Sketch of a problem.
The increase in purchasing power and cultural level in the most developed countries, as well as the current handling of information on the Internet and many other means, have created a more demanding and sophisticated clientele in the face of tourist offers. In recent years, many countries have also begun to prioritize the development of international tourism as a necessity for their economic growth, especially in Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa and Latin America. Today there are hundreds of tourist destinations in the world that are striving to make their offer increasingly attractive and to gain access to a greater market share.
On the other hand, the occurrence of conjunctural events that affect the international tourist flow in general or locally, among them economic crises, epidemics, terrorism and wars, is frequent. To conclude with these threats to international tourism activity, the effect of globalization on tourism can be added, by which the most important tour operators in the world have become powerful international groups that dominate the essential value chain in tourist packages.
Among other negative effects for tourist destinations, there is currently a clear trend towards concentration: In the distribution network, the few large international groups have absorbed the TTOOs and large networks of travel agencies in the main issuing countries; In the offers they distribute, which in the north-south tourism flow are concentrated in Sun and Beach; In the destinations that are operated, which tend to be reduced to those that really provide the highest profitability, especially in air operations; In the seasonality of tourism; that it tends to concentration only in the months with the highest volume of customers;In the reduction of the average stay of the tourist, increasing more and more short vacations and weekend trips; In reducing the distance from the destination being visited, making the law of proximity stronger in current tourist flows.
This international context imposes on tourism entities the need to adapt to new rules of the game… and adopt new paradigms. One of the most important challenges is related to the need to achieve a diversified, sustainable and customer-focused tourism offer, which also contributes to guaranteeing a fairer territorial distribution of the income generated by this activity in less developed countries.
Meanwhile, most of the existing technical literature on business management and marketing is generally focused on the activity of consumer goods industries, and therefore the methods and procedures they establish require to be "interpreted" for their application in a service sector as specific as tourism. For this reason, there are not many methodological works that guide a successful management of tourist destinations and businesses.
Diversified, sustainable and customer-focused tourism.
Achieving diversified, sustainable and customer-focused tourism is an essential alternative for tourist destinations to increase or maintain market share, which also helps to ensure a fairer territorial distribution of the income generated by tourism in less developed countries.
However, the experience achieved so far indicates the high degree of difficulty that destinations or companies specialized in a type of offer such as Sun and Beach must face in order to successfully position other alternative offers.
On February 26, 2004 in Guadalajara, when participating in a panel on competitiveness developed within the 88th Ordinary General Assembly of Concanaco-Servytur, the Secretary of Tourism of Mexico stated: “The great challenges facing Mexican tourism to continue growing are to achieve better air and road connectivity, and to diversify tourist destinations so that there is a balance between the offer of Sun and Beach and the other tourist attractions offered by all the states of the country ”. These words remain equally valid and valid in other Caribbean destinations, including CUBA and the Dominican Republic, even in some other emerging tourist destinations in Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa.
To achieve a successful diversification of sustainable tourism, which includes a customer focus, we must consider 4 fundamental aspects of work;
- Knowing the motivations and interests of current and potential clients, as well as identifying segments with specific needs. Provide tourist experiences that provide symbolic, functional and experiential utilities, with efficiency and style, in a leisure space with the necessary tourist resources, ensuring their preservation. Undertake a strategic management by product-market, based on a customer focus, developing a set of plans that define objectives, goals, actions, and also require human and financial resources to achieve them.Use new distribution channels, including use of the Internet and electronic commerce.
From its origins, displacement has been part of the way of life of men. Humanity is known to be dispersing around the world… what has changed has been the motives. In the development of the first of the previous aspects, the theories and models of human motivation allow a better understanding of the basic and specific needs of current and potential clients. Only by deeply knowing the true needs, and adding new attributes to our tourism offer, can we build new products and services.
If we do not know what are the true needs that we must satisfy, we will remain detained in what we know (current paradigms), and we will not advance towards what people need (new paradigms). In this task, the identification of customer segments is essential, highlighting the discriminating and behavioral variables that determine a given behavior in each segment of interest.
In the second aspect, destination and product management must be guaranteed, ensuring the achievement of a diversified and sustainable tourism focused on the client, capable of providing true tourist experiences, in which it is necessary to have information from customer surveys, as well as the competition.
Professor Michael Porter stated that “a company without strategy is capable of anything”. It is precisely the danger that we must avoid with the correct development of strategic planning. Every planning process is a design for the future that we must reach. It is based on the knowledge of the target customer segments and tourist resources in each territory or tourist entity to satisfy them, and a methodology that takes us by the hand to establish objectives, goals, actions and resource allocation.
The above tasks require the capture of a large amount of data and its subsequent conversion into information, for which the establishment of a Marketing Information System is essential, as well as the timely performance of Market Research.
A last, but not least, aspect of work to ensure a comprehensive approach that goes as far as the determination of new, more effective sales channels, is related to the use of the Internet and Electronic Commerce, since it undoubtedly constitutes the distribution channel with more potential to market alternative offers to the Sun and Beach.
The alternative offers to the Sun and Beach, should preferably be based on qualitative and not quantitative criteria, pursuing more expenses for clients and more benefits: However, the main current distribution channels focus on quantity, and only the Internet provides us with a medium. whose costs make it possible to specify offers and specific actions towards different market niches, smaller and geographically dispersed.
conclusion
Faced with the threats posed by the current international globalization and the short-term crisis phenomena for tourist destinations and products, the best defense consists in consolidating diversified and sustainable tourism. The four areas of work indicated here are very coherent and interrelated to achieve this objective. Without this approach, every day it will become more difficult for destinations and tourist entities to maintain and increase market share.
Another indispensable option consists of establishing strategic alliances between destinations and tourist entities, instead of facing threats and such complex tasks in a fiercely competitive environment: collaboration and exchange will increase the negotiating power before the large international groups in the sector, and with intelligence and collective resources will make progress together more quickly and with success in the four areas indicated.
