Tourism Marketing in Bangladesh

An Introduction

Azizul Hassan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780367440428
• eBook ISBN: 9781000193305
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Tourism is often a key driver of economic growth in many countries. The recent upward trends of tourism and hospitality education in higher academic institutions in Bangladesh suggests a growing tourism sector. Very little has been written on Bangladesh's tourism industry. This is the first edited volume published from an international publisher which looks at this industry and how it has developed and flourished. The book begins by looking at tourism policy planning and provides a comprehensive overview of topics from tourism products and services in Bangladesh to how they are being marketed. It also discusses how private and public tourism institutions can address future long term trends.

This book will appeal to those interested to learn more about developing tourism industry in emerging economies and may provide invaluable lessons from Bangladesh's experience and success.

Part 1

Tourism marketing overview

1 Tourism marketing in Bangladesh

Md. Nekmahmud, Maria Fekete Farkas and Azizul Hassan

Introduction

Marketing is a discipline that evolves persistently. For this reason, one business organization finds itself very much behind in the competition than the others if they stand still for too long. An instance of this is the evolution that stays as the fundamental changes for the key marketing mix. Once 4Ps tend to explain the mix but this is more commonly accepted that a more advanced 7Ps include a widely demanded added layer of depth to the marketing mix with a number of theorists tending to move further and even further. This research critically explains marketing on the lens of tourism and attaches to the context of Bangladesh.

Tourism marketing research: theoretical underpinnings

Marketing mix

The marketing mix is a well-known and familiar tool of marketing strategy. At the initial stage, this tool was limited to the basic 4Ps as Product, Price, Place and Promotion. The 7Ps were originally developed by E. Jerome McCarthy that was published in 1960 in the book titled Basic Marketing: A Managerial Approach.

The 4Ps concept was developed at the time when businesses were more probably selling products than service offers and the customer service role to help brand development was not very well known. As time progressed, Bitner and Booms (1981) added the three extended “service mix P’s” (i.e. Participants, Physical evidence, and Processes). At the later stage, Participants were renamed People. In the present business world, this is suggested that the complete 7Ps of the marketing mix are regarded at the time of reviewing competitive strategies. This 7Ps model supports business organizations for reviewing and defining the main issues that influence its products and services marketing. This is very commonly referred to as the 7Ps framework for the digital marketing mix.

The marketing mix 4Ps are as follows:

Product

The product needs to fit the task consumers need it for, this needs to work and this should be what the consumers expect to receive.

Place

The product needs to be available from where the target consumer finds this as the easiest for shopping. This can be mail order, high street or the more recent option of online shopping or via e-commerce.

Price

The product needs to be always viewed as the representation of good value for money. This does not necessarily mean it should be the cheapest pricing option available. One of the key tenets of marketing is that customers usually remain happy for paying a little more for something that performs really well for them.

Promotion

Sales promotion, advertising, PR, personal selling and, in more recent times, social media stay as the basic tools of communication for a business organization. Such tools need to be used for putting across the business organization’s message towards the correct audiences in the way that they would most prefer to hear, whether this can be informative or appealing towards their emotions.

The demand to update the marketing mix was widely acknowledged in the late 1970s. It led to the creation of the extended marketing mix in 1981 by Bitner and Booms that resulted the addition of three new elements to the 4Ps principle. This later allowed the extended marketing mix for including products that are services and not simply physical things. However, some of the researchers argued that even though sometimes 4Ps is viewed as dated, this tool is the essential tool for selecting their scope and is specifically beneficial for small business. This tool can generate specific advantages for start-ups to review revenue models and price. Through the application of this tool, business start-ups can produce competitive benefits. Thus, a business enterprise at the very initial stage of its operation can gain a solid position to stay in the market and gradually stronghold their position.

The 7Ps of the service marketing mix are as follows:

Product

The products in the service framework are those services that business organizations offer to the customer. For instance, an information technology (IT) company can offer services in network management, enterprise architecture, software development and more on the basis of customer demand.

Price

The price represents the service costs that the customer mandatorily has to pay. This is serious factor for buyers for their considerations that are based on the other service providers in the industry. Business organizations need to carry out research on their service’s optimal pricing on the ground of value to the customer. Business organizations tend to consider their respective industry and factors such as low-cost service providers, competitor’s reputation, high-cost service providers and number of players in the industry for determining their pricing strategy. Such factors are a few of the inputs that a business organization has to consider for their service pricing strategy.

Place

Place is the business’ physical address where the service professionals interact with customers. For instance, if the business offers IT services to a client, then the place of business will be the office.

Promotion

The promotion of the service is featured as what most of the business organizations concentrate to get more clients. Such business organizations promote their services by applying some specific methods like search engine optimization, public relations, business developers, social media marketing, paid advertising, billboard ads and so on.

People

In the business framework, the people are the employees, consultants and even the freelancers that deliver relevant services to customers. People are one of the most critical factors to provide knowledge-based services. A business owner has to recruit the right people into the organization that would have the capacity to fit in the corporate culture. The business owner needs to find smart people that have the capacity to add value to the relevant business organization. The owner needs to make sure that the taken strategy is good for competing with other innovative business companies and organizations in the industry for acquiring talent. All of the business organizations are commonly reliant on the people who run the organization. They range from the managing director to front-line sales. To place the right people in the right place is essential as they are as much a part of the business and offer as the products/services the business organizations are offering.

Process

The processes are defined as the steps that are required for delivering the service to a customer. One of the basic advantages of service delivery organizations is that they design process maps outlining facts such as activities, function, processes and tasks. Such business organizations can become share these process maps for their employees for making sure that their work is repeatable and successful. The delivery of the products or services is generally done with the customer present so how the service is delivered is once again part of what the consumer pays for.

Physical evidence

The physical evidence is featured as the combination of the branding and environment where the service is offered to a customer by a service representative. The physical evidence capital can be a corporate website, a service brochure, social media accounts or a request for proposal. Most of the services include some physical elements even if the bulk of what the consumer pays for remains intangible.

Is there an 8th P?

In some very specific thought spheres, there are 8Ps in the marketing mix. The final P is productivity (and quality). This appeared from the earlier services marketing mix and stays folded into the extended marketing mix by few marketers.

Productivity and quality

This “P” makes queries whether the business owner offers a good deal to the customer. This stays as less about the owner as a business developing productivity for cost management and more about how the company passes this onto the customers.

How can be the marketing mix model applied?

Tourism business organizations can apply the 7Ps model for setting objectives, conducting a SWOT analysis and for even undertaking competitive analysis. This is a practical framework to evaluate an existing business and to work through appropriate approaches whilst making evaluation. The marketing mix model elements as presented can be asked as (1) products/services: how can the business products or services be developed?; (2) prices/fees: how can the existing pricing model be changed?; (3) place/access: what are the new distribution options available for customers for experiencing a business’ products or services (i.e. mobile, online, in-store etc.)?; (4) promotion: how to add or substitute the combination within owned, paid, and earned media channels?; (5) physical evidence: how can the existing customers be reassured (e.g. impressive buildings, well-trained staff, great website)?; (6) people: who are the people and what are their skills gaps?; (7) partners: are the business organizations seeking new partners and managing existing partners well?.

Even after decades, the marketing mix remains very much applicable to a business owner or marketer’s daily work. A good marketer can learn to adapt this theory for fitting with not only modern times but their individual business model. Even proposed in the 1980s, the 7Ps still remain widely taught for their basic logic as sound in the marketing environment and the marketers’ capacities for adapting the marketing mix. These include changes in communications as social media, updates in the places which a business organization owner can update in the places to sell a product or service or customers’ expectations in a repeatedly changing commercial environment.

The “interrelatedness” of tourism marketing

Tourism is an interesting research area creates an “interrelatedness” between some selected areas such as marketing, development, sustainability, innovation and relevancy. This “interrelatedness” stresses identifying and analysing all of the core elements of tourism research. This is one of the reasons why the outcome of the World Conference on Travel and Tourism in Rome in 1963 presents that tourism can devise both positive and negative effects on a country’s economy. While for many developing countries, tourism carries economic benefits through the generation of employment opportunities, foreign currency earning and relevancy, the United Nations views tourism as a solid means to contribute to understanding and peace. Thus, the definition of tourism as endorsed by the WTO in 1992 as well as accepted by the United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC) in 1993 is, “Tourism comprises the activities of persons travelling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year of leisure, business and other purposes”. From another perspective, tourism is defined as a travel act for business, services and recreation purposes. This view also accommodated a comprehensive definition: tourism is the service industry with both tangible and intangible components. Tangible items in this regard are transport systems (i.e. road, air, rail, water and the most recent concern of space), hospitality services (i.e. accommodation, foods and beverage, tours, souvenirs) and relevant services (i.e. insurance, banking, safety and security). On the other side, intangible items come with culture, relaxation, escape, new and different experiences, adventure and so on. Thus, tourism is a comprehensively interdependent and interrelated industry as well as tourism is very often applied derogatively implying a thorough interest in the place and society that the tourist visits.

Decoding tourist attractions

The clarification of tourist attractions can sometimes create dilemmas and has never been easy or straightforward. This is a widely popular term having diverse meanings. Still, the common understanding about a tourist attraction is that it is a place that draws attention or attracts general people for visiting a place, attending an event or travelling to a particular location for some key purpose (i.e. enjoyment, recreation, education, information collection or just a normal visit). Thus, in the simplest meaning, tourist attractions are just places that stay as the reason of travel by the people (i.e. man-made tourist attractions as physical structures; natural attractions as physical phenomena as deemed beautiful or unusual). Secondary attractions can also have tourist appeal but cannot be the primary reason for visitation. Negative attraction is rather an area’s attributes that tend to cause some market or customers not to visit that particular attraction. The very basic reason for negative attraction can be crime, pollution or terrorism or anything that makes people worr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Lists of figures
• Lists of tables
• Lists of contributors
• Introduction
• Part 1 Tourism marketing overview
• Part 2 Services and products of tourism
• Part 3 The role of marketing in strategic delivery
• Part 4 Technology in tourism marketing
• Part 5 Globalization and tourism marketing
• Part 6 Tourism marketing: risk perception
• Part 7 Tourism marketing and human resource management
• Part 8 Tourism marketing and capital investment
• Part 9 Tourism marketing and green products
• Part 10 Tourism marketing and country image
• Part 11 Future trends, implications and challenges
• Index