Marketing Travel and Tourism products and services Essays

Marketing Travel and Tourism products and services Essays Marketing Travel and Tourism products and services Paper Marketing Travel and Tourism products and services Paper In this assignment I am going to write about factors that affecting the marketing by giving examples in travel and tourism organisations. Definition of marketing The definition of marketing is that the progression of planning and executing the beginning, pricing, promotion, and giving out of ideas of products, organisations, and events to create and maintain relationships that will satisfy individual and organizational objectives. These are the factors that affecting the travel and tourism industry:   Company ethos   Consumer protection   Standards of practice   Political   Economic   Social   Technological Company Ethos Company Ethos is one of the main factors that could affect the marketing of travel and tourism organisations including British Airways. All market actions in British Airways are being done by good enough for ethical and moral standards. It is important that the organisations should now respect the customers religion and background and they should not prejudice against them. An example for ethical and moral standards in British Airways is that they stopped their staff from wearing visible religion symbols. Company Ethos can also include environment as well. There are some companies that obtain the main beliefs of green tourism and they promote holidays that does not harm the local people in the destinations. It is important that companies show social responsibilities and ethical in all marketing actions. For example British Airways state that they will strive to improve its environmental and social performance and to contribute to a better quality life for everyone, now and for generations to come. They also state they will achieve this by setting clearly define objectives and targets addressing their environmental and social issues. There are legislations that will affect the marketing the travel and tourism industry which will stop the organisations doing what they want for example: airlines can not put their own prices they need to follow particular rules and legislations. As the company ethos is one of the biggest factors that affect the travel and tourism industry many organisation are trying their best in order to meet these factors. Virgin Atlantic is another airline industry that is aware of these factors. Virgin Atlantic has to follow what the government puts as taxation for the prices. It is also important that these two organisations should not mislead their passengers because this will give a bad company image to the both organisations. All these factors will affect the marketing of Virgin Atlantic and British Airways by providing customers the products within following their rights and proving them with a good customer service. Consumer protection It is always important that all travel and tourism organisation are following the rules and regulation when carrying out their marketing work. One of the regulations is The Customer Protection Act 1987. The Consumer Protection Act 1989 is an Act that forces the companies legal responsibilities for their customers. The aim of the Act is to offer procedures that a person who buy the damaged product can contact the person who is responsible of the product. The Consumer Protection Act also makes requirements regarding misleading price indications. An example Going Places had to pay over à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½6000 for misleading prices. This was because Going Places displayed at three of their branches in Leicestershire, holiday deals that were not available at the prices that they displayed. The Trades Description Act 1968: This act is to protest customers against false description either verbally or in writing that the organisations gives to the customers. All the organisation in travel and tourism sector should always gives the right description. For example Thomas Cook is one of the biggest tour operator in UK they always give the right description to their customers and make their marketing work better. The Data Protection Act (DPA) 1998: This is one of the most important legislation. The aim of this legislation is to protect the customers private informations that are being used by organisations. The Act also gives right to organisations to access information held about customers. For example: A tour operator like First Choice use database and keep all the information about their customers on the database. First choice stores all the information about their customers in secure databases at secure addresses to prevent unauthorised access. These consumer protection rules and regulations affect the marketing of the travel and tourism organisation because the protecting customers give a good company image and makes customers feel guaranteed. Customers feel comfortable and sure that their information will not be passed to other organisations and they have their rights. Following these rules and legislations will bring repeat business to the companies as well. Standards of practice It is not just rules and regulations that travel and tourism industry should follow there are also promotes voluntary code of practise, for example ABTA Code of Conduct that they need to follow. All members of the organisation need to follow the ABTAs Code of Conduct when running their business and also state what must be done when something goes wrong. One of the ABTA Code of Conduct is that ABTA members must not mislead their advertising and must include all fixed compulsory charges in their prices another code is when customer book with ABTA members they must give customers accurate information to help you choose the travel arrangements that are right for you. ABTA works with lot of company such as The Holiday Place, My travel, Charter Travel and many more all these companies need to follow the ABTAs Code of Conduct. The Advertising Authority Standards is setting guidelines for organisations before they promote their products. Their main aim is to make sure that all the advertisements are meeting the standards laid down in the advertising code. The code of Advertising Authority Standards is including prices of products, misleading, immaturity and Credulity. British Airways is one of the biggest airline company in UK and when they promote their products they need to follow the general rules of The Advertising Authority Standards. One of the rules that BA needs to follow is that their advertisements must not take advantage of immaturity or natural credulity of children. Standards of practice affect these organisations because customers are know that they are protected and if anything goes wrong they can get their money back when they buy the products of these organisations. This will bring repeat business to the organisations and the company will have a good public image. PEST factors Travel and Tourism industry is growing and in few years time it could end up as the biggest industry in the world. The companies within this sector needs to be aware of the external constrains when they run their business factors that comes outside of their direct control for example PEST which stands for Political, Economic, Social and Technological factors. Political Political factor is important in travel and tourism industry and it has a huge influence on the regulations of the travel and tourism organisations. Political factors cover regional development, legislation, law and regulations lastly deregulation of the industry. For example: deregulated companies like BA need systems that enable decisions to be made quickly open skies is an agreement which changes the regulatory landscapes a lot. Political factor are also including the tax policy, employment laws, environmental regulations, trade restriction and tariffs. As travel and tourism is one of the biggest industries in the world it has many political factors. Airlines are not allowed to allow passengers that do not hold a valid visa in to UK. Another political factor that effects the tour operators are that the package mush be sold or offered for sale and the package has to include minimum of two elements which are transportation, accommodation and another major tourist service accounting for a significant part of the package. Social Social factors are demographical trends, education, environmental awareness, life style changes etc. For example these days people live longer, people have different life styles and people are richer and have money to spend on holidays as people who is going to abroad for holidays has increased in UK. Also families travel to other destinations and stay. All these social factors are affecting the travel and tourism industry in many ways. Lot of travel agents such as Thomsons Holidays try to find new destinations to meet their customer social lifestyle. Thomson have lot of different types of holidays that is suitable for different types of people such as cruising holidays for senior citizens , ski holidays, gold holiday for couples etc. The social developments makes the travel and tourism companies to make their marketing bigger and have products that will meet their customers needs. Many tour operators including Thomas Cook try their best to have holidays that will meet their customer s needs for example they offer travel insurance, car hire and airport parking. Economical Economical factor is one of the most important factors in marketing and its also important for travel and tourism industry as well. Economic factors can include airline security taxes, interest rates, levels of unemployment, cost oil etc. All these economic factors affect the travel and tourism industry for example companies offer different budget holidays that suites every budget. My travel offers holidays starting from à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½121 to à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½579. Economical factors are very important and there are many factors that have a big influence in travel and tourism industry. Technological The changes on the technology have made a big influence in the developing Travel and Tourism industry for example faster and larger aircraft and better fuel efficiency. Tour operators have their own computer reservation system that makes booking easier. It is possible to book holidays or tickets through internet rather then visiting a travel agent or tour operator. Some of the airlines offer e-tickets which is when you book online without visiting an agent for example: you can only book your flights online for Ryanair. It is also possible to check in and passport checking online as well so it becoming more easy to travel by air easier and quicker. Technological factors bring competition within the companies as well. Many airlines such as British Airlines and Virgin Atlantic try to offer the best service in order to satisfy their customers. They use the best technological products and have the best for their passengers. British Airways now have internet access do their passengers can use internet which allow passengers to do their stuff online. Technology is not just use to improve their products and services all travel and tourism industry are using technology to promote their products. For example Virgin Atlantic promotes their products in their websites. All these PEST factors will have a very big affect on the travel and tourism organisations because by following these factors they will meet their customers needs which will bring the companies repeat business, good company image, better service etc. As the technology develops organisation having more products which will affect their marketing, economy is one of the biggest factors that affects the organisations this affect the marketing by providing the right price that suites different people. Social factors are affecting the travel and tourism organisations by making them to find different products that suites different socialised people.