MARKETING FOR HOSPITALITY AND TOURISM:

INTRODUCTION
“Service falls short when employees are always trying to please their immediate boss. They end
up putting layers between themselves and customers.”

In today’s hospitality and travel industry, the customer is global and king/queen. The customer
has ability to enhance or damage ones career through the purchase choices they make.

Creating customer value and satisfaction are at the heart of hospitality and travel industry
marketing.

Customer orientation

The purpose of a business is to create and maintain satisfied, profitable customers.

Advantages of Customers Whose Needs are met

 They are attracted and retained

 They make repeat patronages as well as
 Talk favourably to others about their satisfaction

When a business satisfies its customers, they will pay a fairprice for the product.

Fair price includes profit for the firm. Managers who forever try to maximize profit are short
selling both the customers and the company. It is wise to assess the customers’ long term value
and take appropriate action to ensure a customer’s long term support.

The alternative management approach is to put the customer first and reward the employees for
serving the customers well.

Hospitality and Tourism Marketing

Marketing is a social and managerial process through which people obtain what they need and
want through creating and exchanging products and services for value with others. (Kotler P.)

Basic Marketing Mix Elements

These include products, promotion, price and place (4 P’s)

The 4P framework calls upon marketing professionals to decide;

a. The product and its characteristics

b. Set the price
c. Decide how to distribute the products
d. Choose methods for promoting the products
To have attractive products and satisfied customers, the marketers must identify customer needs,
develop good products & prices, distributing and promoting them effectively.

The aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous.

The aim is to know and understand customers so well that a product or service fix them and sell
itself.

Tourism marketing

The two main industries that comprise tourism activities are travel and hospitality. Successful
hospitality marketing is highly dependent on the entire travel industry. Hotels effectively
eliminate competitors by agreeing to participate in packages arranged by wholesalers.

The Core Marketing Concepts

These include:

i. Needs, Wants and Demands

ii. Products
iii. Exchange, Transactions and relationships
iv. Markets
v. Value, Satisfaction and Quality

needs,
wants &
demands

value,
Satisfaction products
& Quality
core
marketing
concepts

exchange,
Transactio
markets n&
Relationships

i. Needs, Wants and Demand

a) Needs

A human need is a state of felt deprivation. Included are the basic physical needs for food,
clothing, warmth and safety as well as social needs for belonging, affection, fun and relaxation.
Also are esteem needs for prestige, recognition and fame and individual needs for knowledge
and self expression.

These needs were not invented by marketers but are part of the human make-up.

b) Wants

Are the forms taken by human needs as are shaped by culture and individual personality

Wants are how people communicate their needs. They are expressed in terms of objectives that
would satisfy needs.

As a society evolves, the wants of its members expand.

c) Demand

Refer to wants backed by buying power.

Consumers view products as bundles of benefits and choose those that give them the best value
for their money.

ii. Products

A product is anything that can be offered to satisfy a need or a want. Products include
experiences, persons, places, organizations information and idea.

iii. Customer Value

Is the difference between the benefits that the customer gains from only and/or using a product
and the cost of using the product. Cost can be monetary or no-monetary e.g time.

Management must increase value of their products for their target market through knowing their
customers and understanding what creates value for them.

iv. Customer Satisfaction

This depends on a products perceived performance in delivering value relative to a buyer’s

expectations.

If the products performance falls short of a customer’s expectations, then the buyer is
dissatisfied

If performance matches expectations, the buyer is satisfied

If performance exceeds expectations, then the buyer is delighted

Customer expectation is based on:

 the past buying experience

 opinion of friends
 market information
v. Quality

In its narrowest sense, quality refers to freedom from defects.

According to the American Society of Quality Control; quality is the totality of feature and
characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy customer needs.

In customer focused definition; quality begins with customer needs and ends with customer
satisfaction

Marketers major Responsibility in a Quality Centered Company

a) To participate in forming strategies that will help the company win through total
quality excellence
b) Are the customers’ watchdogs or guardian, complaining loudly for the customer when
the product or service is not right.
vi. Exchange, Transactions and Relationships

Exchange -is the act of obtaining a desired abject from someone by offering something in return.

Exchange marketing occurs when people decide to satisfy needs and wants through exchange.

Transaction – is marketing’s unit of measurement. It consists of a trade-off of values between

two parties. Transaction involves at least two things of value:

- a time of agreement &

- A place of agreement

Relationship Marketing - It involves building strong economic relationship with valued

customers, distribution dealers and suppliers

Areas of Importance of Relationship Marketing within the Hospitality Industry

i. Between hospitality organizations and their customers

ii. Between hospitality organizations and their suppliers
iii. Between retailers of travel – hospitality services such as hotels or airlines and marketing
intermediaries such as tour wholesalers, incentive houses and travel agents conglomerates
iv. Between retailers of travel – hospitality services and key customers such as large
operations and government agencies
 v. Between retailers of food service and organizations such as Universities, bus terminals
and large corporations in which the food chain is one of a handful of providers
vi. Between retailers of one type of travel – hospitality service such as a motel chain and a
restaurant chain (both are mutually interdependent)
vii. Between retailers of travel – hospitality service and key suppliers
viii. Between hospitality organizations and their marketing agencies, banks and law firms

THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY

Is made up of those businesses that offer one or more of the following:

 Provide accommodation
 Prepare food and beverage as well as service
 Entertainment for the traveler hotel

Importance of Marketing

i. The entrance of corporate giants in to the hospitality market and the marketing skills
these companies have brought into the industry underscores the importance of marketing
ii. Analysts predict that the hotel industry will consolidate in much the same way as the
airline industry has with 5/6 major chains dominating the market. Such consolidation will
create a market that is highly competitive. The firms that survive such consolidation will
be the ones that understand their customer
iii. In response to growing competitive pressures hotel chains are relying on the expertise of
the marketing director

MARKET

A Market is a set of actual or potential buyers who might transact with a seller.

Sellers constitute the industry and buyers constitute the market. Sellers provide the products for
the market and also supply them with information.

MARKETING MANAGEMENT

This is the analysis, planning, implementation and control of programmes designed to create,
build and maintain beneficial exchanges with target buyers for the purpose of achieving
organizational objectives.

MARKETING MANAGEMENT PHYLISOPHIES/CONCEPTS

There are 5 concepts under which organizations conduct their marketing activities:

1. Manufacturing
2. Product
3. Selling
4. Marketing
5. Societal
1. Manufacturing/Production Concept

It holds that the consumer will favour products that are available and highly affordable.
Management should therefore focus on production and distribution efficiency.

Its limitation is that management may become so focused on manufacturing systems that they
forget the customers.

2. Product Concept

It holds that consumers prefer existing products, and product forms, and the job of management
is to develop good versions of these products.

3. Selling Concept

It holds that consumers will not buy enough of the organizations products unless the organization
undertakes a large selling and promotion effort.

The main focus is to get every possible sale and not to worry about satisfaction.

The selling concept exists in the hospitality industry. A major contributing factor is over-
capacity.

Sectors such as hotels, resorts, airlines, cruise liners and restaurants continuously face over-
capacity. This may be due to:

i. Pride in being the biggest having the most capacity

ii. A foul belief that economies of scale will increase as size increases
iii. Tax law that encourages real estate developers to over-build property because of the
generous tax wrights-off
iv. New technology such as new products from aircraft manufacturers that offer higher
productivity through larger seating capacity despite the existing adequate capacity
v. Failure to merge revenue management with sales/ marketing management
 vi. Economic incentives by government to build a larger tourism/hospitality
infrastructure to create economic growth
vii. Poor or non-existence of forecasting and planning by owners, consulting financial
organizations and government
viii. A myth that the travel industry faces almost unlimited future demand
ix. A myth that burgeoning population, breakdown of international barriers and
increasing disposable income will correct temporary over-capacity problems

4. Marketing Concept

It holds that achieving organizational goals depend on determining the needs and wants of target
markets and delivering the desired satisfaction more effectively than competitors

The Selling and Marketing Concepts Contrasted

Selling Concept Marketing Concept

i. Starting Point Factory Market

ii. Focus Existing product Customer needs
iii. Means Selling & Promoting Integrated Marketing

iv. End Profits through Sales Profits through

customer

satisfaction

5. Societal Marketing Concept

It holds that the organization should determine the needs, wants and interest of target market and
deliver desired satisfaction more effectively and efficiently than competitors in a way that
maintains or improves the customers’ and society’s well being.

It asks if the firm that serves and satisfies individual wants is always doing what is best for
consumers and society in the long-run.

Undesirable Customers

MALES FEMALES
  Has a big ego which must be
massaged constantly
 They use foul language
 Makes inappropriate sexual
remarks
 Calls his serve by a pets name
 Sits far away from the table so
that servers have to walk or
work around them
 Thinks he owns the place
 Acts worse with male serves
than females
 Only wants to deal with the
manager
 Screams loudly at servants
 Has been “in the business” and
knows the right way of doing
things and will tell the serves
straight in the face
MARKETING’S FUTURE
 Sends items back to the kitchen
 Demands that the restaurant
makes special orders at no
extra charge
 Changes her mind often
 She demands substitution at no
extra charge
 Sits around the table for long
after finishing a meal
 Wears too much perfume
 Doesn’t leave an appropriate
tip
 Thinks she is your only guest
 Puts belongings on other seats
 Throws tantrum if anything
goes wrong

 Marketing operates within a dynamic global environment.

 Marketing managers should review their marketing objectives and practices.
 A company’s winning formula for the last decade may become its undoing in the next
decade.
 Marketing is the whole business seen from the point of view of final results i.e the
customers view point.
 With its customer orientation, marketing has become the job of everyone and the passport
to success.

GREAT LEADERS

Great Hospitality leaders have successfully applied the basic marketing principles.

They include:

i. Focusing on the guest to satisfy their wants (External marketing)

ii. Satisfying employees to serve the guests (Internal marketing)