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Modern Marketing Communication in Tourism

Article · January 2019

DOI: 10.18775/jibrm.1849-8558.2015.42.3003

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Lenka Švajdová
Hugh Scholl of Enterprineurship and Law, Prague, Czechia
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 Journal of International Business Research and
Marketing
Volume 4, Issue 2, 2019
journal homepage: www.researchleap.com

Modern Marketing Communication in Tourism

Lenka Švajdová
Ing. Bc. Ph.D., High School of Entrepreneurship and Law, Czech Republic

ABSTRACT
2016 Research Leap/Inovatus Services Ltd. Mass tourism is a significant contributor to the development not only of regional but also national
All rights reserved. economies and generally, it is presented by tourism destination. Despite certain tendencies in
preference for individual tourism, it is expected that mass tourism and mass tourism destination
DOI: 10.18775/jibrm.1849-8558.2015.42.3003 will continue to play a dominant role in the future. T he present paper is dedicated to the to pic of
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.18775/jibrm.1849- possible usage of modern tools of marketing communication in the management of mass tourism
8558.2015.42.3003 destination. Particular characteristics of its product are having an influence on the usage and
effectiveness of traditional forms of marketing communication (advertising, exhibitions, etc.) in
Keywords: the presentation of mass tourism destination and on the other hand, the possible preference of
Mass tourism, Modern marketing communication using new modern trends of marketing communication. The aim of this article is based on analysis
tools, Social media. of primary, secondary data and field observations to evaluate the possibility and critical factors
of usage of selected forms of modern tools of marketing communication like internet marketing,
social media, mobile marketing and the world of mouth marketing, etc. T he result will be the
evaluation of usage of modern marketing communication and its current state of the application
in the propagation of mass tourism destinations including a proposal of some recommendations
for their next application.

1. Introducti on 2. Tools of Modern Marketing Communication in Tourism

Mass tourism, which is developing from the beginning of the Social media are gaining prominence as an element of
60s of the last century approximately, is an essential contributor destination marketing organization (DMO) marketing strategy
to the development not only of regional but also national at a time when public sector cuts in their funding require them
economies and generally, it is presented by tourism destination. to seek higher value in the way marketing budgets are spent.
Despite certain tendencies in preference for individual tourism, Social media offers DMOs with a tool to reach a global
it is expected that mass tourism and mass tourism destination audience with limited resources. (Hays, Page,& Buhalis,2013).
will continue to play a dominant role in some states whose There are many ways how the marketing specialist working in
economies are depending upon its growth and where the the sector of tourism, better said in the sector of the mas sive
tourism is very often considered as the tourism industry. tourist destination, could wake up the interest of potential
visitors for visiting selected tourist destination. At the
Because of the increasing competitiveness in the field of beginning of massive tourism in 60s´of last century, the
tourism the role of marketing communication as a primary tool situation seemed to be very simple, because the desire for
of telling others that ", we are here,” no matter if it is the traveling after the stabilization of The World War II was very
provider of tourism services, hospitality or holding sports or high. Due to changes in technical, social and economic area, the
cultural events like Olympic games, musical festivals. That is situation has changed radically. Not only the number of tourists
why the topic that the author deals with is the possible usage of but also tourist destination increased. This situation has
modern tools of marketing communication in the management changed a lot in the last years when new destination has
of mass tourism destination. Special characteristics of tourism appeared, that is why for many traditional massive tourist
product are influencing the usage and effectiveness of destinations the goal of catching new visitors is more and more
traditional tools of marketing communication like advertising, difficult. The reasons leading to this fact are different,
exhibitions, etc. in the presentation of mass tourism destination sometimes the destination has just reached the point of
and on the other hand the possible preference of using new stagnation in the tourism lifecycle (Figure 1) and does not know
modern trends and tools of marketing communication how to face new challenges and grow up (the case of Costa
Brava in Spain) or it is just a victim of turbulent social and

20 Journal of International Business Research and Marketing, vol. 4, issue 2, pp. 20-23, January 2019
 21 Journal of International Business Research and Marketing

political changes in selected areas, were before the tourism was belonging to this group following types of communication: E-
the building stone of their economy (Egypt, Tunisia, etc.). mailing, World of mouth, Local related search. The second
group with QR codes, Micromarketing, HR branding is going
to disappear, and their use will go down. On the opposite side
are standing Guerilla marketing, marketing automation, Real-
time marketing, Social commerce, Social customer relationship
management, these are the trends with the predicted success.
Among the actual trends, the following tools of modern
marketing communication belongs: remarketing, social media,
viral marketing, mobile commerce, video marketing among the
others.

For further analysis and to reach the aim of the present paper is
needed to define some of the tools as mentioned above. The
author will pay attention to World of mouth, QR codes, Real-
time marketing the main attention will be paid to social media
marketing. These tools of marketing communication were
Figure 1: Tourism Lifecycle chosen because respondents most frequently mentioned them in
Source: Butler, 2006 primary research.

One of the solutions to the problems mentioned above could be World of Mouth (WOM)
the use of the most appropriate tool of modern marketing Word-of-Mouth Marketing (abbreviated WOM) marketing is
communication. While choosing the “best” one, the focused on inducing the effect of the oral spread of
consideration of following limiting facts (but not only them) is "advertising" between customers themselves. Part of the
the must: marketing buzz. Generally, WOM raises new, surprising or
different topics. WOM can be positive or negative (Hennig-
 The destination is an important part of a tourism product and Thurau, Gwinner, Walsh, & Gremler,2004).
could be described as a geographical area consisting of all
necessary services and infrastructure for the stay of a QR Codes (QRC)
specific tourist or tourism segment. Destinations are the In advertising and product, communication very frequently
competitive units of incoming tourism. This fact could limit used tool. They can refer to websites, coupons, and may include
the selected tool of marketing communication because that a complete electronic business card. The smartphone and
one must respect the character of the tourism destination. application is the must (Dou & Li, 2008).
 The base of tourism destination, besides its attractiveness,
is providing tourism services and the peculiar Real-Time Marketing (RTM)
characteristics of services like intangibility, immaterialit y , Real-Time Marketing is marketing that is based on up to date
etc. could be limiting for using some modern tools of events. The difference between marketing and real-time
marketing communication. marketing is that instead of creating a marketing plan in
 The fact that the destination is based on massive tourism advance, real-time marketing is creating a strategy focused on
(usually a broad spectrum of visitors with different current, relevant trends and immediate feedback from
preferences for marketing communication) is also the customers. Real-time marketing aims to connect consumers
limiting one. with the product or service that they need now, at the moment.
 The world is getting "online.” (Kaplan, 2012)

Considering all this facts and characteristics of some traditional Social Media Marketing (SMM)
marketing communication tools like advertising, personal sale, Social media is one of the fastest growing communication
lobby, participation in fairs and exhibitions, sponsoring, sales technologies in the Internet environment. Social media
promotion and especially some new ones like direct marketing , marketing refers to Internet-based online media in which
public relation, internet marketing could lead to successful individuals with common interests, goals, and practices engage
marketing communication of massive tourist destination (Foret, in social interactions constructing personal profiles and sharing
2006). information and experiences. Social media represents a variety
In the last years, there could be seen incredible evolution as for of forms such as social networks (e.g., Facebook), photo
new tools of modern marketing communication that can be sharing sites (e.g., Flickr, Photobucket), video creating and
divided into four groups; the first one is called Fixed stars sharing sites (e.g., YouTube, Ustream), online communities ,
microblogging tools (e.g., Twitter), social tagging (e.g., Digg),
 22 Journal of International Business Research and Marketing

newsreaders (Google Reader), public Internet boards and

forums, review/rating websites (e.g., TripAdvisor),
blogs/moblogs, tagging sites, podcasting, wikis, and individual 1% 0%
100% 8%
websites. One of the most important functions of social media 16% 3% 17%
90%
is that it provides a Web-based application in which users can 80%
easily create and post a variety of content in the forms of texts, 70% 38% 42%
photos, videos, etc. (Kang &Schuett, 2013). 60%
50% 85% QRC
40%
Social media itself is a catch-all term for sites that may provide 30% RTM
radically different social actions. For instance, Twitter is a 45% 41%
20%
SM
social site designed to let people share short messages or 10%
4%
"updates" with others. Facebook, in contrast, is a full-blown 0% WOM
social networking site that allows sharing updates, photos,
joining events and a variety of other activities (Persuit, 2014)

The advent of internet-based social media technologies has

enabled travelers to quickly and conveniently share their travel
experiences. Shared information on social media sites is
recognized as an important information source which may
influence travel decision making for potential travelers. Results Figure 2: Results of the Survey
showed that identification and internalization are critical Source: author´s research
determinants that positively increase actual travel-experience
sharing on social media as mediated by perceived enjoyment Searching destination of vacation
(Kavoura & Stavrianea, 2014). Generally, in the phase of searching destination for vacation,
the most evaluated tool to obtain information to make the best
To reach the aim of this article the analysis of primary and decision is World of mouth marketing. 45 % of respondents are
secondary data and field observations was used to evaluate the considering this type of marketing communication as very
effectiveness of selected modern marketing communication useful having a significant influence on their decision making .
tools in the area of the mass tourism destination. To create the 38% of respondents are considering information that is
following paper, the method of the literature searches and available on social media. About 16 % trust in information that
expert articles have been applied. With the view of confirmin g was given them by real-time marketing and only 1% of
the hypothesis, diagnostic mission methods have been used respondents are finding important facts through QR codes.
along with the vertical analysis of selected indicators, as well
as the primary research method – the questionnaire survey was Being on Vacations
conducted among respondents. The quota selection has been Generally, in the phase of searching information of the
applied. With the aim of creating the final part of the article, destination, while being on vacation, the most evaluated tool to
synthetic and deductive procedures have been applied too. share the experience is social media marketing – more than 85%
of respondent reported that they are sharing their photos,
The results of the questionnaire research are the result of the videos, enjoyment through social media (most frequently on
survey, which was carried out in the period from November Facebook). The QR codes are used for searching for
2016 to January 2017. As a method for the realization of the information when they are on vacations – about 8% of
research method, the personal respondents were selected. The respondents besides sharing their experience on social media
respondents were selected by the polling form of are using QR codes. The real-time marketing and the world of
unrepresentative techniques appropriate to the occasion. The mouth did not reach significant rating in this phase of
size was 450 of the respondents, of which 195 were women, holidaymaking 4% respectively 3 %.
205 men. Regarding the geographic segmentation 60
respondents were from the region of Olomouc, 90 respondents Vacation Feedback
from the Moravian-Silesian region, 45 from the Slovak In this phase, the most used tool to spread out our experiences
Republic and 205 from the Bohemia region. is social media marketing sharing the position with the world
The survey aimed to obtain the attitude of respondents to of mouth (42% resp. 41%). The rest 17% go to real-time
selected tools of modern marketing communication while marketing. The QR code was not mentioned in any response.
searching the destination for their vacation, sharing their
experience online while being on vacations and presenting their 3. Conclusion
opinion on just finished vacations. The results are presented in The issue is comprehensive, and in the context of the next
Figure 2 Results of the survey. survey, the author should focus on other tools which are
 23 Journal of International Business Research and Marketing

predicted to be successful. The results of the survey confirm  Hennig-Thurau, T., Gwinner, K. P., Walsh, G., & Gremler,
that some tools with big expectations in the past like QR code D. D. (2004). Electronic word-of-mouth via consumer-
are not used very frequently. On the other hand, Social media opinion platforms: what motivates consumers to articulate
marketing seems to be the best way for mass tourism themselves on the internet?. Journal of interactive
destination to communicate with potential visitors. As for real- marketing, 18(1), 38-52. Crossref
time marketing, it could be quite difficult to apply it, because  Kang, M., & Schuett, M. A. (2013). Determinants of sharing
the destination management authorities do not have very often travel experiences in social media. Journal of Travel &
databases of clients contacts to communicate with them. The Tourism Marketing, 30(1-2), 93-107. Crossref
world of mouth marketing and its usage in the area of tourism  Kavoura, A., & Stavrianea, A. (2014). Economic and social
could be relatively counterproductive due to the characteristics aspects from social media's implementation as a strategic
of services they are offering when some clients are having the innovative marketing tool in the touris m industry. Procedia
feeling that their vacations did not meet their expectations. This Economics and Finance, 14, 303-312. Crossref
fact is not often the fault of destination management. The article  Kaplan, A. M. (2012). If you love something, let it go
deals with just a few of all modern marketing tools, for better mobile: Mobile marketing and mobile social media
evaluation of its effectiveness further survey dedicated to other 4x4. Business horizons, 55(2), 129-139. Crossref
modern marketing tools is required.  Molle, J.(2007). Marketing Communication. London:
Thomson Learn.
The issue is very broad, and in the context of the next survey  Lexington Reece, M. (2010). Real-time marketing for
author should focus on other tools which are predict to be business growth: How to use social media, measure
successful. The results of survey confirm that some tools with marketing, and create a culture of execution. Pearson
big expectations in the past like QR code is not used very Education.
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be the best way for mass tourism destination to communicate Marketing Communication: A Rhetorical Approach .
with potential visitors. As for real time marketing it could be
quite difficult to apply it, because the destination management
authorities don´t have very often databases of clients contacts
to communicate with them. The world of mouth marketing and
its usage in the area of tourism could be relatively
counterproductive due to the characteristics of services they are
offering, when some clients are having feeling that their
vacations didn´t met their expectations. This fact it´s not often
the fault of destination management. The article deals with just
few of all modern marketing tools, for better evaluation of its
effectiveness further survey dedicated to others modern
marketing tools is required.

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 Buhalis, D. (2000). Marketing the competitive destination
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