Marketing Mix In Tourism Industry

In the industry, Zainub and Wall (2013) highlight the importance of pricing, being one of the eight elements in the tourism market mix. Planning for pricing is essential in the industry since it can be an effective strategy in marketing an organization’s products (Pesämaa, 2009). When making pricing decisions, Hudson (2008) deem it necessary to consider the other market mix for effective utilization of pricing strategy in stabilizing, if not raising the market shares tactfully against the rivals. Zainub and Wall (2013) concur by asserting that pricing, informed by the consumer and market knowledge should put into consideration both internal and external factors such as promotion and competition respectively. Planning for pricing is vital in

According to Jang and Chen (2008), successful marketing planning in the industry can only be achieved upon consideration of all the components of the market mix in the industry that have traditionally been considered as the 4Ps ( product, price, place and promotion). In the industry, however, consideration has to be given to an even broader elements of the market mix, sometimes referred to as the 8Ps (Dolnicar, 2007). These are product, place, price, promotion, people, process, productivity, and physical evidence. As posited by Tsiotsou and Goldsmith (2012), the ruthless competition in the sector, the need to find new paths towards sustainable competition, and the inflexible nature of tourism products requires that an organization has a firm knowledge of the dynamics in the marketing mix, and consider all the eight elements for product differentiation and the achievement of strategic objectives. The diverse nature of the industry requires consideration of all the diverse element of the marketing mix when formulating an effective marketing plan. Additionally, as suggested by Jang & Chen (2008), optimal performance can be achieved through strategic selection of the right combination and optimal use of the marketing mix. Making the best combination of these elements plus the additional component of the tourism marketing mix is likely

Since planning in tourism involves several important steps such as analysing the strengths and weaknesses of organization marketing approaches through a SWOT analysis, setting of strategic objectives, and making projections about an organization’s position in the future, these would be fruitful if the culminated into implementation (Morrison, 2010). As Wray (2011) points out, however, most organizations fail in this part by not implementing of putting into practice the organization prepared plans, with the end being unimplemented of partially implemented plans. Tsiotsou and Goldsmith (2012) suggest that it is prudent, after doing all the market and customer analysis, and setting of strategic objectives and goals that firms come up with an implementation strategy. Tsiotsou and Goldsmith (2012) further add that when formulating strategic implementation of strategies, marketing mix should be put into consideration so that they are in tandem with the organization’s strategy. The control phase is the last and an important part of marketing planning and it involves the general evaluation of an organization’s selected strategy (Wray, 2011). Organizations need not to leave out making necessary controls by evaluating the