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Jan 2004  |  April 2003

Ethical Marketing for Sustainable Tourism - 1

There is now a great debate as to just how sustainable tourism projects should be marketed. Given the nature of sustainable tourism as pro-community, pro-poor, pro-ecology, pro-culture, it definitely falls into the camp of anti-mass tourism and, because mass-tourism (and everything else: bad globalisation, Big Mac's, Starbucks, Nike etc) is, by its very nature, marketing, you could say that sustainable tourism proponents and projects are anti-marketing.

Well, not quite, because, to succeed, any tourism project needs tourists. In fact, to the simple-minded, they are integral to the whole exercise. "And how does it get them" goes the question, "Well, it needs to market" I hear you cry. So the search begins for a form of marketing which will fit with sustainable tourism, and not tarnish its pristine image. You can just imagine the serious heads bowed in thought, and the contented smiles when the answer is forthcoming "Ethical marketing". Now we're all happy, at least one hand tied behind our backs in the marketplace, but consciences comfortably back in our pockets again. Time to write the "Ethical Marketing" rulebook.

Humbug..!

Looks like we want to fulfil our own needs to be good and to do good things, even to fail in them because the world is bad.

This kind of thinking relies on two fundamental inputs:

1) A commitment to use resources of time, money or emotion (usually someone elses) to quell a guilt or fulfil a pride by a "Doing good" that has no place in the commercial world.

2) A mistaken understanding of the practice and principles of marketing.

However much we may want to believe that "Marketing" is a power that can be used, combined with money to change the world we know, we're wrong. Marketing is only a catalyst, the implementation of which simply facilitates and disseminates changes waiting to happen. Quickly, perhaps, but that's technology for you. Widely, perhaps, but that's just because most modern marketed products/services are born in the USA and American distribution networks are vital and helpful to fast world growth.

What is marketing?

Marketing, that evil practice, is classically defined as follows "The identification and fulfillment of needs".

Marketing, that dastardly process, is simply composed of these elements: "Research, Product, Price, Place, Promotion".

Nothing wrong so far, you may say except when what the market thinks it needs is lots of expensive stuff cheap. Like air travel and hotels and food. All of which are only obtainable cheaply by polluting the atmosphere, keeping poor people poor, treating them like slaves and trashing our world heritage.

Is the solution to create worthwhile tourism projects and then try to market them to an audience who really want expensive stuff cheap? To ethically market them to good hearted souls who recognize their duty to the Earth? Cultural creatives or suchlike? Or to create and run the project for its relatively short lifespan until it dies with or without recriminations, but, in the case of donor-funded projects, with lots of "Outputs"?

You are so MISSING THE POINT..!

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:

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 sustainable 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".

Creating the project...

If you've done the preparatory work assiduously, you now have leave to continue the process with a real understanding where most people begin with none. You will have the real power of the marketing process - behind you as a major asset, and not in front of you as a hurdle to overcome.

You'll now create your "Unique Sales Proposition" or "Unique Selling Points" or what you will. You've chosen your market, seen what they actually want, understood what your competition can actually deliver and found YOUR PROTECTED NICHE. Safe in your research and understanding, you can now create your project.

And, your project is to continue to be market-based and, hence, successful isn't it? So you are going to carry on practicing these principles, in your donor presentations, in your financing meetings, in your participant and stakeholder seminars, "Needs" will be the jewels you'll examine and seek to address above all.

And pricing it...

How many times have you heard "That looks too cheap - nobody'll buy it" And how many times are you proved wrong? How many times have you seen overpriced, under-researched projects hit the dust.

It is a very sad fact that the marketplace is driven by two motivating forces - fear and greed. Unfortunately that does include both you and me, in whatever guises these emotions appear - they do drive our purchasing process.

Your project will have to be priced to deliver real value as it is perceived in the marketplace or it will not succeed.

Attraction rather than promotion..!

It is a truism that the marketplace (and, in particular the tourism marketplace) is suffering from "Buyer Fatigue". Customers, having been sold dreams and bought reality, find it more and more difficult to believe what they are told by the global brands. In fact, they don't really believe what they're told by anyone now the media is so transparently discredited.

Pure media is rapidly becoming cost-ineffective, particularly when aimed at a more erudite audience.

You are not alone, this is the same for every market participant, and this is where your superb research will hold you in good stead. You know your market, you know your client intimately. You should know exactly what she or he buys, who she or he talks to, where she or he goes, you know what she or he actually trusts with her or his money.

Think. How do you make your personal relationships with members of your peer group? You made them in places you trusted, with people you trusted.

Is this so different to placing your product in the marketplace? Make friends with organizations that share your target clients values. Not necessarily that just "Talk the Talk" - that means zilch. But organizations that have a relationship with your prospective clients based on action - commercial action. Make friends with Organizations that have NEEDS that you can jointly fulfil. in market placement.

If your client goes to Starbucks be there if you must. If your client buys from Tiffany, be there too. If your client buys from the Farmers' Market be there too. If your client is in San Diego, it's a bit stoopid being in Des Moines, but not so silly being in Seattle. Get it?

And, the internet is not a panacea but it does have advantages as part of a broader market placement concept. Don't knock it but don't depend on it.

Promotion rather than attraction...

By far the most effective method of selling is the principal dealing direct with the client. Dale Carnegie's empire was based on it and many fortunes were created as a result. Any other mechanism is never as fulfilling or vital. However, if you're looking for a thousand international tourists from all over the world, you're going to take a long time getting them by knocking on their doors…and following them up.

The second most effective route is the principal telephoning the client.

All of the other routes progressively disengage the people who really know, and are viscerally committed to the project, from active engagement with the actual prospective client. Who knows why? Maybe clients are too insignificant or bosses too important.

Anyway, in a service industry where sustainable is often thought to represent small-scale, it is of the utmost importance that key project players are actually involved and committed to client acquisition - at every level. It will not make a project any more sustainable to have an academic academic at its head.

You think you've finished..?

So, you're getting your customers and you think you've done your marketing job, You're toast! Start at the beginning again and again and again. You'll evolve, you'll change out of all recognition perhaps, but you'll follow and keep your market close each and every step of the way, And, as soon as you forget who leads (them) and who follows (you), the game is over.

A sad example of "Sustainability" taking the long route to success:

Committed to underperforming assets and marginalized by the supermarkets, farmers were desperate for survival. Their only real choice to understand the market and use their assets to create products with real value-added potential that fulfilled real market needs. This would enable farmers to obtain some strength in the market and possibly ensure their ownership of products with USP's with a market franchise that were to the farmers benefit.

Organic food would fulfil this role because:

Initially, organic food was delivered by a number of alternative methods, either directly by farmers or through committed organizations. Sales were low as the supermarkets monopolized the majority of the food trade. Pressure from the more vocal customers ensured that supermarkets eventually stocked organic lines. However the visual appeal of organic food was not as good as that of non-organic - by its nature, it was simply not as regular or attractive as battery-food. Also, the marketplace was skewed in favour of the supplier (too few suppliers, too large a marketplace - no good for supermarkets bargaining and profit margins). Very quickly the following took place:

Naturally, the supplier base would now exceed the market size creating a better environment for supermarkets to bargain in hence ensuring their power over suppliers and market domination.

Why did the farmers and suppliers lose out on the "Organic" War:

Fair Trade..?

It is quite amazing to believe that our highly educated first world market appear to take absolutely no notice of the provenance of their purchases in their buying habits unless there is a campaign or two.

"Cash crops" are a result of our imperial past when we treated conquered countries as distant market gardens growing cotton, tea, coffee, cocoa, bananas etc. Because we owned the properties and determined the workers wages and conditions we got cheap product. Because we controlled the marketing we made lots of money.

This system evolved into an understanding that the "Third World" could produce all sorts of products cheap - actually including tourism. So, instead of governments taking advantage of the third world, our major marketing companies took the reins and now dominate the marketplace by outsourcing their production of all kinds of goods. Cash crops continue as ever.

Naturally, having become gradually aware of this reality over the last 200 years or so, our markets, renowned for their sense of fair play, have developed much more ethically. A substantial percentage of the 1st world population, (maybe up to 10%) are committed to the "Fair Trade" revolution.

An example of this trading is coffee. The current "Cash Crop" progress is as follows:

So, the producer of the coffee, the person who is committed to the whole production process gets $500, if he can sell it to a coffee dealer.

The ultimate user pays some $120,000 for this same coffee. So the whole process delivers some $119.500 gross profit for an outlay of $500. The major beneficiaries being:

Estate Agents

Property Owners

Shareholders

Directors and employees

The public purse (taxation)

(All in the 1st world) who get up to $119,500

…and the grower family who get up to $500

Fair Trade wins at last - or does it..?

Seeing that customers would like to give a better deal to suppliers, but the whole marketing chain was tremendously strong, a number of "Fair Trade" houses sought to pay the suppliers more sustainable prices and guarantee their production, In time, the suppliers could earn up to double their current income, which could make at least an increase of 0.04% in end prices. In fact, it appears that the end outlets are charging some 5% extra for a cup of fair traded coffee. This "Fair Trade Supplement" represents some $7,200, or 14 times the actual cost of the supplement. At least the consciences of the purchasers are blamed.

Why do the 1st world companies get the massive lion's share? Because they are the closest to the customer and are in control of the marketing.

If any sustainable tourism project is to be sustainably successful, it must follow today's marketing logic. However good the product, if it has not been created as a result of a clearly identified marketing need, it will fail. However good the project, if it is not run to fulfil its market's needs, it will fail. However well-managed the enterprise, if it is not in direct and touch with its end-users, it will not be sustainable.

Valere Tjolle
25 April 2003

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