Hospitality and Tourism Marketing

Study Notes

The Marketing Mix: Four Ps

Product: This refers to the actual goods or services offered by a business.
Price: It's the amount customers pay for the product, which can be determined by factors like cost, competition, and perceived value.
Place: This involves how and where a business makes its product available to customers.
Promotion: This encompasses all the activities used to communicate the value of a product to customers and encourage them to purchase it.

Promotion Mix

Advertising: Paid, non-personal communication used to reach a broad audience.
Public Relations: Building relationships with the media and other public stakeholders to influence public perception.
Sales Promotion: Short-term incentives to encourage immediate purchases like discounts and coupons.
Personal Selling: Direct interaction between a salesperson and a potential customer to tailor the message.
Direct Marketing: Customized messaging sent directly to individual customers via mail, email, or telemarketing.
Digital Marketing: Utilizing digital channels like social media, websites, and search engines for marketing efforts.

Micro Environment

This refers to the forces close to the company that affect its ability to serve its customers.
These forces include:
- Customers: The primary stakeholders of a business.
- Competitors: Other businesses offering similar products or services.
- Suppliers: Businesses providing raw materials and other resources.
- Marketing Intermediaries: Businesses helping a company promote and distribute its products (e.g., retailers, distributors).
- Publics: Groups that have an interest in a company's activities (e.g., financial institutions, government agencies, media).

Marketing's Broader Scope

Marketing isn't just a functional area, it's a strategic approach to achieving business goals through understanding and responding to customer needs.
It permeates across various departments and functions, impacting areas like product development, customer service, and sales.

Differentiating Needs, Wants, and Demands

Needs: Basic requirements for human survival, like food, water, and shelter. These are universally experienced.
Wants: Socially and culturally influenced desires to satisfy needs. For example, the need for hunger can be satisfied by wanting a specific type of food.
Demands: Wants backed by purchasing power. When a customer is willing and able to purchase a product to satisfy their want, it becomes a demand.

Services: Unique Characteristics

Intangibility: Services are intangible and cannot be touched. They are experienced rather than possessed.
Inseparability: Unlike products, services are often produced and consumed simultaneously.
Variability: Service quality can vary depending on factors like the service provider, the customer, or the time.
Perishability: Services cannot be stored for later use. The service is lost if it's not utilized at the moment of production. They are perishable.

Description

Test your knowledge on the basics of marketing in the hospitality and tourism industry. Questions cover topics such as the definition of marketing, reasons for its importance, and the elements of the marketing mix.