Developing A Tourism Marketing Strategy For A Destination In Greece, Essay.

After successfully completing this course you should be able to:

1. Evaluate existing tourism and hotel experiences, identify gaps and opportunities in the market and create a modified or new product that is environmentally, financially and socially sustainable.

2. Understand the role of the marketing department in positioning and communicating a destination, tourism or hotel's product or brand in line with effective segmentation strategies.

3. Appreciate the importance of tourism as an economic driver and understand the role of Destination Marketing Organisations (DMOs) and government in marketing destinations and encouraging new experience development.

4. Demonstrate the ability to solve marketing related problems in a tourism and hotel setting by understanding the role of selected elements of the marketing mix, recognising their role in translating strategy into marketing action, as well as, the interdependence between the elements.

5. Collaborate with others to prepare a tourism marketing strategy and then communicate that strategy effectively, both orally and in writing.

With the rapid development of the society all over the world, it appears globalization would be the ultimate trend. Thus, a marketing strategy is needed with regard to the development of an international market. Under the theory of marketing mix, a company should distinguish itself from competitors by making a distinctive marketing mix in order to outcompete competitors (Chattopadhyay, Nedungadi & Chakravarti, 1986, pp. 129-136). Thus, the purpose of this report is to carry out a marketing analysis and develop a marketing strategy based on the analysis. The DMO is tourism located in Greece. It offers unforgettable experience to customers but it faces many challenges from competitors. The report firstly analyzes the current experience offerings. Following this, there is a customer analysis and a description of strategic opportunities. Then, an integrated communication mix is illustrated and new communication items are explained. Lastly, a conclusion is reached.

In Greece, there are a number of distinctive attractions which are worthy of touring and visiting. The location offers various types of experiences to tourists which include places of interests such as Arcopolis of Athens, products such as food and beverage, physical evidence, different races and so on. Competitors which provide similar attributes include Albania and Italia. These competitors offer nearly the same types experiences as Greece. Thus, it is possible that both competitors may attract more customers than the tourism in Greece.

Albania: there are some unique attractions in this location: Vlora, Narta, Radhima. Besides, customers would spend relatively less due to the weak exchange rate of its currency against dollars.

Italia: the distinctive spots and products are: Colosseum, Pantheon, Leaning Tower of Pisa, and Italian food. These are one of the most famous attractions in the world.

Under this sub-section, a SWOT analysis and a PESTEL analysis would be of great use in this case.

SWOT analysis

SWOT analysis is used to help an organization identify its internal strengths and weakness as well as recognize its external opportunities and threats (Appendix A). This is a necessary process before making the final decision on strategy development.

PESTEL analysis

A PESTEL analysis is utilized to analyse an organization’s external business environment (Yüksel, 2012,P12). It is crucial to consider all the six factors below before a strategy is developed. The factors include Political, Economical, Social, Technological, Environmental, and Legal factors

 Market Segmentation Process include three main steps. These is Market segmentation, Market targeting and Market positioning. For the Market Segmentation, the company identified ways to split the market and develops profiles of the market. Also use different ways to analysis the segmentation variables. Including Geographic, Demographic, Psychographic and Behavioural. This information can be search form government statistic page. The marketer can analysis the different feature and compare each other.

Current Offerings Analysis

After Market segmentation is Market targeting. These steps are about plan the measures of attractiveness and select the target segments. For select a target, a firm must look at three factors, such as segment size and growth, segment structured attractiveness, and company objectives and resources. Link to our potential customer China Family, these is a biggest market. China have over 1.3 billion people and also the arrivals number are growing every year in Greece. So achieve the marketer select the target and also develop measures of segment attractiveness.

After that is Market positioning. Develop positioning and marketing mix for each target. Position here is mean what is the position of the customer mind compare to other product. For example, Chinese tourists compare Greece and France. The compare elements include close or far away, budget high or low. 

 Our new international target market is Chinese tourists. There have many statistics to show the Chinese tourists is the biggest market and also they have a relatively large growth range in the future. In January to December of 2015, Chinese tourists increase from 47,482 to 55,097, increase around 16 precent.(Appendix P)

Greece are growth up to the top ten destinations for Chinese tourists. (Appendix Q) “ Greece is the number 10 of the destinations for Chinese tourists and this is 17% people to choose it ” (Jing Daily, 2014, p. 1).  That means Greece is the top ten tourism destinations for Chinese customer and there are more Chinese will be plan to come in the future. Also Chinese tourists is the biggest market for the Greece. Chinese tourism are willing to spend more money than other country tourism . According to World Tourism Organization (2016, p. 1) “China tourists spend around $261 billion USD in 2016 and second one is USA with $122 billion ,China's spend amount is double of the United States.”(Appendix R) .Which can see the Chinese tourism is the biggest market for the Greece. Furthermore,  as the Greek government and the Chinese government to improve the quality of tourism, for example create the direct fight from China to Greece. According to Drakopoulos (2017) “after three years Chinese tourists visiting Greece could exceed 250,000 (p. 1).” So above as the statistic, Greece has gradually become the choice of Chinese tourists in their mind, also with the spending power of Chinese tourists and the cooperation between two governments, Chinese tourists is one of the biggest potential market for Greece.

Customer and SWOT Analysis

In this section of the report is discussing about the Ansoff’s marketing strategy that will be use for the destination. Also, the marketing strategy will help the marketer to understand how the strategy can make a differentiation to the competitor. Moreover, the new product/ experience will be introduced in this section.

Ansoff’s marketing strategy is use to plan for Greece destination because it is help the DMO to manage and plan the future growth of the destination. The Ansoff’s marketing strategy that is chosen for the destination is the diversification because it is the most suitable strategy for Greece tourism industry because in section 2.3 mention that Greece needs a new product/ experience to attract the new target market (Appendix J) to increase international tourism. Due to the fact, that Greece has a good resource at their destination so they can use this to provide the new product/ experience to the new international market target.

As mention above that Greece National Tourism Organisation (DMO) will be using the diversification in the Ansoff’s matrix. Because the new target market that is selected is a Chinese family tourist, which is the new potential market that Greece has not focus on. So this is the opportunity for Greece to attract those customer, due to the fact of the raise in the Chinese tourist will bring more income to the destination. The experience that the destination provides will be suite for the Chinese family tourists to attract them to the destination, by using the diversification strategy to create a new experience for the specific target market.

There are four level of product that is use in the product development, which is core product, facilitating product, support product and augmented product (Appedix?). The new experience in Greece is customizing the experience that would suite the Chinese family tourism. The tourist target will receive the welcome email after they purchase with us, in the email will instructed them in Chinese on what they can do in the destination. While they at the attraction, the costume will be provided for them to take a picture or video as a part of their memory. The Chinese language is providing for the convenience of travelling. On the double decker bus, the tourist can use a photographer that is providing to take a family photo. The kid zone is also providing in the island cruise for the children. After, the yoghurt tour in Greece, the product that made there will be ship after their return with the picture of their activity at the destination.

Integrated Communication Mix

Integrated Communication Mix develops as a powerful tool that guides practitioners in marketing communications more effectively (Shakeel-Ul-Rehman, 2011, p189). IMC includes advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, public relations, direct marketing. By using different marketing channels, IMC builds up the effective delivery of marketing information and establish more value when different channels are used at the same time, IMC could indeed be seen as an achievement turned to promotion in practice.

This report uses the AIDA model for evaluation to understand the strengths as well as weaknesses of Greece’s website. According to Appendix H, the AIDA model is a marketing tool which shows the four stages that customers when engaging with advertisement. A.I.D.A which is attention, interest, desire and action (Lewis, 1898). The DMO of Greece transmits the marketing communication messages to the target consumers. On the home page of the website, it is some photos about the charming views of Greece and basic information to introduce Greece which is attention process in A.I.D.A can make customers take notice of visiting Greece through this marketing channel. The Greece official website provides several links to connect with social websites and blogs. It can attract visitors’ interest in AIDA model. So the customer will get interested in the product. Though, in terms of weaknesses, the website does not have multiple language, such as Chinese or Japanese. It also lacks of action which means visitors need to go to other website if they are willing to purchase the entry tickets for famous tourism destination. Thus, the website of Greece may attract people’s attention and stimulate their interest, but may not evoke their action. In comparison, Albania is the main competitor of Greece’s DMO is also lack of action. At the same time, the layout of Albania website is more creative. However, the website structure is very clear and it is easy to scan through two websites, but also lack of action. Therefore, the official website of Greece can add more multiple language to convent visitors and have a purchase link with the tourism destination.

The purpose of consumer exhibition is the exhibition industry worldwide has experienced significant growth over the past few years, resulting from a substantial increase in trade and commerce. According to Veronis Suhler and Stevenson Communications, spending on exhibitions amounted to US$10.3 billion in 2006; it is predicted to surpass that on print media, previously the highest marketing expenditure for trade enterprises in 2008 ([41] Reed, 2007). Increased corporate travel budgets and the value marketers place on face-to-face contact with current and potential customers represent probable reasons for the continued exhibition growth. The reason why is important to a DMO is DMO can promote their destinations to attract more customers, improve the existing problems and making more money for the future.

New Product Development

Because our model is really colourful, so It will attract customer’s attention, so they want to have a look and they can see the famous history building and sightseeing of Greece lead to their interest, then we have double decker bus for tourists visit and eat the Greece famous food yogurt meanwhile have yogurt factory which can make yogurt by themselves and bring to china to make them desire to come, finally we have the booking website and telephone number for them or contract us directly to make an order. Our destination’s unique selling point is double decker bus and yogurt factory and our destination’s position is visiting the famous history building and sightseeing of Greece and eat famous Greece yogurt. All the sightseeing, history building, transport and yogurt factory have Chinese for our very specifically, new target market which is Chinese family. Our competitive advantage is because most destination don’t allow customer to make local food by themselves but we allowed and the yogurt factory will send the finished product to their home. So even in China they still can eat Greece yogurt which they made.

Conclusion

To sum up, this report has shown the new position of Greece’s current tourism which would suite the Chinese family tourism by using SWOT and PESTEL analysis. Chinese tourists are the potential customers because of the increasing amounts of the visiting Greece thought the marketing segmentation. Based on Ansoff’s marketing strategy, diversification is chosen for the destination. Thus, Greece need a new product/ experience to attract the new target market which are welcome email, Chinese photographer in double decker bus, kid zone in island cruise, yoghurt tour etc. In order to deliver the marketing messages that represent the product or of an organization to the target market, this report use A.I.D.A model for evaluation and create a new communication item for the new target.

Reference

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