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Marketing tourism: A practical guide
Books Thinkingabout tourism marketing MARKETING TOURISM: A PRACTICAL GUIDE by Alan Jefferson and Leonard Lickorish Longman, f15
London,
f989, 299 pages,
Neither the cover of this book nor the half-title page gives any clue as to the qualifications of its authors. It may be argued, one supposes, that they are both so well known that further identification is unnecesary. But since this book will be of special interest to a non-UK reader, it seems desirable to tell all. Until his recent retirement, Len Lickorish was director general of the British Tourist Authority (BTA), and had been in comparable appointments with the BTA’s predecessor organizations back to the days when the British Travel and Holidays Association was a voluntary body. He has therefore been at the centre of tourism in the UK for the entire postwar period. Alan Jefferson is marketing director of the BTA and is therefore in a particularly good position to discuss present activities in the BTA’s marketing.
No
qualms
Thus there need be no qualms about the authority of the authors of this book. A number of recently published books deal with marketing in tourism (eg Middleton, Markedng in Travel cmd Toz~ristn;’ Hollowav and Plant, Marketing for TorrrismS), and it is important therefore to distinguish the particular appeals of each. Broadly, one can say that Middleton is the most conceptual in approach, Holloway and Plant the most down-to-earth. From a different viewpoint, Middleton appears to have addressed himself to senior management. and perhaps also
82
to a university audience, whereas Holloway and Plant are more suitable for a retail travel agent. The uniqusness of Jefferson and Lickorish is that they are concerned with inbound tourism, that is with visitors to the UK and the marketing necessary to persuade them to come. One has to remember this all the time one is reading this book. This special viewpoint leads to some surprising omissions in a book apparently claiming to deaI comprehensively with marketing. There is hardly any discussion of the central factor in marketing, namely pricing, The single most significant feature of the past two decades has been a recognition of the price elasticity of demand for all forms of tourism but in particular for holiday tourism. True, this has been particularly evident in the outgoing traffic, ie the British guing on holiday abroad, but it has also been evident if less dramatic in other parts of the world. Closely allied to this has been the development of the tour operator (to be distinguished from the wholesaler) - again initially a UK phenomenon. but one which is rapidly growing in all major tourism markets. Further. there has been substantial growth in retail travel agency which from the marketing standpoint is perhaps the most exciting prospect of ah. The formation of marketing-oriented retail chains with substantial buying power must be expected to transform the contemporary picture. These appear to be serious omissions, but are readily understandable once placed in the context of the BTA’s operations in foreign countries where it may not have access to pricing functions or to any of the other apparent gaps in the discussion of marketing. When this book runs to a second edition, the special orientation should be made clear in the preface. Although this book has the lvord ‘practical’ in it. the contents do not
seem entirely to justify that word. What the book gives is a set of principles which might be considered as a kind of best practice without being entirely theoretical. The chapters on statistics - purely descriptive - benefit from the authors’ deep involvement with their formulation as an aid to the m~~nagement of tourism.
Way of thinking Tourist operators will not find in this book much help with the day-to-day conduct of their marketing. What they will find is a way of thinking about marketing against which they can perform in practice. For example. there is a trenchant chapter devoted to the use of a management audit, a difficult subject. but one to which increasing attention will be drawn. In July I%#. the UK hfinister announced the steps he was intending to take to give effect to the tourism review. and it is notcworthy that he emphasized costeffectiveness.
Valuabte Taken as a whole, Jefferson and Lickorish have produced a valuable addition to tourism literature. It will be of most use, as they intended, to national tourist offices, officials concerned ivith tourism and the like rather than individual operators. There is a sense in which one may see this as a record of the success of the BTX. For the BTX has been highly successful and has been given littie credit for its achievement. least of all by successive governments of whatever colour. The authors of this book can be identified as prime participants in that achievemen&.
A. J. Burkart Guildford, UK
‘V. T. C. ~iddleton, ~tarketi~g in Travel and Tourism, Heinemann, London, 1988. *J. C. Holloway and R. Plant, Marketing for Tourism, Pitman, London, 1988.
TOURISM
MANAGEMENT
March 1990
London,
f989, 299 pages,
Neither the cover of this book nor the half-title page gives any clue as to the qualifications of its authors. It may be argued, one supposes, that they are both so well known that further identification is unnecesary. But since this book will be of special interest to a non-UK reader, it seems desirable to tell all. Until his recent retirement, Len Lickorish was director general of the British Tourist Authority (BTA), and had been in comparable appointments with the BTA’s predecessor organizations back to the days when the British Travel and Holidays Association was a voluntary body. He has therefore been at the centre of tourism in the UK for the entire postwar period. Alan Jefferson is marketing director of the BTA and is therefore in a particularly good position to discuss present activities in the BTA’s marketing.
No
qualms
Thus there need be no qualms about the authority of the authors of this book. A number of recently published books deal with marketing in tourism (eg Middleton, Markedng in Travel cmd Toz~ristn;’ Hollowav and Plant, Marketing for TorrrismS), and it is important therefore to distinguish the particular appeals of each. Broadly, one can say that Middleton is the most conceptual in approach, Holloway and Plant the most down-to-earth. From a different viewpoint, Middleton appears to have addressed himself to senior management. and perhaps also
82
to a university audience, whereas Holloway and Plant are more suitable for a retail travel agent. The uniqusness of Jefferson and Lickorish is that they are concerned with inbound tourism, that is with visitors to the UK and the marketing necessary to persuade them to come. One has to remember this all the time one is reading this book. This special viewpoint leads to some surprising omissions in a book apparently claiming to deaI comprehensively with marketing. There is hardly any discussion of the central factor in marketing, namely pricing, The single most significant feature of the past two decades has been a recognition of the price elasticity of demand for all forms of tourism but in particular for holiday tourism. True, this has been particularly evident in the outgoing traffic, ie the British guing on holiday abroad, but it has also been evident if less dramatic in other parts of the world. Closely allied to this has been the development of the tour operator (to be distinguished from the wholesaler) - again initially a UK phenomenon. but one which is rapidly growing in all major tourism markets. Further. there has been substantial growth in retail travel agency which from the marketing standpoint is perhaps the most exciting prospect of ah. The formation of marketing-oriented retail chains with substantial buying power must be expected to transform the contemporary picture. These appear to be serious omissions, but are readily understandable once placed in the context of the BTA’s operations in foreign countries where it may not have access to pricing functions or to any of the other apparent gaps in the discussion of marketing. When this book runs to a second edition, the special orientation should be made clear in the preface. Although this book has the lvord ‘practical’ in it. the contents do not
seem entirely to justify that word. What the book gives is a set of principles which might be considered as a kind of best practice without being entirely theoretical. The chapters on statistics - purely descriptive - benefit from the authors’ deep involvement with their formulation as an aid to the m~~nagement of tourism.
Way of thinking Tourist operators will not find in this book much help with the day-to-day conduct of their marketing. What they will find is a way of thinking about marketing against which they can perform in practice. For example. there is a trenchant chapter devoted to the use of a management audit, a difficult subject. but one to which increasing attention will be drawn. In July I%#. the UK hfinister announced the steps he was intending to take to give effect to the tourism review. and it is notcworthy that he emphasized costeffectiveness.
Valuabte Taken as a whole, Jefferson and Lickorish have produced a valuable addition to tourism literature. It will be of most use, as they intended, to national tourist offices, officials concerned ivith tourism and the like rather than individual operators. There is a sense in which one may see this as a record of the success of the BTX. For the BTX has been highly successful and has been given littie credit for its achievement. least of all by successive governments of whatever colour. The authors of this book can be identified as prime participants in that achievemen&.
A. J. Burkart Guildford, UK
‘V. T. C. ~iddleton, ~tarketi~g in Travel and Tourism, Heinemann, London, 1988. *J. C. Holloway and R. Plant, Marketing for Tourism, Pitman, London, 1988.
TOURISM
MANAGEMENT
March 1990