B&B SUCCESS - For small scale accommodation owners

Tourism IS marketing. There are absolutely no disciplines involved in the tourism process which are not marketing-led. Since Thomas Cook's first inspirational tour for teetotal Methodists to London's great exhibition, tourism has always been about identifying a market need and fulfilling it. Albeit, making choices about the needs you fulfill - in Cook's case, for instance, he could have identified the teetotaler's need for alcohol. He didn't. In fact, because he felt that tourism was better than drunkenness and lewd activity - tell that to some of today's operators!

The full Pandora's box of marketing was opened and explored by such luminaries as Philip Kotler from "Marketing Management" (1967) to "marketing Insights from A-Z" (2003). Whereas 50 years ago, the marketing function was used to sell a manufacturers products to the public; marketing now drives all a successful organizations functions.. Manufacturing (or in tourism terms - Product Creation) now simply exists to support the marketing function. It is absolutely clear that the major players who dominate our world marketplace have little or no interest in making or stocking anything. The major focus of powerful brands, and the source of their sustainability is their identification with their marketplaces. So, for any intervention to be reasonably sustainable, it cannot be "Created and marketed" - it simply has to be "Marketed and created".

Why, after all, should any organization be concerned with the messy and risky business of making anything if they own their customers' spend and can direct it where they will?

Marketing - a process not a power..!

There is an argument, and it's a very strong one, that the major human quality you need to be an effective marketer is humility and you use that humility in the following ways:


1.	You identify the market and its needs
2.	You choose the needs that you wish to fulfil
3.	You create your product to fulfil the market needs you've chosen
4.	You price the product in line with the marketplace
5.	You place the product where it will be seen by your chosen market
6.	You promote your product to the market you've chosen
7.	You carry on identifying the market and reacting to its needs

This is the simple recipe for success followed by successive marketing successes from the Assyrians in 3,000 B.C. Mesopotamia to New Labour in 2000 A.D. UK. Let's see how it may work for sustainable tourism…

Three markets' needs a sustainable tourism project has to fulfil… and one it must understand.

Well, first, there's the potential tourists. Yes, first. Who are they? Where are they? What do they like? What do they do? What do they read? How do they think? Where do they go? What do they drive? What do they buy? What do they wear? What do they believe? What do they eat? How do they speak? How do they communicate? What do they enjoy? How do they save? How do they earn? What are their opinions? How do they vote? Even, how often do they have sex, with whom and where?

And, how do you find out the answers to all of those questions? Strangely enough, you actually ASK the questions and you actually LISTEN to the answers.
Take as much time as you need to do the job thoroughly. No amount of time doing appropriate research is ever wasted. There is simply no alternative, you won't find out what you need to know from books, reports, or any other form of medium, even (and most dangerously) from your little conditioned, opinionated mind - this needs to be as open as you can get it! By the end of this part of the process you will know more about your potential market and its needs than you do about your brother or sister's. And you will be surprised… and , maybe, a little enlightened.

Just one word of warning; the rule book of needs was written by Abraham Maslow in his "Hierarchy of Needs" . Bottom of the hierarchy is "food and shelter"- top, and the one we're all going for currently is "self -actualization". Now, whilst one can pretty much actualize yourself by what you say, remember, tourism is about what you do!

By now you will have a very rough idea about a tourism project that may fulfil the expressed needs of the market, so let's have a little look at the second set of needs that need to be fulfilled - the potential project stakeholders. Same process really, and you're looking for a "Fit" . Where the two sets of needs converge - that's your project.

The third set of needs are yours. If you're not doing something fulfilling (and that actually means fulfilling your needs) you aren't going to be happy doing it. So why not go through a personal needs process and try to do it honestly!

And the fourth? The competition of course. No project can comfortably succeed unless it has something called "Sustainable Competitive Advantage" . Competition, like anything else is driven by its needs, understanding these needs and positioning yourself accordingly is vital to your sustainable success.

Life is about making choices (so they say)...

So, by now you have a map of needs; the markets, the projects, your potential competitors and yours. Why not create a roadmap? Imagine the power that you can identify, and your project can utilize, when your three sets of needs are potentially fulfilled…

But choose wisely. You know they say "Be careful what you pray for - you may get it!"

By now you'll have understood the old adage "Marketing is about the identification and fulfillment of needs" and the newer one " Fulfil your needs by meeting theirs".

See this full article at:
http://www.totemtourismmarketing.org/eithical_marketing.htm

Get a free website health check at:
www.market4results.com

Get a look at totemtourismmarketing 2003 spring report at:
www.totemtourismmarketing.org/SusTourRep-Spring03dl.htm

Coming soon... more marketing resources...

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Published by Totem Tourism Marketing © 2003
1 The Grove, Bath, BA1 4AT, United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0)1225 484086
Email: info@TotemTourismMarketing.org

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