THMK Midterms

Marketing

• Marketing is a process that aims to inform, persuade, and motivate consumers to take action.
• Communication is key to informing and persuading consumers.

Communication

• Communication is the transfer of information between people or groups.
• Marketing communication is used to convey promotional messages about products and services.
• Effective communication requires understanding the target audience and market response.

Marketing Communication Models

• Linear Model: A one-way communication process where a sender encodes a message and transmits it through a channel to a receiver; feedback is absent.
• Transactional Model: A two-way communication process where both sender and receiver are actively involved, exchanging messages; feedback and context are important factors.
• Interactional Model: A two-way communication process focused on new media; messages can provoke responses that affect future messages, and context is crucial.

Marketing Communication Tools

• Pamphlets, brochures, emails, advertisements, websites, promotions & campaigns, exhibitions, personal selling, press releases are promotional tools.

Importance of Marketing Communications

• Increase sales volume through persuasive, informative, and positive messages about products and services.
• Reinforce market credibility and persuade the target audience.

Communication Problems

• Language barriers, varied connotations, cultural differences, faulty word choices, and mistranslations
• These translate into inaccurate/inappropriate communications.

Tourism and Hospitality Products

• A combination of elements that satisfies customer needs, such as accommodations, transport, food and beverage, attractions, events, and sport & adventure tourism.
• Participants (suppliers, intermediaries, tourists/travelers) across the industry have vested interests.
• Tourism product components include attractions, accessibility, accommodation, image, and price.

Product Life Cycle

• A model used to describe the various stages a product goes through, from development to decline.
• Stages (e.g., development, introduction, growth, maturity, decline) can inform pricing and marketing strategies in response to changing sales trends.

Destination Life Cycle

• Model to analyze the evolution of tourism destinations as they move through various stages (exploration, involvement, development, consolidation, stagnation).
• This lifecycle reflects the changes in a destination's characteristics, infrastructure, and visitor profile over time.

Pricing

• Price is the amount paid by customers for a product or service.
• Pricing strategies involve considering costs, competition, market demand, and the desired profit margin.
• Pricing affects sales, revenue, and profit, and should be matched to market demand.
• Different pricing approaches include cost-based, break-even, analysis-based, and competition based.
• New product pricing strategies include prestige, market skimming, and penetration pricing.

Brand Equity

• Brand equity represents the added value, or positive image, consumers associate with a specific company's product.
• It is a crucial component when developing a marketing approach.

Revenue Management

• Revenue management is optimizing financial results, especially in industries like hospitality where inventory is perishable, capacity is fixed and demand fluctuates
• The strategy helps to maximize revenues by matching demand with appropriate supply and is helpful in situations like seasonal demand or price elasticity of demand.

Promotion

• Promotion encompasses all seller-initiated efforts to set up channels of information and persuasion to sell goods, services, or promote ideas.
• Types of promotional execution include slice of life, lifestyle, fantasy, mood/image, personality, technical expertise, scientific evidence, testimonials (e.g., influencer marketing).

Public Relations

• Public relations are the process of creating a positive image and customer preference through third-party endorsement.
• The approach is used to improve public perception of products or services.
• PR strategies, like press relations, events, news, speeches, and activities, are valuable communication tools.

Distribution Channels

• A set of interdependent organizations involved in making a product available to consumers either directly or indirectly.
• Tourism destinations rely on these channels for distribution.
• They move products to consumers, overcome barriers in time, place, and possession, and enable a marketing approach by suppliers, carriers, and destination marketing organizations.
• Distribution methods include direct, indirect, and franchising.
• Intermediaries include travel agents, tour operators, distributors, and others who connect providers/suppliers with customers..