chapter Creating a Tour Chapter Objectives After reading this chapter, you shou
chapter Creating a Tour Chapter Objectives After reading this chapter, you should be able to: T Justify the need to know how tours are planned. T Identify the prime sources for researching a destination. T Describe the principles behind a successful tour itinerary. T Cost out and price a typical tour. T Explain the many ways through which tours may be promoted. "PO YOU l'HIlJ1( l'rffrze'S 50Mf:.1'I-JIN4 W~ OV£r<?WOK~C? IN fHE:: BiZ.OCJ.-lUr<&-?" t 82 ConductingTours I f your career goal is tour planning, promotion, or operations, an understanding of how tours are cre- ated is essential. But if you wish to be a tour con- ductor, can you just skip this chapter? Not at all. A tour conductor, like any professional, should have a clear understanding of the intricate deci- sion-making that so intimately affects his or her job. Many tour managers find that they occasionally must restructure a tour while it's in progress or recommend changes when it's over. An astute knowledge of the tour-planning process makes the task easier. Many tour directors move on to office positions, where such knowledge is essential. Finally, persons who create and lead their own tours have no choice: they must possess a close and keen familiarity with tour-making from start to finish. We've already examined many components of tour planning in other chapters. Now let's look at the larger picture, while filling in some of the details that have yet to be covered. Marketing a Tour Planning out a tour is, in certain ways, a unique undertaking. In other ways, however, it's no different from designing a new car or creating a breakfast cereal. Universal principles guide the process-principles tied to the science of marketing. Marketing is a much misunderstood enterprise. Most people would say that marketing is the same thing as selling, when in reality selling is only a small (though significant) component of marketing. Marketing also encompasses such activities as needs assessment, research, product development, pricing, promotion, and distribution. A good catchall definition would be this: marketing is the process of transferring a prod- uct from its producer to consumers. In this case, the product is a tour, the producer is the tour operator, and the consumer is the traveler. Assessing the Demand Food, shelter, and clothing-these are the traditional survival needs of society. Travel isn't a need; it's a desire, a want that's bought with "discretionary" income (the money left over after paying for essentials). According to marketing principles, when such desire is driven by money, a demand is created. Today's demand for travel is so huge that many experts predict that travel and tourism will soon become the world's largest industry. Traveling has gone from being a once-in-a-lifetime luxury to something the average person feels he or she ought to do on a regu- lar basis, like exercising or mowing the lawn (though presumably it's more fun). And as Chapter 1 pointed out, a great number of vacation travelers take advan- tage of tour packages, in one form or another, to get to their destination. The Demand for Tours Assessing the demand for tours in order to tailor them to would-be travelers requires a knowledge of not only why people take tours, but also why they don't. An NTA marketing study found three main con- sumer objections to touring: T A dislike of buses. To counter the image of touring as a long journey on a smelly, uncomfortable vehi- cle, tour companies stress that many tours today are interrnodal, and that the plush motorcoaches used are a far cry from the spartan city buses with which the public is familiar. T A dislike of passive, regimental "herding." One response to those who find the thought of struc- tured travel thoroughly distasteful has been the development of independent, freelance tour pack- ages. To counter resistance to touring, many com- panies have dropped the word "tours" from their names and replaced it with more positive and inclusive ones, such as "vacations" or "holidays." Other tour operators have redesigned some or all of their tours to provide plenty of "free time"' and relax the stereotypic "herding" that has traditionally marked touring. T The fear that one won't fit in with other people on a tour. Selling affinity tours or targeting a very specif- ic kind of traveler (the cultural explorer or adven- ture seeker, for example) is a good way of conquering this kind of resistance in the market- place. Market Research Corporations often spend millions of dollars to iden- tify untapped markets, likely customers, and purchase patterns. A marketing expert would probably counsel a tour company to ask itself such questions as: Does my target group like to take the type of tours I intend to offer? What level of structuring are they likely to want on a tour? Are there tours I could offer that "anti-tour" Chapter 9 Creating a Tour 183 consumers might take? What is my typical client's "pre- ferred value level"? (In other words, how much luxury does the client want, and how much is he or she will- ing to pay?) The answers to such questions are usually arrived at through sophisticated and expensive surveys, tests, and focus groups. Yet tour operators rarely have the resources for such studies. Furthermore, the travel incli- nations of consumers change unpredictably. For this reason, many tour operators feel that conventional research is of dubious worth to them. They tend to agree with industrialist Bemard Loomis, who argues that, "The trouble with research is that it tells you what people were thinking about yesterday, not tomorrow. It's like driving a car using a rear-view mirror." Instead, tour operators are inclined to take the fol- lowing marketing shortcuts: They Pick Up Quickly on Trends. Good tour plan- ners, like skilled tour leaders, read newspapers and magazines and follow other media in order to detect any new tendency or useful idea that can be translated into a tour. The past decade, for example, has seen a huge increase in ecotourism: the desire to experience, pro- tect, and manage nature's resources. Such places as Costa Rica, Alaska and Botswana responded to this demand by facilitating visits to their most naturally dra- matic regions. And a number of tour operators addressed this same phenomenon by creating tours that focused on ecology. They were quick to recognize and respond to an important trend. They Tap the. Successful Ideas of Other Companies. Many tour operators have prospered by noting a competitor's early success, then adapting or improving on the idea. In the jungle of travel market- ing, the tour planner who succeeds is the one who is alert to every new rustle in the thicket, every new snap of a selling vine. They Survey Their Own TourPartidpants. How much time does it take for a tour manager to distribute a questionnaire on board a coach? Not much. That questionnaire can both help profile the company's typ- ical client and test the attractiveness of potential new tours. (See Figure 9- U One limitation is that the sam- ple is "biased": these are a company's regular clients, not those new ones it may wish to attract through an atypical tour. They Experiment Through Trialand Error. Let's say representatives of the East Overshoe Chamber of Commerce visit the office of Acme Tours. There are plenty of attractions and fine lodging in our area, the representatives argue, and we're about to unleash a national promotional campaign. So why not schedule a series of tours to our region for the coming season? What does Acme Tours have to lose by scheduling this new tour, announcing it in Acme's general brochure, and seeing if it sells? Perhaps the cost of a quarter page of printing in its brochure and allied advertising, and that's all. If the tour appeals to the mar- ketplace, Acme has a hit. If not, not much has been lost. This approach is, in truth, the way most tour companies judge the saleability of new tours. Planning the Tour Surveying and testing, trial and error, and awareness of trends and the competition can all lead a tour com- pany to design a certain tour. In marketing, this step is called product development. Throughout this research and development phase, a tour company is ever mind- ful of the client who will pay to take the tour. In other words, the product-the tour-must match its intended market. As Dan Dipert, president of Dan Dipert Tours of Arlington, Texas, explains: "Every customer has dif- ferent needs to be identified. For example, clients in the older retiree group generally want security. They want to travel with a group from their home town on an escorted tour with everything included. They'll balk at a tour that requires them to travel alone even part of the way. Dipert adds that age isn't the only factor-regional traits must also be considered. "Southwesterners are well-to-do:' observes Dipert, "but very cautious about how they spend money. We therefore design our tours for economy. Where deluxe tours stay uploads/Marketing/ creating-a-tour-chapter-objectives.pdf
Documents similaires
-
28
-
0
-
0
Licence et utilisation
Gratuit pour un usage personnel Attribution requise- Détails
- Publié le Jul 12, 2022
- Catégorie Marketing
- Langue French
- Taille du fichier 4.3375MB