Advertising Strategies for Tourism and Hospitality

1. Advertising Strategies for Tourism and Hospitality Objective:Introducing advertising strategies for tourism and hospitality. In the end of this week, students will understand using different advertising stratgies and approaches for tourism and hospitality products.

2. Goals of promotion • Marketing goals; related to the achievement of sales of the product to consumers. • Corporate goals; related to market share or volumes of sales, profitability and revenue. • Communication goals; related to the image, reputation and attitudes of stakeholders towards the organization.

3. Advertising • Advertising is a specific form of marketing communications which is concerned with bringing information about an organization, its products and services, or any other messages to the attention of the market. • Mainly provides information, creates awareness and reminds the markets.

4. Due to developments in technology, in advertising today, there is; • greater fragmentation in terms of use of media channels • growth in pull strategies (to drive consumers towards certain actions) • greater interactivity in advertising messages • increase in use of personal endorsement (by celebrities or ordinary users) • more innovative media strategies

5. Advantages • low cost per contact • ability to reach customers where and when salespersons cannot • great scope of creative versatility and dramatization of messages • ability to create images that salespersons cannot - “institutional advertising” is a form of advertising done to create a favourable image of an organization.

6. nonthreatening nature of nonpersonal presentation • potential to repeat message several times • prestige and impressiveness of mass-media advertising

7. Disadvantages • inability to “close” sales • advertising “clutter” • customer’s ability to ignore advertising messages • difficulty getting immediate response or action • difficulty measuring advertising effectiveness • relatively high “waste” factor

8. How Advertising Work • Advertising must move people through a series of steps or states. • Awareness • Comprehension • Acceptance • Preference • Purchase • Reinforcement

9. Therefore, the focus of advertising should be directed towards receiving one of the following types of response; • The sales response (price is the key message) • The persuasion response (messages should be designed to change attitudes) • Involvement response (messages should be designed to empathize customers) • The salience group (messages should attempt to relate the product/brand to consumers identity or social, cultural and socio-economic characteristics)

10. Strong vs. weak theories of advertising; • Whether advertising is strong enough on its own to impact on sales immediately is argued due to the fact that advertising is an impersonal type of communication. • Weak theories are based on awareness, trial, and reinforcement. • For travel and tourism products, both can be helpful under different circumstances. For infrequent purchases, advertising should be used to remind audiences of the brand’s relevance rather than continually aiming stimulating sales. However, in other times (such as peak holiday booking times), messages should convey stronger appeals to purchase.

11. Media Strategies • The three types of media strategies; • Mass media (broadcasting; undifferentiated marketing strategy) • Targeted media (narrowcasting; narrower segments are targeted in a more focused and directed manner) • Mixed media • These decisions are dependent on; • The target market, total number of people in the segment, their habits in using different media, the purpose and objectives of the strategy, available budget.

12. Directories Magazines National newspapers Regional or local newspapers Television or in the cinema Commercial radio Poster advertising Direct mail Exhibitions Merchandising and point of sale Sales promotion Sponsorship Internet Mobile communications The Range of Advertising Channels

13. Profiles of Major Media Types • Newspapers: reach many people but have limited opportunity to reach market segments , have short life time, do not have reproduction quality. • Magazines: have many advantages over newspapers like having high-qualityreproduction, color availability, prestige, audience selectivity, and long life. However, cost more, prepared in a long time, and reduce an advertiser’s ability to repeat ads.

14. Radio: can reach an entire area, specific target markets by matching the radio station and time with the property’s target market. However, if not repeated, they have shot life span. • Television: television’s main advantage over radio is that it combines sight with sound. TV commercials can show friendly company staff. Gets high attention, and remembered as a result. Commercials can run many times daily and reach many people, and can reach specific audiences by selecting the correct TV shows. However, they are very expensive.

15. Outdoor Advertising: billboards along highways or in and around large cities are used to remind and attract potential guests about the product. They must be bold, dynamic and graphic so that passersby can get the message at a glance. They have large circulation, broad reach and low cost but have limited message length. • Direct Mail: involves the mailing of the advertising message in brochures, coupons or other formats. It is especially used by clubs, and banks for credit card holders and members. It allows audience selectivity, can be personalized, and easily measured but have high cost of developing and mailing.

16. Campaign Business-to-business (B2B) sales missions/workshop/exhibitions Print advertising Direct mail/customer relationship management (CRM)/newsletters Online advertising/e-CRM (including e-newsletters) Brochure distribution Agent training programs Familiarization visits Lead generation research Tourism and Hospitality Media Channels

17. Message Design • Due to intangibility, messages must; • provide physical representation of the service components • demonstrate service performance episodes • describe experiences which can be captured in images • connect with the values, desires and drivers of demand • engage people’s thought processes either using rational or emotional appeals

18. After all, advertising messages must be designed for a target group in mind and they must be; • Noticed • Remembered • Actioned • Messages should specifically have; • Appeal ( benefits for the target audiences) • Specificity (evidence of benefits) • Appropriate tone (stated in the language of customers)

19. Common promotional themes included in advertising messages; • Sales promotion • Relationships (home, family or belonging) • Adventure/escape • Convenience (advices from experts) • Desire/aspiration (once in lifetime experiences)

20. Creative Development • While developing messages, the following must be considered in order to be effective. • Balance; is about how the information is presented • Message structure, is about content; whether the messages leads the audience to draw conclusions • Message appeal; is about creating the right appeal • Credibility; is about the credibility of the source

21. Resources • McCabe, S. (2009). Marketing Communications in Tourism and Hospitality: Concepts, Strategies and Cases. Butterworth-Heinemann: Oxford. • Kotler, P.; Bowen, J. and Makens, J. (2010). Marketing for Hospitality and Tourism (5th. ed.). Prentice Hall: New Jersey. • Kotler, P. and Armstrong, G. (2010) Principles of Marketing (13th ed.). Prentice Hall: New Jersey.