Tourism Chapter 19 – Tourism Marketing

NIOS Class 12 Tourism Chapter 19 Solutions

INTEXT QUESTIONS 19.1

1. What is marketing?

Ans: Marketing, in its most simple form, can be described as a process of achieving voluntary exchanges between customers and producers.

2. Give two differences between marketing and selling.

Ans: Selling is a part of marketing. Selling focuses on the needs of the seller, while marketing focuses on the needs of buyers.

3. What is tourism marketing?

Ans: Tourism marketing can also be understood as a process that begins with understanding the needs of tourists (consumers) who are satisfied by offering a suitable product or service ( for example, a tour package).

4. What do you mean by Segmentation?

Ans: Segmentation is a process of identifying groups of buyers of a total market with different buying needs or requirements.

5. Name various selling techniques.

Ans: Direct Selling, Retail Selling, Agency Selling, Tele Sales, door-to-door selling, business-to-business Selling, Mail order Selling, and Online Selling.

6. What constitutes Marketing Mix?

Ans: Marketing mix constitutes the core of an organisation’s marketing system, which includes four basic decision areas known as the “four Ps” of marketing- product, price, promotion, and physical distribution.

INTEXT QUESTIONS 19.2

1. What is the marketing environment?

Ans: All the factors internal as well as external form the business environment.

2. List the components that form the demographic environment.

Ans: The demographic environment includes population, its size, and growth, the population across different regions, age distribution, income levels, educational levels, household patterns, a mixture of different racial groups, and regional characteristics.

3. What is the importance of the political environment for tourism?

Ans: The political environment provides the rules and regulations which are to be strictly followed by the companies and cannot be ignored.

INTEXT QUESTIONS 19.3

1. What is price?

Ans: Price is the monetary value decided for the exchange of goods and services between buyers and sellers.

2. What do you understand by penetration pricing?

Ans: Penetration pricing is setting a low price to increase sales and market share for the products and services of a company.

3. What is psychological pricing?

Ans: The strategy is used to give an impression of a low price to the customers so that they are convinced to purchase the products.

INTEXT QUESTIONS 19.4

1. List three features of advertising.

Ans: It is a paid form of communication; it is impersonal and has an identified sponsor.

2. Which media of advertising are mostly used in the tourism business?

Ans: Press, Media, Radio, TV, Videos, CD-ROMS, Internet, Aerial Advertising, Railway Advertising, Off-the-wall Media.

3. What should be the criteria for selecting an advertising medium?

Ans: Audience considerations, timing factors, geographic conditions, competitive factors, control considerations, production factors, financial considerations, etc.

INTEXT QUESTIONS 19.5

1. Give two points of difference between advertising and sales promotion.

Ans: Advertising is impersonal, whereas sales promotion is personal.

Advertising is aimed at creating demand, while sales promotion is aimed at increasing sales.

2. State a few objectives of Sales promotion.

Ans: The main objectives served by sales promotion are:

Increase the sales of old, slow-moving, and new products and services
Attract new customers and retain old customers,
Launch new products quickly and make them move faster,
Educate customers.

3. What are the various methods of sales promotion?

Ans: Various sales promotion methods are built around consumers, dealers, and members of the sales force. Cash discounts, free samples, exhibitions, sales contests, gift offers, and free sample distribution, etc., are all examples of sales promotion.

INTEXT QUESTIONS 19.6

1. What is a distribution channel?

Ans: A vehicle utilised to make a product or service available to the consumer.

2. Who are Travel Agents?

Ans: Travel agents act as intermediaries between the customer and the supplier and are known as retailers in tourism.

3. Name four online travel companies.

Ans: makemytrip.com, yatra.com, cleartrip.com, and ibibo.com.

INTEXT QUESTIONS 19.7

1. What is CRM?

Ans: CRM is about taking personal interest and care of customers during and after the product is delivered to the customer.

2. How would you make use of CRM?

Ans: We can collect all available information about guests and store it in a separate database for proper analysis, so that a profile of each guest is created.

3. Is CRM necessary for a business?

Ans: CRM is necessary for the tourism industry so that we come to know what a customer wants.

Terminal Exercises

1. Define marketing? How does it differ from selling?

Ans: Marketing is a comprehensive term and includes a set of ongoing activities necessary to create and stimulate consumer demands and to direct the flow of goods and services from producer (one who makes) to consumer (one who uses) in the process of distribution.

Differences between marketing and selling can be summarised as follows:

Marketing	Selling
Is “product-oriented approach”	Starts with the buyer and focuses on the needs of the buyer.
Starts with the buyer and focuses on the needs of the buyer.	Starts with the seller and focuses on the needs of the seller.
Is satisfying the needs of the customer	Is preoccupation with seller’s need to convert the product into cash.
Is a broader term and includes selling.	Is a part of marketing.
Consumer determines price, price determines cost.	Cost determines price.

2. What are the features of tourism products? Describe the functions of marketing in relation to tourism.

Ans: The features of tourism products are,

1. Inseparability: Services are consumed and experienced by a customer simultaneously, and as such makes it impossible to demonstrate the product being offered before it is actually consumed. For example, a tourist who is travelling from Delhi to Mumbai will consume the services offered by the airline and at the same time feel the experience.
2. Perishability: This is another important aspect of tourism products. Tourism products are intangible in nature and cannot be stored like other tangible products. For example, if a bus having a capacity of 50 seats leaves with 30 filled seats only, the vacant seats cannot be stored and therefore become useless, or so to speak, they perish.
3. Ownership: In tourism products, a customer buys only the experience. The transfer of ownership does not take place. For example, in the case of tourism products like hotels, houseboats and aeroplanes, the customer experiences only the stay in a hotel or a houseboat but does not own the product.
4. Heterogeneity: The other aspect of tourism products is their heterogeneity. Tourism products are a combination of several services provided by people. The high involvement of humans results in variation in behaviour from one consumer to another. For example, an employee at a bank counter may not behave in the same manner with every customer.

3. What is a marketing mix? What are its various elements?

Ans: Marketing mix is defined as a set of controllable marketing tools that a firm blends to produce the response it wants in the target market. It consists of everything the firm can do to influence the demand for its product. It constitutes the core of the organisation’s marketing system, which includes four basic decision areas known as the “four Ps” of marketing. These are,

Product
Price
Promotion
Place (distribution)

4. What constitutes a Marketing Environment? As a tourism professional, suggest ways to handle the changing marketing environment.

Ans: The overall marketing environment is divided into two categories i.e Macro-environment and micro-environment.

Macro environment refers to all those external factors or forces which affect the business and are beyond the control of a business organisation. These factors are the political environment, the economic environment, the demographic environment, the technological environment and the socio-cultural environment. All these factors have a significant impact on the functioning of a business organisation.
Micro environment refers to all those factors which directly affect the ability of a business unit to serve its customers. In other words micro environment is the immediate environment of a firm, which includes suppliers, consumers, competitors, and intermediaries.

5. Discuss the main pricing strategies that can be used by tourism organisations.

Ans:

Penetration Pricing: In penetration pricing, an organisation keeps a low price to increase sales and market share for its products. If a hotel wants to promote its new launch, it will offer it at a lower rate to increase occupancy.
Skimming the Cream Price: A resort can promote its new services by making customers feel that their services are superior to those of its competitors. Therefore, customers happily pay higher prices and avail those services.
Psychological Pricing: This pricing is used to psychologically appeal to the customers. Some hotels show their rental rates as 1900, 3999, or any number that is just below the rounded figure.
Promotional Pricing: Indian Airlines offers a round trip from Delhi to Mumbai for just Rs 2000, provided the interested tourists travel within a week.
Discount Pricing: Discount pricing is a strategy used to increase sales by offering a discount on the price of a product. These prices are offered during a particular season, on the purchase of a specified quantity or on a specified amount of purchase. It is commonly seen in hotels where they offer a discount rate during the off-season to attract more guests.

6. How does advertising differ from sales promotion? Briefly describe the chief sales promotion incentives used in the tourism sector.

Ans: Difference between advertising and sales promotion

Advertising	Sales Promotion
Advertising is impersonal in nature	Sales promotion is personal in nature.
It is aimed at creating demand	Its scope is limited compared to advertising
It targets a huge population at a time	Its scope is limited as compared to advertising
Advertising does not provide immediate feedback	Sales promotion provides immediate feedback to companies

A brief description of some of these sales promotion methods mainly used in the tourism sector is as follows:

Discount Coupons: This method is followed for consumer shopping goods such as textiles, household articles, etc. Consumers are allowed to avail discounts on their purchase when they surrender their coupons to the seller.
Free Samples: In this method, the companies distribute samples of their product free of cost. This method is most effective in promoting consumers’ necessities and convenience goods. For example, newspapers, medicines, etc.
Trade Shows & Exhibition: Trade shows and exhibitions are conducted to attract the attention of consumers and remind them of the products available in the market.

7. What are various channels of distribution used in the tourism business? List the factors determining their selection.

Ans: The following distribution channels are used in tourism.

Travel Agents: Travel agents are those who buy the product from wholesalers and sell the product to tourists for a commission. They act as intermediaries between the customer and the supplier and are known as retailers in tourism. They work in close contact with the tourists and build a personal rapport with them. These agents act as a single local contact point and as such them need not contact many suppliers. In some cases, they make all the arrangements at the destination and also simplify payment in case of international travel.
National, State and Local Tourism Agencies: Travel agencies promote tourism in certain geographic areas. They may be sponsored by the state or constitute business associations with the common goal of providing information and promoting tourism in certain regions. Tourist agencies advertise resources and tourist attractions, and help customers to plan their trips, providing maps, guides, and bookings.
Tour Operators and Wholesalers: Tour operators are wholesalers, also called consolidators, who buy in large volumes and have access to a surplus inventory at highly discounted rates. Tour operators prepare tour packages and give them to travel agents for selling. They design packages as per the requirements of the market. The wholesalers obtain rates and availability directly from the supplier and create packages with different accommodation and transportation options.
Online Travel Companies: The use of the Internet has given birth to new intermediaries, also known as cybermediaries. These companies do not physically own the products; they buy from suppliers, then display and offer products through the internet. The examples of such companies are makemytrip.com, yatra.com, cleartrip.com and ibibo.com. These companies sell tourism products like air tickets, railway tickets and hotel rooms, etc.

8. What is the process of Customer Relationship Management? State the significance of Customer Relationship Management for the tourism industry.

Ans: Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a model for managing a company’s

interactions with current and future customers. It is all about building, maintaining, and sustaining relations with customers. CRM is aimed at customer satisfaction and, above all, customer loyalty.

Practical use of CRM can be seen in the case of hotels or hotel chains, which actively collect the available data about their guests.

All available information about a guest is stored in a separate database and is properly analysed, and a profile of each guest is created.
Based on the created profile, it is possible to access each guest in a special and personalised way, because the hotel management and staff are familiar with the wishes and needs of guests.
When the hotel has enough information about its guests, it can make classification and segmentation of individual guests or groups of guests, and can determine the product needs of each individual customer or group of guests.