Tourist promotion

There have been three aims of most tourist promotion in the last few years.

The first has been to retain the established market of people for whom travel is a normal form of recreation.

The second purpose of tourist promotion has been to increase the size of the market. In order for tourism to grow, it is necessary to attract people who would not have travelled much until the last few years.

It is significant for tourism that trade unions now fight for fringe benefits for workers such as longer paid holidays and shorter work weeks. A three-day weekend would almost certainly cause an increase at least in domestic tourism.

The third goal of tourist promotion has been to overcome what might best be called its seasonal bias.

In many countries, summer is the traditional vacation season. In France, for instance, the summer vacation has extended even to the shutting down of many stores and small businesses. Hundreds of thousands of Frenchmen leave Paris in August for the south of France or for destinations outside the country. Winter vacations have been heavily promoted to spread tourism more evenly throughout the year. There has been a big increase in facilities for winter sports.

Ski resorts have sprung up which attract not only the wealthy to resorts in Switzerland, but also the office or factory workers who want to get out on the ski slopes for a winter weekend.

Many different organizations are involved in tourist promotion. They include tourist bureaus, the transportation companies, tour operators, retail travel agents and individual hotels or hotel chains.

Through their tourist offices, governments do a great deal of travel promotion, both in the form of advertising and publicity.

There are two major kinds of promotion — publicity and advertising.

Publicity might well be termed free advertising. It consists of stories placed in newspapers and magazines about travel, accommodations, restaurants, and other parts of the whole tourist industry. Many newspapers and magazines carry such stories regularly as features. Professional travel writers journey from resort area to resort area to report on the facilities and amenities that are available.

Another kind of tourist-connected public relations comes under the heading of familiarization. People in the industry, especially those involved in sales — travel agents — are frequently provided with free trips to tourist destinations. They will be able to answer questions from their own experience.

Tourist advertising is a large business in itself. Most of the advertising is directed toward the large tourist-generating regions.

Media, the plural of medium, is a term that is used for the different means of spreading information in the form of news and advertising. Newspapers and magazines — the print media, and radio and television — the broadcast media — are usually included in the term.

Television reaches the largest market, one that generally cuts across different social and income groups. TV time is also very expensive, so it is used principally by transportation companies and government tourist agencies. Radio serves a more limited audience since it cannot transmit the beautiful pictures and colours of television. But it is unique because it can reach people driving their cars.

Another form of advertising is the brochure. Tour operators distribute brochures in large numbers to travel agents in the market area they are trying to reach. In addition, many of them are sent out by direct mailing to selected lists of customers by tour operators and travel agents.

Perhaps the most effective kind of tourist promotion is the one that cannot be manipulated by the industry.

This is word of mouth, what one person says to another about his or her vacation. And this is indeed a major topic of conversation among people who travel.

Like news stories, the results of " word of mouth" can be good or bad. A recommendation of a resort or hotel by one family to another can significantly influence the choice people are likely to make. On the other hand, a bad report spread around by dissatisfied tourists may sharply cut tourism.

Among other things, " word of mouth" guarantees that the tourist industry will provide more or less what it promises. One might say that it is a powerful force in keeping the industry honest.