JETIR1906I07

© 2019 JETIR June 2019, Volume 6, Issue 6 www.jetir.
org (ISSN-2349-5162)
“TOURISM MARKETING MIX AND TOURIST

SATISFACTION – A STUDY”
By: B.S.Gunarekha1 and Dr. Binoy T.A2
1Research Scholar, Dept. of PG Studies & Research in Tourism Administration
Kuvempu University, JnanaSahyadri, Shankaraghatta-51.
2Research Guide, Dept. of PG Studies & Research in Tourism Administration,
Kuvempu University, JnanaSahyadri, Shankaraghatta-51.
ABSTRACT
In contemporary tourism sector, tourist satisfaction plays the prime role to achieve success. Here success
refers to fulfilling the objective of the tourism organization. Obviously the core objective of any organization
is to maximize the profit for a long term. Now, the question is how to increase the profit and stabilize the
market status? The solution is to implement tourism marketing mix strategy as a tool to study the tourism
trend. But there is a need to answer the question, why tourism marketing mix and how it is related to tourist
satisfaction? Nowadays it is very essential to identify the needs of the tourists. But it is very challenging to
understand the tourist oriented quality of service in this sector. Since today’s tourists are travelers, moreover
they are the producers of information related to tourism product and service. Due to remarkable development
in technology and easy access to information it is really a stuff job for the tourism entrepreneur to satisfy the
tourist. Because, tourism product has to reach the right tourist at the right time with the right price through
the right place (distribution channel) based on the right service quality. Hence, it is necessary to study and
understand the concepts related to tourism marketing mix and tourist satisfaction. This study is an attempt to
explore the significance of tourism marketing mix related to product, price, place, promotion, physical
evidence, people and process on tourist satisfaction.
Keywords: Tourism, Marketing mix, Tourist satisfaction
1. INTRODUCTION
India’s travel & tourism sector ranks seventh in the world with its contribution of 9.6 percent to the
country’s GDP (WTTC-2016). India ranks second in the world in terms of total employment supported by
travel & tourism sector with 9.3 percent of the country’s total job (WTTC-2016). In contemporary tourism
sector, tourist satisfaction plays the prime role to achieve success for a tourism organisation. Here success
refers to fulfilling the objective of the tourism organization. Obviously the core objective of any organization
is to maximize the profit for a long term. Now, the question is how to increase the profit and stabilize the
market status? The solution is to implement tourism marketing mix strategy as a tool to study the tourism
trend. But there is a need to answer the question, why tourism marketing mix and how it is related to tourist
satisfaction? This study is an attempt to explore the significance of tourism marketing mix related to product,
price, place, promotion, physical evidence, people and process on tourist satisfaction.
JETIR1906I07 Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (JETIR) www.jetir.org 886
© 2019 JETIR June 2019, Volume 6, Issue 6 www.jetir.org (ISSN-2349-5162)
2. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Today’s tourists are travelers; moreover they are the producers of information related to tourism product and
service. Due to remarkable development in technology and easy access to information it is really a stuff job
for the tourism entrepreneur to satisfy the tourist. Because, tourism product has to reach the right tourist at
the right time with the right price through the right place (distribution channel) based on the right service.
Hence, it is necessary to study and understand the concepts related to tourism marketing mix and tourist
satisfaction.
3. REVIEW OF LITERATURE
E. Jerome McCarthy (1960), states marketing mix is a tool with the four P’s which are associated by
marketers to decide a brand and its product offers.
Singh (2012) highlights any organization markets its product with the combination of marketing variables
which helps the buyers to take decision.
Mohammad Amzad Hossan Sarker, Dr. wang Aiman and Sumayya Begum (2012), explores the impact of
marketing mix elements on tourist's satisfaction and highlights the relationships between marketing mix
elements and tourists satisfaction.
Kotler & Bowen (2013), defines tourism marketing mix as combination of four elements namely product,
price, distribution and promotion and recommends the market to identify the features of the product, fix the
price, select any one technique to promote and design activities to distribute the product.
Rad, Akbari (2014), states to create and increase demand a controllable part of marketing tools which can be
used is marketing mix.
Magrath (1986), proposed additional three more Ps to cope with the needs for service marketing - People,
Physical evidence and Process based on the prime characteristics of the service industry.
4. RESEARCH QUESTION
 What is the importance of tourism marketing mix?
 How tourism marketing mix is related to tourist satisfaction?
5. OBJECTIVES
 To understand the importance of tourism marketing mix.
 To study how tourism marketing mix is related to tourist satisfaction.
6. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The study which explores the significance of tourism marketing mix on tourist satisfaction is collected from
secondary sources of data. It includes various articles, reports, publications both in printed and electronic
form, newspapers and writings in books.
7. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
To explore the how tourism marketing mix is related to tourist satisfaction it is necessary to study the
following concepts which states the answers to the above raised research question.
Marketing: To understand the core concepts of marketing it is necessary to first know what a market is.
Market is a place where the tourism products sellers’ like travel agents and tour operators will search for the
real and the potential tourist, who is going to buy the tourism product. The sellers have to identify the current
trends and needs of the tourist and develop product strategies, fix prices with certain pricing strategies,
communicate with the buyer with promotional strategies and deliver the product as per the buyers request
and gain their satisfaction. Once the concept of market is bridged between buyer and seller, now it becomes
essential to study marketing concepts which states how a potential buyer will become an actual buyer.
According to Philip Kotler, "Marketing is the analysis, planning, implementation, and control of carefully
formulated programs designed to bring about voluntary exchanges of values with target markets for the
purpose of achieving organizational objectives”. Alastair M. Morrison states that, “Marketing is a
continuous, sequential process through which management in the tourism industry plans, researches,
implements, controls, and evaluates activities designed to satisfy both customer needs and wants and their
own organization objectives”.
Service marketing: In tourism industry, service is intangible and further it is inseparable in nature. There is
a need to produce various activities by the service providers to deliver the product to the tourist. To perceive
the tourist value of service, it becomes a complex job for the employees to fill the service quality gaps.
Since, the employees are the tangible clues who are directly involved with tourist in delivering the tourism
product service which is intangible. Tourism organization, tourist and employees are the major key players
in the service marketing concepts. There exist three stages of marketing principles between these key
players, namely internal marketing (organization and employee), external marketing (organization and
tourist) and interactive marketing (employee and tourist). It is a real challenge for an organization to balance
and stick on to the satisfaction and loyalty of the employee, tourist and continuously stabilize the profit,
growth and service quality of the tourism product. Total quality service marketing philosophies aims to
provide the performance quality and generate quality perception to the tourist that to at the first time.
Tourism marketing mix (7 P’s): A tourism marketing tool which is used by the organization to influence
the market by producing and responding to the needs of the target buyers. The study includes the major four
marketing mix concepts namely,
 Product: In tourism sector, production and consumption of the product takes place at the same time.
Since the tourism product is represented as service product, which is perishable in nature it cannot be stored.
Based on seasonality and demand tourism products are developed. Tourism product is developed based on
various product levels which include the concepts of core, expected, facilitating, supporting and augmented
products. The product line, width and depth should be analyzed to deliver the product as per the needs of the
potential tourist. Further, the product life cycle concept should be focused to understand when, how, where
and for whom the product needs to be developed. To answer to all the issues related to tourism products and
to improve service standards, there is a need to design product mix strategies.
 Price: To obtain the service of the tourism product, tourist should pay the amount. In tourism, experience
is sold in the form of tourism products. The tourist must pay the price to gain the experience related to
tourism activities obtained from service providers. Tourism products are intangible; heterogeneous in nature
hence it is necessary to develop pricing strategies. Pricing of services can be based on cost, competition and
demand. Pricing strategies varies with the value perceptions which are developed by the tourists related to
service. The value perception can be based on low price, price based on quality, price is everything in the
service and pricing based on beneficiary service. To attract and increase the profit it is mandatory to include
discounts, offers, bundling price and much more in the form of price mix strategies.
 Place (Distribution channel): Tourism organizations should plan, organize, schedule and implement
certain activities so that tourist will avail the tourism services. A tourism organization activity not only limits
to their one company’s services but it needs various channel for distribution of services like tour operators,
travel agencies, hoteliers, franchising, brokers, guides, escorts and transport services. Tourism product
includes several services for which various intermediaries needs to be involved. A critical decision has to be
taken to provide what type channel to be use for service distribution. Hence there is a need to develop place
mix strategies that make the tourism product accessible to tourist.
 Promotion: Promotion plays a major role to create awareness and a unique identity of the product in the
minds of the buyers. It is possible by providing information about product features, quality of service,
availability, pricing through various promotion techniques. To increase the volume of sales, retain the
consumers, profit maximization it is advisable to continuously communicate the buyers through promotional
tools. To communicate the tourist who buys the tourism product it is necessary for the tourism organization
to promote and persuade through proper promotional tools like advertising, publicity, public relation, sales
promotion and personal selling. Based on the purchasing behaviour of the tourist, seasonality and demand
promotional campaign should be developed to persuade the tourist buy the product. It becomes compulsory
to introduce promotion mix strategies to reach target and potential tourists.
 Physical Evidence: Tourism industry being intangible in nature, there is a need to enhance the services
offered with the support of tangible clues. Tourist can only experience the service of the tourism products
through service providers but they cannot see the service. In such a situation tangible objects associated with
the service will be evidence that can be examined to measure the service providers’ standards. Facilitating
services, ambience of the place, noise level in the service area, furnishings and tangible clues should be
observed to assess the tourist perceptions. The expectations of the tourist and experienced service
performance from the tourism service providers can be compared to evaluate the satisfaction level of the
tourist. Thus, physical evidence mix strategies to be given prominence while focusing on tourist perceptions
and expectations.
 People: Tourism being a service industry is people oriented. Day to day business operations are handled
by the management and front line employees by face to face contact of the tourist. In such a situation the
body language, personnel and inter-personal behaviour, attitude, involvement, commitment, grooming
standards, performance level, skills and training aspects will be observed by the tourist. People mix strategy
will project more on the brand value of the product. Hence it becomes more essential to motivate the
employees by designing the people mix strategies to improve their performance level of service to market
the product as per the expectations of the tourists.
 Process: Tourism service can be consumed by the tourist with the flow of activities scheduled and
directed effectively and efficiently by the service providers. Physical setting, service environment, facilities
and how the tourists are directed to acquire the services should be mechanized through policies and
procedures to be developed to achieve tourist satisfaction. Service availability and quality of services
delivered will be increasing the tourists’ involvement, perception level, relationship and expectations. There
is an alarm to design process mix strategies to face the challenges of the dynamic marketing environment in
the tourism sector.
Tourist Satisfaction: Tourist satisfaction is the core objective of the tourism organization to achieve success
for a long term. To understand the concepts of tourist satisfaction, it is important to study how the tourist
experiences the three stages of the trip namely pre-trip, during trip and post-trip. Initially in the pre-trip
tourist is in search of information regarding the transportation, accommodation, food, safety, security,
insurance, amenities, tourism activities and other details for the travel plan. Now it is the prime duty for the
tourism entrepreneurs like tour operators, travel agents, hoteliers, guide, and escort to provide the needed
information to the tourist accurately within time and which should be easy to understand and access. The
front line employee needs to be informative, well trained and skilled to tackle the tourist by providing the
needed information through various communication modes like direct (face to face), indirect (telephone) and
digital platform (e-mail, website). It is the first step towards success to create awareness to the tourist by
providing the right information about the features of the tourism product, at the right time and promising to
extend the service with right place (distribution channel) and with unique selling price. It is important to
continuously communicate the tourist to increase their interest towards the product and motivate to have
desire and take action to buy the product immediately. But it is possible only when the tourist gets satisfied
with the service quality extended by the service providers especially by providing true information. Now the
expectation of the tourist about the tourism product starts.
When once the tourist purchases the product the second stage starts that is during trip, where it is the sole
responsibility of the tourism organization to make their trip memorable with positive experiences. Due to the
no ownership characteristics of tourism sector, only the experience can be bought by the tourist and not the
ownership of the product. At each moment, starting from their trip and till the trip ends it is very crucial time
for the service providers to gain the positive experience with their quality of service delivery of the tourism
activities. Tourist satisfaction occurs when their perceived experience exceeds their expectation.
The third stage, post-trip is more important to maintain a relationship with the tourist. At this point, the
tourist experienced the product through service extended by the tourism organizations. Now it is the right
moment to convert our tourist from a loyal consumer to loyal advisor for our tourism product. No
communication gap should be there between tourist and service provider. It becomes mandatory to
continuously be in touch with the tourist by providing the updated information about the existing product,
add on features and new product developments, offers and discounts then and there.
CHALLENGES IN TOURISM SECTOR

There are several interlinked services in the tourism product to reach the tourist hence numerous
intermediaries are involved in designing and packaging. At each level of service, it is highly risky to balance
the image of the service. With negative or bad experience at any one level can immediate spoil the entire
image of the product. The nature of demand in tourism is highly elastic and seasonal. The major problem
faced by the tourism sector is related to marketing that is due to lack of efforts in the area of market research.
The tourism industry comprises of small, medium and large businesses. The small business lacks in market
research by not getting expertise guidance, advice and not having enough resources to adopt a marketing
approach. Success can be achieved by adopting short, middle and long term approaches. But mostly short
term is adopted rather than a long term approach. Thus profitability for a very short period is planned which
not a true success in this field. Hence for long term profitability it is advisable to introduce marketing mix
strategies.
Tourist dissatisfaction occurs due to many intermediaries involved in service where it is difficult to control
the quality. The marketing efforts and resources for international markets are entirely different from national
markets and hence there is a need to design tourism products as per the global standards of service delivery
quality. Due to tremendous development in information and technology there is much more to give to the
entire world in the form of new devices, but it is a challenge for the service providers to pace with
technology. The tourist response changes now and then, hence it is really a difficult task to gain the positive
response continuously. Hence there is a need to implement marketing information system which will answer
to this issue. Competition should also to be addressed by adopting self analysis, competitor’s analysis and
technological development. Hence tourist satisfaction will be the key to success and it is possible only if
tourism marketing mix strategies are adopted in the tourism sector.
8. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

In tourism sector all activities starts and ends with the tourist. The needs of the tourist should be identified,
according to which the tourism product should to be designed and developed. Tourism marketing plays a
major role in this sector. Where, initially market research is done to identify the needs of the tourist, to
achieve the objectives of the organization by increasing the sales volume by gradually improving the
satisfaction level of the tourist for a long term, to excel the competitor with unique product quality. Apart
from segmenting the needs of the tourist, targeting the potential tourist and positioning the product in the
minds of the tourist, it is also important to implement the concepts of tourism marketing mix to convert the
potential tourist into actual tourist. Hence secondly, tourism marketing mix concepts should be studied to
explore its significance with tourist satisfaction. Tourism product formulation, price policies and strategies
formulation, designing distribution networks and improving promotional channels, proper environment to
deliver the product, skilled and trained employee should be deputed to deliver the service and further the
activities taken to deliver the services. Hence with the implementation of seven P’s marketing mix strategies
will increase the level of performance which will obviously perceive the highly satisfied tourist response.
Thus, tourism industry is totally tourist centered.
9. CONCLUSION
The study reveals that, tourism marketing mix related to product, price, place and promotion physical
evidence, people and process focuses on tourist needs and aims to increase tourist satisfaction by providing
product quality service. It is made possible with the standards of service quality which starts from
identifying the tourist hidden needs, creating tourism product as per their interest, delivering the tourism
product through proper distribution channels so that service product are consumed by the potential tourist.
During consumption the ambiance of the place is so important which adds value to the tourism product
features. Further employee being a tangible clue, while delivering the tourism product gets highlighted with
the etiquettes, behaviour, attitudes which project the image of the organization in the thoughts of the tourist.
Finally, the process to deliver the tourism product to be consumed by the tourist should be designed properly
to reach the expectation of the tourist with various activities. The tourism industry depends on profit
maximization through serving the demands of the tourist and increasing their satisfaction level.
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© 2019 JETIR June 2019, Volume 6, Issue 6 www.jetir.

“TOURISM MARKETING MIX AND TOURIST

2. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

CHALLENGES IN TOURISM SECTOR

8. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

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