Promoting European Tourism In Australia Through Essay. (56 Characters)

Why Visit Europe

Question:

As the Marketing Manager for an existing Destination Marketing Organisation (DMO) or for an existing hospitality or tourism enterprise of your choice, you are to write a promotion campaign report addressed to the management team for approval of a conceptual idea and expenditure.

Europe continent is the mixture of various cultures and countries through which it beings an attractive place for travelers and especially for those people who loves to explore new destinations and cultures. Australian people are found always curious in relevance with the exploration of new places, the general nature of Australian people is to enjoy their holidays and spending some quality time with their family and friends. The famous places of Europe are The Eiffel Tower, France, Acropolis, Athens, and Sagrada Familia, known as the “Temple of Holy Family”, situated in Spain. Buckingham Palace, which is known as the official residence of Britain’s sovereigns from 1837, Vatican City, etc. also contributes their significant role in making European Tourism more attractive.

Size of European tourism seems to be endless as it has endless tourist destinations and it has around 50 sovereign states and 6 states with limited recognition. Great Britain is also part of Europe continent and this country has ruled in various parts of the world such as the United States, almost all Asia, etc. As per the trends researched in the year 2016, 5% international tourists were increased from the year 2015 in Europe. It could be marked as the success factor for ETC because curiosity for experiencing European countries is much high in other parts of the world. Apart from other countries, it has been marked as per the market research conducted that Australian tourists are much excited to experience European places. The best time to visit European countries is the Christmas time as this festival is very famous over there. The occupancy rate at that period of time is very high as almost every hotel is pre-booked by tourists. European Travel Commission can use this advantage to promote European Tourism in the Australia.

Promotional strategy for promoting destination is trending these days and it due to every country is focusing on gaining more number of tourists in their countries because they contribute a big part of the country's economy. To support the future market conditions of European Countries, European Travel Commission has decided to promote their area in the different parts of the globe to develop an effective place in the competitive environment. Every tour operator has a tour package for Europe but as it is the very expensive package, various tourists drop the plan to visit Europe. For this, ETC has asked their marketing head to develop an advertisement cum promotional campaign under which certain rate of discount should be provided to tourists and especially to Australian tourists as a current promotional campaign is being conducted in Australia. In 2015, 608 million international tourists were recorded in Europe and in the France was the most favorite country amongst the whole Europe (Bendito & Ramírez, 2011).

Targeting Australian Tourists

To attract a number of international tourists, ETC has planned to promote their continent’s tourism approximately 14,000 km away i.e. Australia. Their marketing manager has used the electronic as well as the print medium of advertisement to develop awareness in Australian public. With a specific goal to promote the European Tourism in the new market, particular advertising and correspondences systems must be upheld to guarantee the goal is advanced and showcased in the right way. Advertisement and promotional strategies must be used in this promotional campaign as it includes the promotion mix technique which is a part of marketing mix technique (Horng & Tsai, 2010).

The target market is known as the particular area of people that will show their interest to consume the product or service.  The audience is being targeted by the certain organization on their requirement basis. As per this scenario, promotional campaign strategy is being developed for the Australian Market. The audience of Australia is targeted on the basis of their interest captured in traveling European countries in last year (Fredman & Tyrväinen, 2010). To attract a number of people from Australia, this promotion mix strategy has been used to promote the European tourism. Apart from this, a measured factor has been highlighted in the promotional campaign i.e. direct flight from various countries of Europe to Australia which will help them to travel easily. The Eiffel Tower situated in Paris, France is the most attractive and one of the famous places in Europe. Every tourist demands Paris should be included in their tour package especially when tour package is the Europe. Hence, Europe has the biggest advantage of including this city as the center of attraction in its promotional campaign. The number of tourists has been increased rapidly in Europe (Buhalis & Michopoulou, 2011).

Australia is listed at the top position in terms visiting Europe from last few years, hence; this market has been identified as the major market from which more number of tourists could be extracted just by spreading awareness amongst Australian people. World-class hotels, beautiful destinations like Paris, romantic places like the Eifel Tower, Germany, Poland, Greece, etc. are some of the attractive places which will help Australian people to choose Europe as the best destination to spend their holidays (Croy, 2010).

While determining the communication objectives, it is very crucial to evaluate the targeted audience’s knowledge in relevance with the destination which is being promoted. As Australian people have been noticed traveling in Europe but from the perception of the promotional campaign, it is a new target market for ETC. Hence, appropriate and adequate communication objectives need to evaluated to obtain and extract adequate results (Morrison, 2013). As Europe is a continent and under this name, various beautiful countries and attractive locations exist, and for the enhancing the position of European Tourism across the global market, appropriate decision is taken to attract Australian people towards there. Before communicating with Australian people, ETC has conducted a market research, through which they will understand the objective of customers. As per customers' perception, an adequate and reliable decision will be taken which will enhance their awareness of relevance with the European countries. Communication objectives also define the view of ETC that they need to show this promotional campaign to their management and after getting approval from them, this will be implemented, hence; to get this implemented with a view to enhance the tourist volume in European countries (Lähdesmäki, 2012).

Communication Objectives

As per the communication objectives of the organization, appropriate and relevant actions must be taken to ensure the customers’ expectations and their requirements must be fulfilled. Customers’ should be aware regarding the destination which is being promoted in the campaign so that customers could get an assumption for achieving the expected level (Diekmann & Diekmann, 2011).

Crucial competitors of European Tourism are Bangkok, Thailand, Dubai, UAE, New York, USA and Singapore tourism. Across the globe, these are some of the places which are very famous along with European tours (Redondi, Malighetti & Paleari, 2011). Dubai is famous for their exotic locations, deserts, and the Burj Khalifa which carries the record of being the tallest building in the world. In 2015, European countries were visited by over 608 million international tourists and amongst them, 84.5 million were for France only. France is popular due to Paris which is the capital of France. Spain and Italy stand at number two and three respectively as 68.5 million and 50.7 million international tourists visited in 2015.

The major attraction which is being included in the promotional campaign is the direct flight from Europe to Australia which saves the time of tourists. Prior to this, for traveling to Europe, there was no direct flight and due to this, Australian people need to change at least two flights to reach there. This was the major reason for lack of awareness for European countries. Being in the competitive environment, ETC needs to adopt some effective marketing strategies which could enhance the competitive advantage for the organization (Evans, Stonehouse & Stonehouse, 2012).

ETC will use the promotional strategies which will include the combination of electronic as well as the paper medium of advertisement. Apart from delivering the adequate information in relevance with the European tour, an organization has adopted the advantage of carrying more than 50 countries in the Europe continent (Albalate, Bel & Fageda, 2015)

Evaluation of effective results from the selected promotional campaign of Europe Tourism, some adequate communication channels should be used. Sources of personal communication channels, as well as non-personal communication channels, would be used. Board hoardings will be used as the major advertisement source as well magazines and those magazines would be distributed in-flights. In the form of personal communication system, every regular or irregular type of tourist would be mailed by ETC with the relevant information regarding tour packages, attractive things of the Europe, etc. This campaign will last for around 3-4 months i.e. from July to October because during Christmas and New Year period, Australian people are on holidays and to spend those holidays, they search a good and attractive location for them (Danaher & Rossiter, 2011).

Competitors

Apart from these communication channels, European Travel Commission could get the permission from the Australian government for promoting their continent’s tourism through unique and environmental mediums. These are display shows, by conducting certain contests and after that through selecting an individual randomly to offer the free tour package to Europe. This will attract the consumers to participate in that contest and the number of consumers will take part in this, the promotional technique will be proved successful at its optimum. Apart from these unique ideas, an electronic medium of an advertisement does not be dropped because it is very crucial in terms of creating awareness in public. A market survey should be conducted to analyze the most popular television channels and radio channels viewed or listened by a public and as per this information, ETC could use the service appropriate (Du, Bhattacharya & Sen, 2010)

Campaign’s success will be measured as per analyzing the number of tourists increased through advertising in the particular target market. For instance, this promotional campaign will be marked as an adequate when the number of Australian tourists will increase from the previous records.  This information could be extracted from the flight operators, tour operators and after extracting the current data, it will be matched with the previous year's data to get the outcome. This will help the ETC to take a decision in the favor for conducting the same campaign in future for any other target market or not (Ashworth & Goodall, 2012).

Apart from this, a minimum increment of 20% Australian tourists should be determined to review the campaign's strategies successful because conducting a promotional campaign 14,000 km away is not an easy task. Various people's efforts, the huge amount of capital, etc. are involved in this. This is the reason for declaring this campaign effective, minimum of 20% increment from Australian tourists should be recorded (Hays, Page & Buhalis, 2013).

Europe is a brand in the international tourism sector and promoting a brand is not much difficult. Promotional camping's main objective is to develop the positive image of the destination amongst the tourists because this is the major reason which will attract a number of tourists. Campaign’s strategies should also be analyzed separately so that more effective strategies and methods could be analyzed. As social media platforms will be used to promote the European Tourism in the Australian market, hence; effectiveness of social media platforms should be evaluated separately (Bornhorst, Ritchie & Sheehan, 2010).

Direct Flight Advantage

Promotional campaigns mainly cost is to be incurred on advertisements and on promotional techniques. For promoting European Tourism, a budget will not bound ETC to promote their tourists in particular areas only. ETC has a huge budget of €2, 00,000 for promoting their tourism in Australian market (Moriarty, et. al., 2014). As approximately 50 countries are involved in this continent and apart from these 50 countries, 6 countries are involved with limited recognition.  In this campaign, first investment is made on conducting the direct flight from Australian states directly to certain European countries so that the targets market’s audience could not get suffered. Apart from conducting direct flight, mainly expenses will be of advertisement. Whether it would be electronic media or it would be print media, huge investment needs to be made. A marketing team of ETC will also visit Australian market to select the most appropriate places for their campaign’s promotion to achieve effective results. This activity will also incur certain expenses (Shani, et. al., 2010).

Promotion through sending emails to tourists, printing advertisement in-flight magazines is also a bit expensive process. But it is feasible as ETC has a huge budget for promoting their countries in the Australian market. Apart from huge budget, expenses should be incurred on the assumption of ROI i.e. return on investment. First of all, ROI should be determines so that appropriate investment could be made. Without estimating a return on investment, incurring huge expenses would not generate effective and adequate results (Pike & Page, 2014).

Conclusion

The decision of conducting a promotional campaign in Australian market will be beneficial for European Tourism. European Tourism has a brand name in the international tourism market but apart from this, various countries and states are above in terms of most liked places by tourists across the globe. The main and biggest reason is the expensiveness of Europe. To review their performance in the international tourism market, ETC has asked their marketing manager to develop a promotional campaign that will help the Europe to achieve effective results in the form of monetary terms as well as in the form of developing remarkable experience for tourists. This campaign concludes that ETC has used both mediums of advertisement in relevance with promoting their tourism industry in the Australia. Apart from an electronic and print medium of advertisement, adequate steps will be taken which will help them to ensure the effectiveness of the organization. Involvement of direct flight from Australia to Europe has helped the European Tourism to attract a number of tourists from Australia.

References

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