Tourism Promotion Has Grown

In the past few years, the body of literature on tourism promotion has grown. Some scholars have paid more attention on this field. Through review being provided by Rothschild (1987, p, 24) and Shimp (1990, p, 19), promotion was originally used in the marketing communication field, and concept of promotion consists of four main elements, namely publicity, advertising, personal selling and sales promotion. According to, Witt and Moutinho (1995, p, 376) claim, “promotion is the crux of any successful tourism venture”. Moreover, the promotion of tourism regards as complex communication activities. In other words, the point of Witt and Moutinho (1995, p, 377) is that “promotion is the mix of communication activities designed by tourist organizations to influence those target audiences upon whom their sales depend both directly and indirectly, in both the short and long term”. In addition, in terms of tourism products have their own features, therefore the ways of promotion are different from other types of products. Furthermore, based on previous research, promoting tourism is not only a responsibility of tourist organizations, but also is a program activity of countries, states and provinces (Gunn & Var, 2002, p, 57). According to Ascher (1982, cited in Hall, 2007, p, 182), tourism promotion plays an active role in activities of government. What is more, Hall (2007, p, 182) explained that in Australia either Commonwealth or state government pays more attention on the promotion of tourism. In addition, according to the studies of Gunn and Var (2002, p, 57) claim that “promotion for tourism usually encompass four activities: advertising, publicity, public relations and incentives”.

The terms of purpose of tourism promotion is attract visitors and build the sense of a destination. As Middleton (1993, p, 32) suggest “tourism promotion serves many functions in addition to the more obvious one of increasing awareness of a place and encouraging visitors through the communication of attractive images”. In other words, Tourism promotion can be a tool in image of destination building and increasing a sense of place. And then based on the studies of Henderson (2003, p, 72) point out that tourism promotion can inspire civic pride, as well as to strengthen the sense of belonging for place on the one hand, on the other hand via tourism promotion, destinations can enhanced the reputation in the world wide. In addition both governments and tourism organizations can get economic benefits.

According to the research of Witt and Moutinho (1995, p, 379) concluded that promotion of tourism has several fundamental features. For instance, tourism promotion regard as tourism products, which means promotion in tourism, has almost the same features as tourism products. In addition, due to tourism promotion based on symbols, such as sounds, images, pictures, and words, promotion in tourism is harder than in most other kinds of marketing. In brief, “promotion alone must generate desire and acceptance in the absence of more tangible evidence, which is why it is no exaggeration to say that promotion is the product” (Witt & Moutinho, 1995, p, 380). Moreover, the risk associated with tourism promotion (Dwyer & Forsyth, 1992, P, 18). Because tourism promotion could be seen as either short-tern or long-term investment activities, the whole process of promoting tourism faces risk. In addition, tourism industry, which is a risky industry, can affect on tourism promotion (Witt & Moutinho, 1995, p, 381). Furthermore, tourism promotion has integrated feature. Based on previous research from Witt and Moutinho suggested that promotion might be seen as complex activity for the governments, travel agencies and destinations. As a result, all the diverse elements of tourism promotion, such as brochures, advertising and films, could be consistent with this feature (Witt & Moutinho, 1995, p, 380). Moreover, tourism promotion has certain cultural feature. Since tourism is a cultural product to customers, promoting tourism is to reflect the cultural expectations of the market. It seems that “promotion tends to deal with cultural stereotypes” (Witt & Moutinho, 1995, p, 380).

2.1.1 Tourism promotion in Traditional Media

In general, the concept of traditional media is opposite idea of social media (Bruhn, Schoenmueller & Schafer, 2012, p, 770). In addition, according to studies provided by Hsu, Killion, Brown, Gross and Huang (2008, p, 302) indicated that traditional media consist by television, film, radio, magazines, newspapers and other print materials. These various forms of traditional media play different roles in tourism promotion. For instance, advertisements are regarded as significant form among tourism promotion. Tourism advertisements are available in different traditional media platforms, such as newspapers, magazines and television (Gunn & Var, 2002, p, 57). According to previous research from Hsu, et al (2008, p, 302) asserted, advertising in newspaper, which is seen as the low-cost promotional way. Despite the feature of low-cost, Leckenby (2005, p, 24) asserted, newspapers provide wide reach. As a result many tourism organizations prefer this form as the channel of promotion. Furthermore, compared with advertising in newspaper, advertising in television is more expensive. According to Hsu, et, al (2008, p, 304) point out that “a television advertisement can achieve national exposure and reach a large proportion of the population if it is shown several times during prime-time shows over a number of weeks”. It clear that advertising in television is traditional and significant tourism promotional way. Additionally, tourism television advertisements are also regarded as the important channel of national tourism campaign in the past few years (Hall, 2007, p, 181).

Additionally, tourism brochures are one of common tourism promotional ways. Based on a literature review, Hsu, et al (2008, p, 298) assert “Brochures and other printed materials play a more significant role in tourism than in most other industries”. It is clear that brochures, as printed media, play a key role in tourism promotion. In addition, because of other forms of media are expensive for promotion, advertising in brochures is more popular forms of promotion in travel and tourism (Rozier-Rich & Santos, 2011, p, 395). Furthermore, from the research of Andereck (2005, p, 8) assert “brochures is an influential source of travel information for tourists”. In addition, a variety of researchers exist which show brochure is one of significant and widely of promotional method available in tourism industry (Holloway & Plant, 1988; Wicks & Schuett, 1991, p, 301). With rapid development of Information and Communication Technologies, according to previous researchers, Andereck (2005, p, 3) suggested “travel brochures continue being the main promotional tool for many places or tourism business which does not have the necessary economic, human, technical or structural resources for spreading information in a more complex or sophisticated way”. However, similar to researches put forth by Andereck (2005), Hsu et al (2008, p, 311) argued that if tourism brochures have not been chose appropriate ways to attract attention from customers, and distributed to the improper destinations, brochures are going to be ineffective. As a result, despite printing tourism brochures, many organizations using website to promote their products and services. Moreover, according to Gunn and Var (2002, p, 57) claim “of great aid in promoting tourism is the recent explosion in the use of the Internet and electronic business”. It seems that the Internet might be seen as a challenge to tourism brochures.

Furthermore, in some studies found that films as a tourism tool, which play an active role in tourism industry. Riley and Doren (1991, p, 267) point out that “movies become ‘pull’ factors (attraction) situated in ‘push’ locations (tourism generating areas)”. Via films, which can attract tourists to travel as well as cultivate familiarity feeling of tourists toward destinations. From the beginning of 1980s, for example, Australian government used movies as promotional tool. In 1986, the movie Crocodile Dundee released, which express Australian bush culture and laconic Australian identity. Additionally, when the film Australian released, which encourage more international visitors to Australia (Beeton, 2004, p, 131). Therefore, Australia is an appropriate example to analysis movie as a tourism promotion tool.

Currently, a large number of studies focus on using tourism brochures, advertising and films to promote tourism business. In addition, little research has pay attention on the impact of Internet for tourism promotion. However, tourism promotion in traditional media existed some problems. For example, traditional media platforms are difficult to attract and capture the attention of target customers on the one hand. On the other hand, the process of update and transmit information is ineffective, such as advertising in newspapers and television, the content need to repeat several times might be attracted attention from target customers or travelers. According to the studies produced by Stern (1995, p, 127, cited in Leckenby, 2005, p, 5) claimed, traditional media, such as television, is a passive and time-constrained media. With rapid development of network communications, social media is gradually effect in many industries. It seems that “social media are increasingly replacing traditional media” (Bruhn, et al, 2012, p, 771). In addition, many scholars pay more attention on promotion in marketing area. However, few studies show a concern on how to use social media, which play a key roe in promotion, to promoting tourism.

2.2