertising: will undertake a small amount of specialist press advertising in order to enhance our public relations activity. There is considerable research to support the argument that the more often a potential client hears about you, the more likely they are to approach you when they have a need for your type of service.

Advertising Appropriations

Setting advertising budgets has an immediate impact on costs and long-term effect on sales. Consequently, advertising is in many ways and investment in much the same way spending

Advertising spending plan: This is prepared to decide the media vehicles in which the advertisements need to be shown. Basically it divides the budget among the costs of the media vehicles selected plus production and testing.

Advertising spending plan and budget

Media Category

Specific vehicles and frequency

Production and testing budget

Space/Time budget

Total budget

Newspapers

National

Regional

Local

Magazine

National

Regional

Local

TV

Satellite

National

Cable TV

Radio

Outdoor media

Research and monitoring

The Advertiser

In fact the budgets of the advertising have doubled in three decades time form the seventies. As in any other country, the growth has come from the consumer goods sector. Egyptian advertisers have become savvy about the advertising strategies, which have in fact lead to proliferation of advertising agencies in Egypt.

The following are the newspapers read extensively in Egypt:

Alahram

Akbar El Yom

Al Gomhouria

Al Qahyra

Al Shaab

Al Sherok

Al Watny Al Youm

Al Masry Al Yom

Al Ahaly

Magazines:

Daily Star Egypt

Egyptian Daily News

Egypt Today

Egypt Gazette

Radio

Radio Hits

Radio Egypt

Mega FM

Nogoum FM

Nile FM

Greater Cairo Radio

European Programme

Television channels like:

Nile TV International

Dream TV

Orbit Channels

ART Channels

Free TV

Methods of Advertising Appropriation

Affordable method:

On of the methods of determine advertising appropriation is to find out what the Safari Egypt can afford in a given business situation. It envisages that advertising appropriation is possible only when Safari Egypt has met all other a priori claims. This method helps in financial discipline. However advertising opportunities are usually overlooked and get neglected because advertising expenses are deemed to be unaffordable.

Percentage of Sales method:

The relationship between the advertising expenses and sales revenue as indicated by a percentage of sales is used in this method.

The sales on which advertising appropriation is based may be historical

Percentage of Profit method:

The expense multiplier is related to profits instead of sales, with profit providing even more assurance than sales as a potential reservoir from which advertising funds may be appropriated.

Competitive parity method:

This method envisages determination of advertising appropriation in such a way that a company maintains parity with its competitor’s advertising outlays.

Objectives and tasks method:

Advertising objectives are set for the coming budget period and the cost for achieving these objectives are calculated in detail in terms of the tasks to be performed, the total of which indicates the appropriation level. This method involves:

Defining advertising objectives as far as possible in quantitative terms

Outlining and listing tasks to be performed in achieving objectives and

Estimating the cost of performing these tasks.