Marketing in travel and tourism article. Marketing of a tourism enterprise. Principles of tourism marketing

Marketing- This is the activity of promoting goods and services from producers to consumers. There are many definitions of marketing as the process of directing the flow of goods and services from producer to consumer or user. Marketing is a broader concept than sales and advertising activities. Sales and advertising activities are only one aspect of marketing. Marketing is a targeted, strategic and managed activity that goes through all stages - from product development, its promotion on the market to sales and after-sales service. Marketing is the complete process of moving products and services from producer to consumer.

Marketing in any organization is the management activity of planning and implementing decisions related to the production and sale of certain goods and services in order to meet the needs of a certain group of people who have set a specific goal. Marketing is the standard of social life.

Marketing plays an important role in the activities of all organizations, be it non-profit educational institutions, resorts or manufacturers of tourism goods and services in order to generate their own profit. The essence of marketing is to provide the right product or service at the right time and in the right place at the right price.

Marketing events include product planning and development, pricing, product distribution methods, sales promotion, and promotion of products and services.

The need for marketing activities is determined by:

the existence of free competition between organizations;
the opportunity for buyers to choose similar goods and services from different manufacturers;
good consumer awareness of other available goods and services;
organizational goals that can be expressed in measurable terms.

Marketing arises and exists as a response of an organization in conditions of free market competition in the presence of relative freedom of choice for buyers.

Marketing activities are aimed at:

1) for marketing analysis and planning with subsequent identification of groups of potential buyers;
2) production of goods or provision of related services for these target groups;
3) coordination of the organization’s activities to achieve the most advantageous position in the market;
4) to determine ways to control the conduct of business in accordance with pre-established goals.

So, marketing is the strategic philosophy of a company that establishes what goods and services should be produced and for which group of consumers. Marketing defines goals and evaluates their achievement, thus coordinating the activities of the enterprise. Marketing establishes discipline within an organization through setting goals and monitoring to ensure its effective functioning.

The most important task of marketing management is to influence the level, timing and nature of demand in one or more target markets of the enterprise. The most effective demand management requires an organization to be customer-focused and systematically apply technology and marketing tools.

Marketing in tourism is the activity of planning and developing tourism goods and services, selling, promoting goods and services, stimulating demand for them and pricing.

This activity helps to promote goods or services from producer to consumer in order to obtain maximum profits while most effectively meeting the needs of the target group of tourists.

The specific nature of marketing in tourism is determined by the features and distinctive characteristics of the tourism product (in comparison with other consumer goods and services), as well as the characteristics of consumers and producers of tourism goods and services.

Tourist services have 7 distinctive characteristics:

1. Inability to store. If there is no demand for them at the moment, hotel or airplane seats cannot be stored for the purpose of selling them in the future. Therefore, managers need to make efforts to stimulate demand for these services in a given short-term period.
2. Intangibility of services. There are no measured values for assessing a tourism product: it is impossible to have an idea of the quality of the product before purchasing and consuming it. In this regard, the image of the company in the market and the prestige of its goods (services) are of particular importance for consumers when purchasing.
3. Susceptibility to seasonal fluctuations. The marketing activities of a travel agency will differ during the peak season and in the off-season. In the off-season, additional measures to stimulate demand are needed: low prices, various additional services, varying different types of tourism (diversification of supply).
4. Significant staticity, attachment to a specific place (camp site, airport, since they cannot be moved to another place).
5. Discrepancy in time between the fact of sale of a travel service and its consumption. The purchase of tourism goods (services) is made weeks or months before the start of their consumption. In this case, advertising printed materials play an important role, providing visual information about the purchased tourism product and allowing one to create a sense of the benefits that can be derived from its consumption in the future. At the stage of selling a tourism product, great importance is attached to the degree of reliability of information, as well as the reliability of the product (the quality of the product corresponds to its price).
6. Territorial separation of the consumer and producer in the tourism market. Information and advertising activities on a broader (international) level are important.
7. The buyer overcomes the distance separating him from the product and the place of consumption, and not vice versa.

Producers and consumers of tourism services also have their own specific characteristics. The demand for travel services is highly elastic depending on market conditions, income, level of education, advertising, and price. Assessing the quality of travel services is quite subjective: the consumer’s assessment is greatly influenced by external factors or persons who are not directly related to the package of purchased services (local residents, other vacationers, members of a tour group, family members).

Tourism marketing is addressed not only to “end consumers” - tourists, but also to intermediate authorities - travel agencies, partners, public tourism associations, and government tourism regulatory bodies.

The characteristics of tourism service providers include such distinctive properties as complementarity and interaction with each other. This connection is especially visible in the long term, reflecting the composite nature of the tourism product: the profitability of transport companies depends on the occupancy and quality of accommodation facilities, and their survival in the market is determined by the quality of attractions and the degree of attendance of a given destination.

In a short period of time, various travel service providers do not take into account each other's interests in developing their marketing programs. Practice shows the predominance of this short-term orientation in the development of marketing strategies.

Manufacturers in tourism- this is a significant number of independent and different in profile and specialization travel enterprises (tour operator, travel agency, hotel, restaurant, travel agency) with various goals.

There are several levels of marketing here: enterprises, public organizations and government agencies. Tourism is a complex system, a symbiosis of economics, politics, sociology, ecology and culture, therefore, to achieve a positive marketing effect, close coordination of the marketing of various tourism organizations is necessary.

Components general marketing systems in the tourism field there are: the state, local authorities, national and local (regional) tourism organizations and enterprises.

Western experience shows that joint efforts of private firms and official government tourism organizations in promoting the tourism industry have the greatest effect.

There is a close relationship between the different levels of marketing: the state, local authorities and associations take market data, including information from enterprises, and enterprises, in turn, base their marketing concepts on national and local tourism concepts. Marketing developments of the state are not a directive, but a recommendation, a guideline for the enterprise.

Per share national organizations and regional levels there are the following Features:

conducting marketing research at the national level;
development of marketing concepts with recommendations for their implementation for enterprises;
legal and investment support for the development of tourism infrastructure;
consulting services on the implementation of the marketing concept;
assistance in conducting public relations and advertising events (exhibitions and fairs, prospectuses);
creating a positive image of the country, promoting the country as an attractive tourist destination for foreign tourists.

Tourism organizations are involved in the development of new products, tour programs, pricing, improving product quality, as well as developments in the marketing of tourism products and the implementation of national and local marketing concepts.

The state plays a specific role in supporting and developing tourism at the national and international levels. The experience of different countries shows that the success of tourism development directly depends on how this industry is perceived at the state level and the extent to which it enjoys government support. State programs to stimulate inbound tourism developed in a number of countries provide for tax benefits, simplification of border and customs regimes, creation of favorable conditions for investment in tourism, increased budget allocations for infrastructure development, advertising in foreign markets, and personnel training.

In Russia, there is no necessary tax support for tourism from both federal and local authorities. The formation of market relations in Russia, the opening of the market for foreign firms - all this led to a radical change in the ratio of export-import operations in the international tourism system. Russia has turned into a country of predominantly outbound tourism. At the same time, the number of foreign tourists visiting Russia annually is at the 1986 level.

The reduction in the volume of domestic tourism and reorientation towards outbound tourism reduces the income of both Russian tourism service producers and local and state budgets.

In the current conditions, it is necessary to stimulate the development of domestic tourism by improving the quality of service and competitive pricing, since the great demand of Russian residents for holidays abroad is due to the offer of higher quality service at reasonable prices.

Tourist terminology is undergoing significant changes in accordance with the rapid pace of development and formation of both social relations and tourism, its industries and types. The interpretation of tourist terms is the subject of fierce debate among apologists of tourism theory.

In order to establish the meaning of tourism and more fully describe the scope of its activities, it is necessary first of all to identify the various groups of subjects that interact in tourism.

1. Tourists. These are people who experience various mental and physical needs, the nature of which determines the directions and types of participation of these people in tourism activities.
2. Organizations providing goods and services to tourists. These are entrepreneurs who see tourism as an opportunity to make a profit by providing goods and services based on demand in the tourism market.
3. Local authorities. They consider tourism as an important economic factor associated with the income that local citizens can receive from this business in the form of taxes going to the local budget.
4. Receiving party. The local population perceives tourism primarily as a factor in employment. For this group, the result of interaction with tourists, including foreign ones, is important.

Thus, tourism can be defined as a set of phenomena and relationships that arise from the interaction of tourists, suppliers, local authorities and the local population in the process of tourism activities. Travel and tourism are a complex of related business areas. The profession closest to tourism is the distribution of tours, i.e. the work of travel agencies. Directly involved in tourism are airlines, car rental companies, railways, buses, hotels and restaurants. Related types of business also include financial structures that finance the development of the service sector, etc.

At the same time, tourism has specific features that distinguish it not only from trade in goods, but also from other forms of trade in services. Here there is both trade in services and goods (according to experts, the share of services in tourism is 75%, goods - 25%), as well as the special nature of the consumption of tourism services and goods at the place of their production, moreover, in a certain situation.

Marketing, translated from English, means research and organization of activities in the market of goods, services, securities, aimed at ensuring sales and promoting goods from manufacturer to consumer.

Marketing in tourism is a system of continuous coordination of the services offered with services that are in demand in the market and which the tourism enterprise is able to offer at a profit for itself and more efficiently than competitors do.

So, marketing is a system for managing the trade and production activities of a tourism company in a market economy.

There are many other definitions of marketing. Let us dwell on the most acceptable definition of its main goal - to recognize, identify and evaluate the existing or latent demand for tourism services that a travel agency can offer to the consumer, and direct its efforts to the development, production, promotion and sale of these services in order to obtain optimal profits.

Answering the question why travel agencies need marketing, let’s say that their activities in market conditions and competition are always associated with greater or lesser financial risk, the degree of which especially increases in foreign economic activity, including in the field of tourism. In 1995-2000 Many travel agencies, due to mistakes made in their work, suffered financial collapse and were forced to cease their activities.

When talking about the concept of marketing, concepts such as “marketing position”, “marketing process” and “marketing technology” are used.

The marketing position is based on the fact that in market conditions and competition, demand determines supply. Consequently, the success of a business depends on its ability to offer travel services in such quantity and quality, in such a place and at such a price that would correspond to actual and potential demand.

Thus, the starting position of marketing is the presence of a certain market and consumer demand for travel services. There is a demand for travel services, which means that the company can actively develop a marketing strategy and plans for its implementation, and if there is no demand, then it must either look for it elsewhere.

The marketing process is a series of interrelated activities that begin with identifying the market and demand and include the planning, development, production, distribution and sale of goods and services to consumers.

Marketing technology is the management methods used by an entrepreneur in the process of identifying and studying demand, planning production and selling tourism services and goods.

In other words, marketing is a system of interrelated techniques and measures that allow a travel agency to achieve positive results in the travel services market.

The marketing concept is more holistic and comprehensive here than anywhere else. Based on the above, we can highlight the following features of tourism marketing:

1. For tourism marketing, the task of stimulating demand is less important. The demand for travel services is constantly growing, and the tourism industry is less dependent on fluctuations in economic conditions. For tourism marketing, it is more important to “direct demand” in the right direction.
2. A reliable information policy in relation to the client, especially at the stage of selling services, as well as thoroughness in developing a tourism product, is of great importance.
3. Considering the special role of the subjective factor in the process of purchasing travel services, travel agencies should pay great attention to protecting the rights of the client - the consumer of travel services.
4. The influence of the seasonality factor necessitates variability in travel services or special attention to marketing activities during the off-season period in order to make the company less dependent on the temporary factor.
5. In the process of marketing management, it is necessary to take into account, to a greater extent than in other industries, not only material aspects, but also

Briefly, the features of tourism marketing can be formulated as follows:

* not stimulating demand, but managing demand;
* high degree of reliability of information about the tourism product;
* protection of consumer rights;
* special role of marketing in the off-season period (diversification of tourism products);
* the central role of the psychological, behavioral and social characteristics of the consumer;

This is a rather long definition of "tourism marketing" - it contains a number of ideas that we will look at in more detail.

The first point to note is that marketing is not a single activity, but a system of activities. In other words, it is a sequence of actions of a tourism enterprise that must be combined to achieve its goals. Therefore, marketing is not only advertising and selling services or simply developing services. It is a system in which all functions and activities must be integrated in accordance with the marketing concept.

This circumstance fundamentally distinguishes marketing from commercial work. If commercial work is to use all forces and means to enhance sales, then the goal of marketing is the interconnected process of producing and selling services in accordance with consumer demand.

The second point to note in our definition is that marketing does not end with one action. You cannot think of it as a monotonous process, whether we are talking about the date of introduction of a new tourism product or the introduction of a new price. The fact is that the market is constantly in motion, in dynamics. For example, consumer demand changes under the influence of various factors; competitors are also working to introduce new services to the market. These examples suggest that marketing is indeed a continuous process and the tourism enterprise must be continuously involved in it. Marketing, therefore, involves looking to the future and not just focusing on the present.

The third point concerns coordination. It is necessary to coordinate actions within the tourism enterprise with the conditions of the external environment. If all this is considered separately, it is impossible to achieve the intended goals. The secret lies in coordinating activities within the company with information received from outside. This means that the decision must be made to use all marketing features and tools to achieve this alignment.

The fourth idea embedded in our definition concerns understanding what the service a firm offers actually is.

The fifth point in this definition gives an idea of what marketing does to satisfy customer needs. This means not only what the client is currently purchasing, but also what he would buy under other circumstances (for example, with an increase in income). Marketing, as already noted, should be an activity of foresight. It involves forecasting, or at least getting a good view of, what consumers are likely to need most.

Thus, the concept of marketing is a focus on the needs and wants of consumers, supported by comprehensive efforts aimed at satisfying the consumer.

Introduction 3

1 The concept of marketing in the tourism industry 5

2 Structure of the tourism product 12

2.1 Types and purposes of marketing research 15

2.2 Stages of marketing 19

3 Elements of the marketing strategy of Russian tourism enterprises 22

3.3 Distribution channels 28

3.3 Demand stimulation methods 31

4 Analysis of marketing of tourist services of the company "Sacvoyage" 35

Conclusion 42

Literature 43

Introduction

Tourism is one of the leading and most dynamically developing sectors of the world economy. The relevance of the topic is that tourism today plays a major role in the global economy and is currently one of the most profitable types of business in the world. Due to its rapid growth rate, it is recognized as an economic phenomenon of the past century and a brilliant future is predicted for it in the coming century. According to the forecast of the World Tourism Organization (WTO), the growth of the tourism industry will be irreversible in the 21st century, and by 2020 the number of international tourist visits will be 1.6 billion.

Tourism in its main characteristics does not have any fundamental differences from other forms of economic activity, therefore all the basic provisions of modern marketing can be fully applied in this area. At the same time, tourism has certain features related to the nature of the services provided, labor, forms of sales, etc. Because of this, marketing in tourism has a number of characteristic features that distinguish it not only from trade in goods, but also from other forms of trade in services. Here there is trade in both services and goods (according to experts, the share of services in tourism is 75%, goods – 25%), as well as the special nature of the consumption of tourism services and goods at the place of their production and in a certain situation. The marketing complex in tourism has its own characteristics that must be taken into account when doing business in this industry.

The main components of marketing of tourism services are: design of services, development of their organizational foundations (the relationship between the production process and sales of services), price of services, advertising activities, sale and promotion of services (commercial work).

The main thing that tourism services marketing methods should be aimed at is identifying opportunities to most fully satisfy people's needs from the point of view of psychological and social factors, as well as determining the best ways to finance the activities of travel companies based on available resources.

Tourist services are a special “invisible” product. The relationships being its implementation are varied and specific. The distribution system and baggage distribution channels are much different through the material distribution of physical goods.

The successful business of an enterprise depends not only on the manufactured product. It is not enough to produce a quality product; it must meet its consumer. Meeting a product with a potential consumer is the most important condition for its implementation. Therefore, some manufacturers offer bait products to the market through intermediaries, forming their own sales channels.

Marketing in tourism is the continuous coordination of the services offered with services that are in demand in the market and which the travel agency is able to offer at a profit for itself and more effectively than competitors do.

Purpose of the study: analysis of the features of tourism marketing. Analysis of marketing of tourist services of the company "Sacvoyage"

The following tasks arise from this:

Consider the concept of marketing in the tourism industry, the structure of the tourism product.

Study the types and purposes of marketing research .

Consider the elements of the marketing strategy of Russian tourism enterprises.

Conduct an analysis of the marketing of tourism services of the Sacvoyage company.

1 The concept of marketing in the tourism industry

Tourism marketing is often used in one of the following three meanings.

Marketing is advertising, sales promotion and pressure on the buyer, in other words, a set of particularly aggressive sales tools used to capture existing tourism markets. In this, the most mercantile meaning of the word, marketing is considered mainly in relation to the mass consumer market and to a much lesser extent to the high technology sectors, financial, social and cultural services.

Marketing is a set of market analysis tools (such as sales forecasting methods, simulation models and market research) available only to large enterprises, where they are used to develop a forward-looking and more scientific approach to analyzing needs and demand.

Marketing is the architect of the consumer society, i.e. a market system where sellers commercially exploit consumers.

Behind all this complex thinking lie three aspects of the marketing concept: the active aspect - penetrating markets; analytical aspect - understanding markets; ideological aspect - way of thinking.

Most often, one can observe a tendency to reduce the concept of marketing to its active dimension, i.e. to a number of sales techniques, and an extreme underestimation of its analytical aspect.

This vision of the role of marketing is based on the fact that with the help of marketing (and in reality, sales promotion) and advertising, you can force the market to accept anything. However, this is very flawed, since such sales methods are often developed without taking into account the real needs of potential buyers, but only on the basis of the seller's desire to make a record number of sales.

In fact, the marketing ideology is completely different. It is based, in essence, on the theory of individual choice, based on the principle of consumer priority. Within this approach, marketing is nothing more than the social expression and translation into operational terms of the management principles put forward by classical economics at the end of the 18th century. These principles were formulated by Adam Smith and form the basis of a market economy. They can be summarized as follows: “...the prosperity of society is the result not so much of altruistic behavior as of ensuring that the mutual interests of buyer and seller are matched through competitive exchange.”

A. Smith viewed human society, first of all, as a barter union, which is based on the exchange of various types of labor. He considered the tendency to exchange to be a fundamental property of human nature, considering it ahistorically, regardless of the stage of social development.

Despite the fact that in modern economics the basic principle derived by Adam Smith has been adjusted, it nevertheless remains the main principle governing the economic activities of an efficient firm operating in a free competitive market. Moreover, it is now clearer than ever that countries that rejected Adam Smith's ideas are finding themselves falling behind economically. The recent upheavals in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union clearly demonstrate this lag on many fronts.

At the heart of a market economy we find four central ideas.

People strive to get rewards from life. It is the pursuit of personal interest that motivates people to work, is the engine of growth, individual development and determines general well-being.

The nature of the reward is determined by individual preferences, which depend on tastes, culture, values, etc.

It is through free and competitive exchange that people and the organizations with which they interact best achieve their goals. If exchange is free, it will occur only when its terms create utility for both parties, and if it is competitive, then the risk of producers abusing their market position is limited.

The mechanisms of a market economy are based on the principle of individual freedom and, in particular, on the principle of consumer priority. The moral justification of systems is based on the recognition that people are responsible for their own actions and have the ability to decide what is good for them and what is not.

It must be recognized that there is a large gap between what marketing claims to be “in theory” and what it is in real life. However, the concept of marketing is the ideal to which every company should strive. Even if this is a myth, it is a guiding myth, guiding the company in its actions.

From the above principles emerges a philosophy of action that is relevant to any organization engaged in satisfying customer needs. The scope of this marketing action can be divided into three main areas:

1) consumer marketing, when transactions are carried out between firms and final consumers, individuals or families;

2) industrial, or intercompany, marketing, when two parties in the exchange process are organizations;

3) social marketing, covering the areas of activity of non-profit organizations such as museums, universities, etc.

The marketing concept suggests that all company activities should have the main goal of satisfying user needs, since this is the best way to achieve its own growth goals and increase the company's income.

This philosophy of action involves two directions of activity of the company.

Systematic and ongoing analysis of the needs and requirements of key consumer groups, as well as the development of new product or service concepts that allow the company to serve selected customer groups better than competitors, and thereby provide itself with a sustainable competitive advantage. Strategic marketing combines these tasks.

Organization of sales, sales and communication policies to inform potential buyers and demonstrate the distinctive qualities of the product while reducing the cost of finding buyers. Such tasks are assigned to operational marketing.

Thus, the vast majority of Russian tourism companies adhere to the position of operational marketing. Strategic marketing is a very expensive activity, and therefore it remains the domain of only large tourism companies, corporations and hotel holdings. Among the Russian hospitality industry companies engaged in strategic developments are VAO Intourist, GLO Moscow, OJSC Aeroflot, government agencies of the executive branch and some others. Some Russian travel companies resort to the help of specialized marketing companies that carry out market research on order. However, as a rule, these studies are carried out with the aim of determining only the market potential for an already finished product, and only a small number of orders involve preliminary market research and identification of its needs.

Strategic and operational marketing complement each other and find their concrete embodiment within the framework of the company's marketing policy. Thus, by combining the two approaches, we can propose the following definition of marketing.

Marketing is a social process aimed at satisfying the needs and desires of people and organizations by facilitating the free, competitive exchange of goods and services of value to the buyer.

In other words, if a market player has done a good job of identifying consumer needs, has developed a suitable product or service, set an appropriate price for it, established distribution systems and effectively stimulated its sales, then such goods or services will probably easily find their buyer. This expresses the basic elements of marketing.

In today's competitive environment, no one really disputes the importance of marketing. There is little doubt that focusing all business activity on the needs of the customer or user is the only way to do business. Despite the general agreement, many companies in practice limit themselves only to operational marketing (actually organizing and promoting sales), leaving other components of marketing without attention. Understanding the concept of marketing is one thing, following that philosophy is another.

A company that embraces this philosophy will be faced with the need to build a market-driven organization whose behavior and actions are aligned with the marketing concept. Creating superior customer value while generating profit is more than a function of marketing. This is the purpose of all activities of the organization, and not just one department. In other words, strategic marketing is very important for the organization as a whole, and it cannot be considered as a purely functional unit of commercial services.

To achieve performance above the market average, an organization must achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. It can be achieved by four key components of market orientation: customer orientation, intermediate customer orientation, competitor orientation, and cross-functional coordination.

Focusing on the end consumer means focusing efforts at all levels of the organization on creating value for the consumer, understanding and anticipating their needs.

Orientation towards an intermediate client implies a willingness to treat trading firms not as simple intermediaries, but as their clients, i.e. desire to take into account their specific needs.

Focusing on competitors involves understanding the strengths and weaknesses of competitors, calculating their strategy and quickly responding to their actions.

Cross-functional coordination means sharing market intelligence within the organization, functional integration in formulating strategy, and using the vision and knowledge of various departments, not just the marketing department, to assess customer needs and problems.

A fifth component of a market-driven organization should be added: environmental monitoring. In other words, it is an ongoing analysis of alternative technologies, social changes, and government regulations that may present opportunities or threats to the firm.

In the tourism and hospitality industry, the fifth component of the organization takes on particular importance, since the industry is very susceptible to the external environment, its changes, both internal and external, it reacts sharply and very quickly to them, and incorrect or untimely assessment can sometimes lead to negative consequences , to the point of ruin.

Relationship marketing is also important in the hospitality industry. Company specialists and managers constantly work to establish good relationships with valuable customers, distributors, suppliers and communications representatives. The fate of the company or enterprise largely depends on their work in this direction. After all, the result of building relationships will be the conclusion of profitable transactions for the company.

Thus, marketing covers an area much broader than the traditional sphere of management, since it includes the organizational culture and climate that most effectively stimulate the behavior necessary for the successful implementation of the marketing concept.

2 Structure of the tourism product

Tourism in its main characteristics does not have any fundamental differences from other forms of economic activity. Therefore, all the essential provisions of modern marketing can be fully applied in tourism. At the same time, tourism has its own specifics that distinguish it not only from trade in goods, but also from other forms of trade in services. Here there is trade in both services and goods (according to experts, the share of services in tourism is 75%, goods – 25%), as well as the special nature of the consumption of tourism services and goods at the place of their production, moreover, in a certain situation .

In traditional production, having a specific result of labor, the concept of marketing has a more specific content. In tourism, the result of activity comes down to the tourism product. In essence, a tourism product is any service that satisfies certain needs of tourists and is subject to payment on their part. Tourist services include hotel, transport, excursion, translation, household, utility, intermediary and others. At the same time, “tourism product” can be considered in a narrow and broad sense. A tourism product in the narrow sense is the services of each specific sector of the tourism industry (for example, a hotel product, a tourism product of a tour operator, a transport enterprise, and so on). In a broad sense, a tourism product is a complex of goods and services that together form a tourist trip (tour) or are directly related to it. The main tourism product is a comprehensive service, i.e. a standard set of services sold to tourists in one “package”.

The tourism product, along with the general specific characteristics of services, has its own distinctive features.

This is a complex of services and goods characterized by a complex system of relationships between various components.

Tourism services have seven distinctive characteristics:

1. Inability to store. If there is no demand for them at the moment, hotel or airplane seats cannot be stored for the purpose of selling them in the future. Therefore, managers need to make efforts to stimulate demand for these services in a given short-term period.

2. Intangibility of services. There are no measured values for assessing a tourism product: it is impossible to have an idea of the quality of the product before purchasing and consuming it. In this regard, the image of the company in the market and the prestige of its goods (services) are of particular importance for consumers when purchasing.

3. Susceptibility to seasonal fluctuations. The marketing activities of a travel agency will differ during the peak season and in the off-season. In the off-season, additional measures to stimulate demand are needed: low prices, various additional services, varying different types of tourism (diversification of supply).

4. Significant staticity, attachment to a specific place (camp site, airport, since they cannot be moved to another place).

5. Discrepancy in time between the fact of sale of a travel service and its consumption. The purchase of tourism goods (services) is made weeks or months before the start of their consumption. In this case, advertising printed materials play an important role, providing visual information about the purchased tourism product and allowing one to create a sense of the benefits that can be derived from its consumption in the future. At the stage of selling a tourism product, great importance is attached to the degree of reliability of information, as well as the reliability of the product (the quality of the product corresponds to its price).

6. Territorial separation of the consumer and producer in the tourism market. Information and advertising activities on a broader (international) level are important.

7. The buyer overcomes the distance separating him from the product and the place of consumption, and not vice versa.

Demand for tourism services is extremely elastic with respect to income and price, but largely depends on political and social conditions. The consumer, as a rule, cannot see a tourism product before consuming it, and consumption itself in most cases is carried out directly at the place of production of the tourism service. The consumer overcomes the distance separating him from the product and the place of consumption, and not vice versa. The tourism product depends on variables such as space and time, and is characterized by fluctuations in demand. A tourism product is created through the efforts of many enterprises, each of which has its own operating methods, specific needs and different commercial goals. High quality of tourist services cannot be achieved if there are even minor shortcomings, since tourist services consist of these very little things and small details. The quality of tourism services is influenced by external factors of a force majeure nature (natural conditions, weather, tourism policy, international events, etc.).

These specific features of the tourism product have a significant impact on tourism marketing. Some authors put global content into the concept of marketing in tourism, such as the Swiss specialist J. Kripendorff: “Tourism marketing is a systematic change and coordination of the activities of tourism enterprises, as well as private and public policies in the field of tourism, carried out regionally, nationally or international plans. The purpose of such changes is to most fully satisfy the needs of certain consumer groups, while taking into account the possibility of obtaining appropriate profits."

The components of the overall marketing system in the tourism field are: the state, local authorities, national and local (regional) tourism organizations and enterprises.

Western experience shows that the joint efforts of private firms and official government tourism organizations in promoting the tourism industry give the greatest effect.

The following functions fall on the share of national organizations and regional levels:

Conducting marketing research at the national level;

Legal and investment support for the development of tourism infrastructure;

Consulting services on the implementation of the marketing concept;

Assistance in conducting public relations and advertising events (exhibitions and fairs, prospectuses);

Creating a positive image of the country, promoting the country as an attractive tourist destination for foreign tourists.

2.1 Types and purposes of marketing research

Marketing research is essential for a particular company in the process of systematically collecting and analyzing information in order to identify threats, weak and strong features and opportunities of the tourism market, as well as to develop an appropriate marketing strategy for successful business.

Research conducted in tourism provides an information base for tourism managers to make the right management decisions. Research reveals:

Problems that interfere with the effective conduct of business;

Causes of problems and possible ways to resolve them;

Future trends in the tourism market.

Research also allows you to: see new opportunities; determine effective ways of doing business; better understand the needs of the market and reduce the likelihood of risk in accordance with the changes that constantly occur there.

Research that reduces risk in the decision-making process largely determines the success of a tourism enterprise.

Thus, managers can plan, implement and control tourism service activities more successfully if they have the necessary information.

All management decisions must be made taking into account data obtained during marketing research.

The intensive growth of tourism in Russia did not facilitate marketing research and planning of marketing activities. However, the crisis has forced many businesses to re-evaluate their operating methods in order to survive the crisis and competition. When making management decisions, managers pursue the goal of making a profit. But, as long-term practice in the European tourism market shows, the main tasks of any tourism enterprise, if its strategic goal is to obtain long-term profits and maintain demand for its goods and services, are to determine the needs of consumers and satisfy their needs. The marketing concept of doing business, which arose in the late 70s in the Western market, involves conducting market research and planning marketing activities at the very beginning of developing a tourism product: firms need to know the needs of potential customers, determine the possible number of buyers of a product or service, how and where they want this is to buy, at what price and what they expect from the purchased product or service. To obtain such information, there are certain research technologies. Tourism enterprises choose the most appropriate ones from many different approaches.

Conducting marketing research is necessary at all stages of a company's activities - from product development and promotion to sales and after-sales service.

Firms can conduct two types of research:

1) current research, carried out constantly in order to identify all the changes and trends taking place in the tourism market (even minor changes in the environment surrounding the company can affect the results of management decisions);

2) study of one specific situation (problem) in order to test an assumption or analyze changes in the tourism market.

The company conducts a comprehensive study of the tourism market in order to assess the current general situation, the problems and threats arising from it, and emerging opportunities. The company may also allocate resources to conduct research on one or more problem situations that arise during the daily functioning of the enterprise. In addition, the company examines external and internal influence factors, studies the effectiveness of an advertising campaign, market potential, and trends in business development.

Objectives of marketing research in tourism:

1. Identify significant problems. The intensity of daily business activities leaves little time for performers to concentrate on problematic areas of activity that are an obstacle to the successful functioning of the enterprise. Identifying the causes and problems that cause business inefficiency is often one of the many simple contributions that research makes to the management process.

2. Maintaining the connection of the enterprise with its target markets. Tourism research allows us to identify future trends, provide an opportunity to better understand market demands and monitor changes in markets in order to develop appropriate policies. Research reduces the risk of unexpected changes in markets. To a certain extent, the study provides a guarantee that the company will not produce a product that, due to changes in the market, has become outdated for the given market.

3. Cost reduction. Research helps determine the most effective business methods and eliminate ineffective ones.

4. Development of new sources of profit. Research can lead to the discovery of new markets, new products, and new uses for products already on the market.

5. Help in stimulating sales. The results of the study are interesting not only for a particular company, but also for society as a whole and can be used in advertising campaigns and to stimulate sales. This primarily concerns studies of consumer attitudes towards a product, service, and those studies in which consumers are asked to evaluate certain goods and services.

6. Creating a favorable attitude on the part of buyers. Consumers are receptive to tourism enterprises conducting research. They believe that companies that engage in such activities truly care about them and are making an effort to create a product or service that satisfies their needs. So, if in the preamble to the questionnaire you indicate the purpose of the survey, for example, improving the quality of service, clients will be more willing to answer the questionnaire and they will have a favorable impression of the company as caring about maintaining or improving the quality of the services provided.

2.2 Stages of marketing

Research in tourism takes various forms: from primitive to more complex, from simple fact collection to the use of complex, mathematical models.

The process of conducting tourism research is represented by the following stages:

1. Definition of the problem. First, it is necessary to define or identify the existing problem and formulate the objectives of the study. The goals may be exploratory, involving the collection of some preliminary data that sheds light on the problem, and possibly helps to develop a hypothesis; descriptive, i.e. explaining certain phenomena; experimental, involving testing a hypothesis about some cause-and-effect relationship.

2. Conducting a situational analysis. At this stage, all available information related to the problem is collected and processed. The purpose of this stage is to find out whether any other company has already had similar situations or to check whether the information that contains a ready-made solution to this problem has not been missed.

A situational analysis is a thorough search of all data related to a given company, a particular product, industry, market, competitors, advertising, consumers, product and service providers, technology, economy, political climate and other similar data. Knowing all the information about a problem helps to identify possible causes of its occurrence. An organization will receive more from the results of research if its internal environment and goals, strategies, aspirations, available resources, as well as the limitations beyond which it should not go in its activities are clearly defined.

In addition to obtaining the necessary information on a given issue from available sources, it is also necessary to extract useful information from conversations with customers, distributors and other key figures in the tourism industry. During situation analysis and information gathering, assumptions are made that must then be tested.

3. Development of a research scheme. After collecting relevant data and defining the problem, it is necessary to develop a certain procedure (or structure) according to which the research will be carried out. At this stage, which is the core of the research process, hypotheses are developed that will be tested, and the type and sources of necessary information are determined. If it is determined that field research is necessary, a sample for interviewing, questionnaires, or other forms of information collection, as well as instruction sheets and coding and tabulation methods, must be developed. Finally, a supporting study must be carried out to check all the previous elements. The results are presented in the form of a detailed plan that is intended to serve as a guide in the research process, and any qualified research participant must adhere to this plan.

4. Data collection. In cases where data can be obtained from secondary information sources, desk research is carried out on all existing information. In collecting primary information, however, actual field research is used, the main methods of which are observation, survey or experiment. The success of data collection depends on the quality of the field research, the quality of the interviewers or people conducting the field research, and the skill level of the researchers.

5. Presentation of information in tables and analysis. Once data has been collected, the information must be coded, tabulated, and analyzed. This and the previous steps must be carried out with the greatest care, otherwise many erroneous conclusions may be drawn if the process of collection, tabulation and analysis is not carried out properly. For example, if a survey method is used to collect data, interviewers must be carefully selected, trained and supervised. Presentation of information in tables is carried out using a computer.

6. Data interpretation. The result of presenting data in tables is a variety of computer inferences and a number of statistical conclusions. The data obtained is interpreted in order to find the best solution or develop a series of specific recommendations to determine the actions of the company or organization. The transition from interpreting information to making recommendations is the most difficult task in the research process.

7. Report preparation. The presentation of the research results is very important. All the work and expense of conducting research will be in vain if the data obtained is not presented in a form that helps the manager act in accordance with them. At this stage of the research process, a full report should be compiled with approved recommendations for solving a particular problem situation.

8. Control. The research work is considered unfinished until the research results are put into action. Research is money invested and time spent.

3 Elements of the marketing strategy of Russian tourism enterprises

The marketing mix (marketing program) is a set of controllable marketing variables that a firm uses together in an effort to elicit the desired response from its target market. A tourism marketing manager must constantly create a marketing mix - the right combination of elements that ensure profit by fully satisfying consumer needs and in ways that are more effective than competitors.

The many elements of the marketing mix have been summarized into the four Ps, which include Product, Place, Promotion and Price. This concept is a simple and precise formula that represents all marketing activities and allows you to easily create a marketing program.

A product refers not only to its physical characteristics, but also to the planning and development of a new product or service. Here decisions are made regarding product diversity, branding and packaging. When planning the creation of a product (goods, services), all these aspects must be taken into account.

Place refers to making decisions regarding appropriate methods of distribution of a product, i.e., which channels and which distribution method should be used to create the easiest access for consumers to goods and services of producers.

Stimulation methods are all kinds of activities of a company to disseminate information about the merits of its product and convince target consumers to buy it. Promotion methods include not only advertising, but also personal selling techniques, sales promotion activities, and public relations.

Price is a very important marketing mix variable. It must satisfy consumers and at the same time correspond to the profit goal of the enterprise. The price set by the company must correspond to the value of the offer, otherwise buyers will purchase competitors' products.

The starting point for effective marketing is the consumer. After identifying and analyzing a specific group of consumers, the manager, using all four elements of the marketing tool, ensures effective service to this segment. Since consumer orientation is important, the fifth element of the marketing mix is considered to be the people themselves (consumers of the tourism product), since they are the central point of the marketing program (Fig. 1).

Rice. 1. Elements of the marketing mix

3.1 Planning and development of a tourism product

The goal of most travel agencies is to run a profitable and long-lasting business. To achieve this goal, companies need to produce a product or service that would satisfy the needs of potential buyers and thereby ensure an increase in business. Product planning is an important component in developing a profitable and lasting business. It is often referred to as "five rules" planning - planning to create the right product, deliver it to the right place, at the right time, at the right price and in the right (right) quantity.

In Fig. 2 presents the life phases that a tourism product goes through: launching a product on the market, growth, maturity, saturation, decline. Due to rapid changes in people's lifestyles and technological changes, the life cycle of individual products and services has become shorter than it was before, so the concept of product life cycle plays an important role in strategic planning and each stage of the product life cycle also has specific objectives for marketing.

Rice. 2. Product life cycle

The stage of introducing a product to the market. This phase of the life cycle requires spending to stimulate demand (this is the best time to advertise a new product or service). This stage is characterized by high costs, slow sales growth, and advertising campaigns to stimulate initial demand.

Growth stage. During this period, the new product (if it is in demand in the market) satisfies the interests of the market, which is expressed in increased sales and profits. Increasing profits can make a market attractive to competitors. The company's sales promotion costs remain high, but here the emphasis is on motivating targeted selection and purchase of a particular company's product, rather than on motivating consumers to buy and try this product. During the growth stage, the number of retail outlets selling a product or service usually increases. During this period, the market becomes attractive to competitors, but due to the effects of scale, prices for goods (services) may decrease.

Maturity stage. A mature product is a product or service that has already been firmly established in the market. The pace of its sales may continue to increase, but at a slower rate. Then they gradually level out. At this stage of the product life cycle, many retail outlets selling the product or service are very competitive. Firms are trying to find ways to maintain their market share. Ski resorts are the most suitable example of a mature product.

Saturation stage. At this stage, sales volumes reach their highest point, the product penetrates the market as much as possible.

Mass production and the use of new technologies make it possible to reduce prices and make the product more accessible to everyone.

Decline stage. Many tourism products remain at the saturation stage for several years. However, many of them become obsolete over time and new products are introduced to the market to replace old ones. During the decline stage, demand for the product decreases and advertising costs decrease. As demand and profits fall, firms that cannot withstand the competition leave the market.

3.2 Strategies for setting prices for tourism products

One of the most important marketing decisions is the decision regarding setting the price of a product or service. Price reflects how consumers perceive the product. It also greatly influences other marketing mix variables.

The costs associated with the production, promotion, distribution and sale of a tourism product, as well as the profit margin, must be included in the price. In order to establish the correct price for a tourism product, it is necessary to analyze many factors.

When setting prices, first of all, the nature of competition in a given tourism market and an analysis of the pricing policies of competitors are taken into account.

In a purely competitive market, no single buyer or seller has much influence on the level of current market prices. Businesses in this market do not spend much time developing a marketing strategy.

In the market of monopolistic competition, enterprises set prices for their goods in a wide range, since the offers of various travel enterprises differ from each other in quality and special properties. Businesses develop different offerings for different segments and make extensive use of branding, advertising and personal selling techniques.

An oligopolistic market consists of a small number of tourism enterprises. It is difficult for new entrants to penetrate this market. Each manufacturer is sensitive to the strategy and actions of competitors. In the more mature Western tourism market, an oligopolistic nature of competition has developed. Here, as a rule, several large travel agencies dominate. For example, in Germany already in 1955, the three largest firms controlled 57% of the tourism market.

In a pure monopoly, there is only one seller in the market. These can be a government monopoly, a private unregulated monopoly, or a private regulated monopoly. In each individual case, pricing is different. A state monopoly may be on tourist sites of unique quality (Moscow Kremlin).

In pricing decisions, firms have a choice of one of three product pricing strategies:

1. Firms may decide to sell their product at the market price, that is, at the price generally accepted in the market. In this case, firms are considered to operate under conditions of non-price competition.

2. Firms can charge a lower price than current market prices. Firms that practice such price discounting policies create a reputation for themselves as firms that charge low prices and thereby try to achieve higher sales volumes than their competitors.

3. Setting a price above the market price. The use of a premium pricing strategy should be based on the best quality of the product in the industry or supported by various attractive benefits and uniqueness of the product to justify the high price. This approach focuses on quality, which many customers believe is a function of price. Quality generates more costs.

Another basis for making pricing decisions is the level of demand for tourism products.

When setting a price for a product, it is necessary to take into account the type and number of potential consumers. If when the price decreases by 1%, demand increases significantly, and when the price increases by 1%, it decreases significantly, then price elasticity of demand occurs. If there are a small number of consumers in the market, then the price must be high enough to compensate for the limited market. However, you also need to consider your purchasing habits and purchasing power.

The price must include gross production costs. The profit included in the price of the product must remain to compensate for the business risk after paying obligations to all contract partners and after paying all taxes.

Travel agents mark up the tour operator's selling price, thereby covering their overhead costs and making a profit. Tour operators determine the minimum price level, below which travel agents do not have the right to reduce prices.

In addition to these factors, you must also consider:

1. Availability of substitute products from competitors. If competitors sell tour packages to the same destination, then with a significant increase in the price of the product, you can lose your customers.

2. Income, degree of saturation of the needs of your target market, changes in the environment (political, economic, legal). All this needs to be constantly analyzed.

3. Product quality. The quality of a product reflects the price-value relationship.

4. Distinctive characteristics of the product.

5. Competitors. When setting a price for a product similar to a competitor's product, the prices of competitors' products must be taken into account.

6. Seasonality. When developing the price of a product, the time aspect must be taken into account.

7. Psychological characteristics. It has been found that consumers respond psychologically well to prices expressed in odd numbers, and there seems to be something magical about prices that end with the number 9.

For the tourism services market, it is not uncommon for there to be a gap in time between the moment the price is set and the moment of purchase and sale of the tourist product.

3.3 Distribution channels

Another difficult decision that a marketing manager must make is the selection of suitable tourism intermediaries who connect consumers of tourism goods and services with producers of these services (airlines, hotels, car rental firms, etc.).

When choosing a particular channel for the distribution of goods and services, it is necessary to:

Product analysis;

Characteristics and determination of market size;

Analysis of distribution channels by sales volume, costs and profit;

Determining the assistance that can be expected from this channel when selling goods and services;

Determining the assistance that will need to be provided to this channel in the distribution of goods and services;

Determining the number of retail points of sale.

American market researchers who have studied tourism intermediaries have identified three main categories of distribution channels: tour operators, travel agents and specialized distribution channels. The category of specialized channels includes incentive travel agencies; persons involved in planning meetings and conferences; hotel representatives, association executives; corporate travel agencies, etc. (Fig. 3).

Rice. 3. System of distribution of goods and services in tourism

Intermediaries can influence when, where and how people travel. To some extent, they control what percentage of the business the airline, hotel, cruise line or car rental firm will receive.

Each vertical link in Fig. 4 represents a possible intermediary connecting tourists with tourism service providers. The leftmost link shows that consumers themselves book seats on a vehicle, a room in a hotel, and organize their vacation directly with manufacturers (suppliers) of travel services. Each of the subsequent links is not a direct connection, but mediated by one or more intermediaries. The tourism marketing manager must study all the presented links to select the best channel or combination of distribution channels in order to successfully promote the company's goods and services on the market. The manager must also be always aware of the changes that occur in the distribution system. The entry of new competitors into the system always requires additional methods of distribution of goods and services.

Rice. 4. Channels for the distribution of tourism goods and services at different levels.

In the Russian tourism market, there are two main forms of selling tourism products: through a tour operator and through a travel agent. Tour operator is a tourism enterprise that develops tourist routes and packages tours, ensures their functioning, organizes advertising, calculates in accordance with current regulations and approves in the prescribed manner prices for tours on these routes, sells tours to travel agents for the issuance and sale of tours under their licenses . A travel agent is a company that purchases tours developed by a tour operator, issues vouchers for these tours and sells them to consumers.

3.3 Demand stimulation methods

The purpose of promoting goods and services is to create demand for these goods and services.

The use of funds to stimulate demand in the field of tourism is aimed not only at the end consumer, but also at numerous producers of travel services, intermediaries (travel agents, tour operators), as well as at their contact “audiences” (mass media, financial and insurance companies, public organizations) .

In order to sell a product, you must:

Attract the attention of potential consumers;

Arouse consumer interest in the product;

Create a desire among consumers to buy this product;

Stimulate buyers to take real action.

Both forms of personal selling and advertising are very effective. But the most effective is to use these two forms together. Advertising is ideal for attracting attention and creating interest among potential buyers in a particular product or service.

In tourism, demand stimulation tools such as advertising, personal selling, sales promotion and propaganda are widely used.

Advertising. Advertising can be defined as a form of non-personal communication with customers to present goods, ideas and services, carried out through paid media, with a clearly stated source of funding.

Each travel company chooses the form of appeal in advance, even when the advertising campaign is carried out by order of advertising agencies or media employees.

There are commercial and communication effectiveness of advertising. The sales effectiveness of advertising is determined by the increase in the percentage of sales volumes before and after the start of advertising activities. The communicative effectiveness of advertising is determined by research methods and questionnaires.

The main advertising media are newspapers, magazines, radio, television, signs, catalogues, booklets, stands, leaflets, billboards, advertisements on vehicles. They have the following advantages and disadvantages.

Promoting a new tourist center on the market will require more money than maintaining the image of an object already developed by tourists among tourists. The distribution of advertising budget funds between advertising and sales promotion depends on each specific situation.

A travel agency cannot spend more than 10% of its turnover on an advertising campaign. The specificity of tourism advertising is that the advertising messages of travel organizations must be more targeted than advertising in other sectors of the economy.

Research. Successful tourism marketing relies heavily on research. Activities to stimulate tourism demand without conducting appropriate research are just a waste of effort and time. Advertising costs will not be productive if the following are not known in advance: the contingent of clients, their addresses and preferences regarding travel and recreation, their interests; what tourist destinations they prefer. Answers to these questions can only be obtained through research.

Personal selling techniques. This is the oldest and most widely used method of creating customer demand, the most convincing and effective type of sales promotion, since the seller in this case has direct contact with customers. Unlike advertising, which is not a personal means of communication, personal selling is an individual, personal communication between the seller and the consumer. Many organizations allocate more funds to the personal selling method (8 to 15% of sales) than to advertising.

Sales promotion is the use of a variety of means of stimulating influence, designed to accelerate or enhance the market response.

Incentives (competitions, coupons, bonuses, commissions) have three characteristic qualities:

1) attract attention and contain information that can lead the consumer to the product;

2) involve a concession, benefit, assistance that is of value to the consumer;

Organization of public opinion (public relations), go propaganda. Public opinion organizing activities have several objectives, including providing the company with favorable publicity, creating perceptions of it as an organization with high civic responsibility, and countering the spread of unfavorable rumors and information about it. Public relations can be defined as the social consciousness of a company, where public interests are a priority in the process of making any decision. Public relations permeates the entire tourism organization, including relationships with many entities such as clients, employees, suppliers and local residents.

Constant communication with your clients is the basis for creating or maintaining a favorable image of the company. The reputation and image of a travel company largely determine the method of resolving disputes that arise with clients and partners, as well as the procedure for resolving complaints. Tourist organizations that care about maintaining their positive reputation try not to bring the situation to court, but to resolve everything peacefully. In disseminating favorable information about a travel agency, it is necessary to provide consumers with only reliable and complete information about the product or service. False information will create an unfavorable image of the company in the public mind for a long time or even forever.

Survival in the market requires the use of a direct marketing strategy, the essence of which is the individualization of sales, establishing direct contacts directly with a specific consumer, with each potential client.

The concept of direct marketing involves:

Identification of target groups to which marketing activities should be directed;

Development of a set of measures to stimulate the sale of travel services;

Creation of a data bank on the company’s clientele;

Creation of an effective system of stable feedback and rapid response of the travel service provider to complaints and claims from the client.

4 Analysis of marketing of tourist services of the company "Sacvoyage"

The travel company "SACVOYAGE" was founded on February 29, 1996. Currently a member of the Russian Association of Travel Agencies (RATA)

Travel agency "SAKVOYAZH" 450000, g. Ufa, Lenin st. 44/46

Sale of tours in the following directions:

Turkey, Egypt, UAE, Tunisia, Greece, Czech Republic, Italy, France, Spain, Bulgaria, Croatia, Thailand, Cyprus, Malta, Andorra, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, China, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Scandinavia, Russia, and Bashkiria

Bus tours in Europe

sea cruises

VIP and individual tours

last minute tours.

The travel company "Sacvoyage" has a well-deserved reputation as one of the most reliable travel agencies in Ufa. The work of managers in the office is maximally interconnected and automated. Full computerization and a streamlined work system prevent information loss. This allows us to uninterruptedly and efficiently serve our tourists even during the peak tourist season.

Today the company has 15 employees.

Contacts have been established with all the leading hotels in the city, as well as the largest sanatoriums in Bashkortostan. The company's office organizes the sale of air tickets to all directions for flights of Russian and foreign airlines. Based on the results of the 2008 season, the travel company "Sacvoyage" is one of the leading travel companies in the city of Ufa.

Basic parameters of the market and its target segments.

Market segmentation is the division of a market into distinct groups of buyers, each of which may require separate products and/or marketing mixes. Most often, socio-economic criteria are used to segment the market, such as age, gender, income level, education, profession, family size and others.

Sacvoyage employees determine the target segment based on the following characteristics:

Age – 40-45 years

Income level – average and above average

Education – usually higher, but does not play a role

Marital status – usually a family of two to four people

Work, profession - most often - private entrepreneurs

Geography

Life style - an energetic, active person, engaged in trading or management activities, often working on weekends and holidays, takes care of his image, feels a lack of time for rest and family, is receptive to new products, and skeptical of advertising.

The motive for travel is the desire to relax with family, the desire to relax abroad, the desire to receive treatment abroad, the desire to visit an exotic country (entertainment + novelty).

This describes the main segment on which Sacvoyage operates.

Of course, this does not mean that absolutely all of the company’s clients are of this age or status, but most of them fit this definition, and it is this group of consumers that allows them to quickly recoup the costs of producing and promoting a tour product. On the other hand, almost all tour companies are focused on the same segment. This means that the company must strive to win customer favor and trust.

All marketing efforts should be aimed at creating strong and lasting preferences among current and potential customers.

The goal is to attract a large number of clients from the existing market and attract new categories of clients.

2. Assessment of the enterprise’s competitive strategy

Hundreds or even thousands of dollars are spent on advertising and other marketing activities, because it is high-quality advertising that guarantees the competitiveness of an enterprise. Advertisers want to know whether these costs are justified. This can only be known by conducting assessment studies.

While advertising is about image creation and takes time to do so, channel management is about stimulation leading to immediate action, preferably a sale. On the other hand, they perform common tasks, which are to increase the number of consumers and increase the use of the tour product by consumers.

Sales support is the act of offering an additional incentive to purchase. Its main advantage lies in the variety and flexibility of methods. Most often, tour companies use various discounts to promote tours. "Sacvoyage" offers the following system of discounts:

Holiday discounts

Family discounts

Group

Children's

Special (for those who have a discount coupon or for clients who bring a new client to the company)

Another effective way to promote a tour product is various competitions and lotteries. These strategies attract people by promising free benefits and offering impressive prizes. In 1996, Sacvoyage established cooperation with the newspaper. Once every six months they hold a joint game dedicated to tourism and a win-win lottery.

Various printed materials are used by tour companies to stimulate sales directly in the office. At the moment when the client hesitates in choosing a travel agent, vacation spot, hotel or mode of transport, a colorful brochure outlining all the advantages of a given vacation spot, hotel, etc. will help push him to purchase. Various calendars, stands, brochures, magazines and catalogs of our own publication not only attract the client with their appearance, but also offer more detailed information about the route. Their production is relatively inexpensive - it depends on the amount of information printed, the cost of paper, the cost of printing media, and the salaries of designers. It is possible to order such products from specialized companies, which is much more profitable for single copies or small batches.

The next stage of sales channel management is participation in various tourism exhibitions and fairs. Exhibitions and fairs are of great importance in terms of finding partners and establishing business connections. This type of promotion refers to sales promotion aimed at intermediaries. Exhibitions of this kind are held annually not only in Moscow, but also in other cities, both Russian and international. In 1998, the company first acted as a tour operator in the summer program “To Spain directly from Ufa.” In the same year, the company was awarded a diploma from the International Exhibition Center “InterSib” for its professional work. In 1997, for the first time, our own tourism programs in Bashkortostan were offered, which received recognition from Ufa, out-of-town and foreign tourists.

"Sacvoyage" publishes booklets related to their own projects to further attract tourists to these services.

All booklets are printed in a printing house on good, high-quality paper, which shows respect for customers. In addition, all booklets are colorfully designed.

In these advertising brochures, the visual effect is ensured by photographs of these projects. The photographs recreate the atmosphere of these tours. They are the ones who give the potential client the main idea of what awaits him.

Television has ample opportunities to exert targeted influence and evoke the desired response from the viewing audience.

Television provides wide coverage. So, to promote the holiday program “March 8 in the Abzakovo sanatorium,” advertising was given on television on weekends, during the period when interesting programs and feature films were shown on the BST channel, when the maximum number of potential clients were at their TVs. The advertising message that was placed in this newspaper was simple, brief, and attracted the attention of readers. Due to its efficiency, repeatability, and wide market coverage, the press is one of the most effective means of distributing advertising, which is why Sacvoyage most often uses the services of the press to advertise its services.

Corporate style is a set of color, graphic, verbal, typographic design permanent elements that ensure the visual and semantic unity of goods (services), all information emanating from the company, its internal and external design.

The travel company "Sacvoyage" has developed its own corporate style, which allows the consumer to quickly and accurately find the company's product, allows the company to introduce its new products to the market at lower costs, and which increases the effectiveness of advertising. Elements of corporate identity are:

Trademark;

Branded font inscription (logo);

Brand block;

Corporate slogan (slogan);

Corporate color;

So, from the above it is clear that the travel company “Sacvoyage” actively promotes its services through various types of advertising. However, we considered only certain types of advertising. But, it should be noted that “Sacvoyage” also uses other types of advertising, such as: audiovisual advertising, advertising leaflets, outdoor advertising, mail advertising and so on.

3. Conclusions and suggestions for improving the marketing activities of the enterprise.

So, marketing ensures not only the effective satisfaction of market needs, but also the success of the enterprise in competition.

Having originated in the production sector, marketing did not find appropriate application in the tourism sector for quite a long time. However, increasing competition and commercialization of tourism activities have led to the need to quickly introduce the basic elements of marketing into the practice of a tourism enterprise. At the same time, tourism has certain features related to the nature of the services provided, forms of sales, and so on. In order to really use marketing as a reliable tool for achieving success in the market, specialists of tourism enterprises need to master its methodology and the ability to apply it depending on the specific situation. Employees of the travel company "Sacvoyage" are trying to apply marketing in their activities, studying supply and demand for specific tourist services, setting prices for a new project, advertising their services, and so on. And here marketing acts as a compass that allows the company to lead its activities towards its intended goal in a safer way, but as was said earlier, they lack a specialized department of the marketing service, for the best promotion of the company and conquering new frontiers, in my opinion, the creation of such a structure as a separate independently functioning body will not only help to conquer new frontiers, but also occupy a leading position in this market sector for a very long time.

Conclusion

The modern concept of marketing in tourism requires taking into account the holistic and comprehensive nature of the tourism business. To implement such a concept, it is necessary to develop a mechanism for coordinating the marketing of various organizations in the field of tourism.

More effective scientific research is needed. To conduct the most in-depth comprehensive research, you need to invite specialists or create your own marketing department with qualified personnel. It is advisable for small and medium-sized tour operators to unite to conduct joint marketing activities and market research in order to reduce the costs of attracting marketing specialists and specialized marketing companies.

The specific nature of marketing in the Russian tourism market is determined by the fact that the majority of Russian tour operators limit their marketing activities to advertising campaigns, mainly in the form of print advertising. A variety of forms of advertising activity is necessary.

Tourism marketing should be addressed not only to end consumers - tourists, but also to intermediate authorities - travel agencies, partners, public tourism associations, and government tourism regulatory authorities.

Tourism of the 21st century is, first of all, tourism focused on the client, as a consumer of tourism goods and services. A successful and profitable tourism business of the future is a business based on knowledge of international legal norms and regulations, tourism management and marketing, tourism market conditions, and a complete and comprehensive knowledge of the needs and demands of tourists.

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hospitality industry and tourism In the hotel business marketing often identified with...

In addition to the basic principles of marketing, it is worth considering the fact that The tourism business has its own specific characteristics.

As such, tourism marketing does not have any general fundamental differences from any significant marketing rules in general. It is for this reason that all the basic provisions of modern marketing may well be applied in the field of tourism. But it is worth considering the fact that the tourism business has its own specific characteristics. Let's look at them in more detail.

The tourism industry trades both services and goods. According to experts, the share of services is more than ?, whereas goods account for the total? from the volume of all work.

For traditional types of commercial activities that have a specific result of labor, the very concept of marketing has such a specific content. In tourism activities, the result of labor is the tourism product. This term is usually understood as any service provided to tourists (household, hotel, transport, excursion, etc.). A tourism product can also be understood as a system of goods and services, which together constitute a tourist trip.

This is precisely what determines the peculiarities of marketing in this area:

This is a system of services/products, which is characterized by a complex set of relationships;
flexible demand depending on consumer income, political and social conditions;
the inability of the consumer of a tourism product to see it before payment;
the presence of some distance from the product and the place of its consumption;
several organizations are involved in the creation of a tourism product, each of which has its own methods, needs and commercial goals;
there is a high probability of various force majeure circumstances occurring.

All this must be taken into account when properly organizing a marketing campaign in the field of tourism, namely:

pay special attention to stimulating demand;
high degree of reliability of information policy;
high degree of protection of client rights;
taking into account the seasonality of demand for tourism products;
high degree of marketing coordination among all tourism product creators.

Thus, the most optimal marketing program for a travel agency will be one that takes into account and meets conditions such as successful positioning among the target audience, continuous training of travel agency employees, and the correct choice of advertising campaign for the target segment.

If we follow the results of numerous marketing studies in the field of tourism, we can make a reasonable conclusion that for the consumer of travel services, physical motivation takes first place. It, in turn, can be divided into recreation, sports, and health treatment.

One should also take into account psychological motivation, which lies in the desire of people to visit new places, get acquainted with the way of life of people, and simply have fun. In third place is cultural motivation, the so-called interest in art.

Taking into account all these factors, it is necessary to create such tours offering a range of services that would best satisfy a particular target segment. For example, for young people, physical motivation will play a major role. This is due to the high activity of young people and their need for inexpensive services. For middle-aged people or businessmen, the provision of high-quality services, the presence of cultural programs, a certain elitism, and prestige are more important. For older people, services that satisfy cognitive and cultural motivation and health improvement are important.

Until recently, tourism network marketing was in high demand. Suggestions like: “Come to a new travel network company” were encountered literally at every step. To join this type of organization, you had to pay an entry fee, invite 2 or more members, and earn a discount. The opportunity to earn and travel much cheaper was guaranteed.

But life itself put everything in its place. And now this type of tourism business, and, consequently, network tourism marketing has practically become obsolete. This is due to two factors. Firstly, almost all companies that use network marketing to date are either recognized as financial pyramids or are approaching such an event. Secondly, when working on the Internet, the basic principle of network marketing – duplication – hardly applies. It is for these reasons that tourism network marketing is currently ineffective.