ESTABLISHING THE COMMUNICATION MIX OF TOURISM ORGANIZATIONS BY THE OBJECTIVES COMMUNICATION, THROUGH GRADUALLY KNOWLEDGE OF THE CUSTOMER PROFILE

Abstract

"Tourism is an industry of communication of the world and for that, it must help educate the world about the need to act consistently ..." (Magazine of the World Tourism Organization "World Tourism Day 2008 - Tourism Will Grow smartly") showed the experts meeting of the Reflections Forum on the occasion of Tourism Days in 2008 to Lima - Peru, with the theme "Short-term responses - Long Term Challenges". Multifunctional character of tourism, addressing it to the markets, namely the public sector, opening new perspectives for cross-disciplinary research focused on the individual and socio-cultural factors. Given the above, this paper aims to define a "pattern of communication" based on the knowledge of the characters of tourism consumer and buying decision process of this sector, developed from The Lavidge & Steiner-model hierarchy effects (model of communication).

Headnote

Abstract:

"Tourism is an industry of communication of the world and for that, it must help educate the world about the need to act consistently ..." (Magazine of the World Tourism Organization "World Tourism Day 2008 - Tourism Will Grow smartly") showed the experts meeting of the Reflections Forum on the occasion of Tourism Days in 2008 to Lima - Peru, with the theme "Short-term responses - Long Term Challenges".

Multifunctional character of tourism, addressing it to the markets, namely the public sector, opening new perspectives for cross-disciplinary research focused on the individual and socio-cultural factors.

Given the above, this paper aims to define a "pattern of communication" based on the knowledge of the characters of tourism consumer and buying decision process of this sector, developed from The Lavidge & Steiner-model hierarchy effects (model of communication).

Keywords: tourism, the communication mix, the communication objectives, the audience target, the decision to purchase

JEL Classification: M300

Introduction

Today, tourism has an important place in the contemporary economy of each nation it is responsible for reducing unemployment, balance of payments, stimulating economic development. Tourism development also causes a number of imbalances on countries tourist destinations, evidenced by environmental destruction, social degradation and even economic decline. All this can be felt, especially when the flow of tourism and tourism development is not planned and controlled.

Although effects due to the prolonged economic crisis, the tourism industry, according to statistics published in The Annual Bulletin of the World Tourism Organization (Volume 11 - October 2013) increased, both in terms of number of visitors to tourist destinations and proceeds on the benefits of travel. Thus, compared to the same period of 2012 (the first 8 months of the year), tourist arrivals increased by 38 million arrivals (5%). The international arrivals situation (visitors you have and accommodation) during the 8 months of 2013, were 747 million tourist arrivals. With very few exceptions, the international tourist arrivals increase is found in tourist receipts of the tourist destinations. Thus, by UNWTO Tourism Highlights 2013 (2013 editions), at the 2012 year, tourism receipts amounted to 837 billion Euro, and at the 2013, recorded the same eight months of the year with 4-5% more.

In other words, despite various economic and social shocks manifested over the time, international tourist arrivals has uninterrupted increases, starting at 25 million arrivals in 1950, 528 million arrivals in 1995 and 1.035 million tourist arrivals in 2012.More, tourism has become in many developed countries, a branch of the national economy. Today, worldwide 9% of GDP, is provided by this industry, 1 of 11 jobs provide by tourism, achieving 6% of total world exports of goods and services, says the UNWTO Tourism Highlights in the same above mention document of 2013 ( 2013 editions).

For those working in this complex area, tourism is the manifestation of their personality and the chance to achieve a benefit. Tourism is an activity that applies best entrepreneurial skills of those involved in a business.

As can easily be seen, many of the attractions and amenities available to guests are in public sector management: the archaeology reservations, the museums, the architectural and sculptural ensembles, parks, natural and national reserves, the transportation routes, stadiums and other sports and recreation centres etc.

However, the directions of development activities and savings components of reality can, sometimes place tourism, more from the bottom of list of public and political agenda of the local government or national politics. To avoid this drawback, it requires constant cooperation between levels of this industry sector, across economic sectors that are covering this sector, amid the design and implementation of an effective action of the public - private partnership.

It is considered, therefore, that the best and realistic attitude that the central or local government (as promoters of local a national development) should had, regarding the travel is to initiate, in partnership with the private sector, the sustainable tourism development policies, monitor it and correct permanentl y the environment business deviations, namely the size and limit the socio-cultural aspects of tourism development.

Analysing experiences, the individual human experiences of the tourists, we will observe, that they are often shared with other people. Even when traveling alone, the tourist will come into contact with other people, public authorities and/or social institutions, the entrepreneurs of the tourism industry etc. Therefore, many of the decisions about travel experience influenced individual psychology, socialization experiences and self-perception of the social role of tourism.

Tourism is thus related to communication and advertising. Central and local budgets allocated advertising rises in many countries with developed economy, to millions of monetary units. For this reason, avoid large losses, it often requires a prior and thorough research on the role and the impact of communication through advertising and other means regionally and nationally. Although advertising is still fundamentally an "art", promoted tourism products b y it will be more successful, if they rely on marketing research. The results of research conducted socio-cultural perspective can be used for understanding the environment in which we operate through communication, the most appropriate advertising media, messages and audiences, and to substantiate the argument on public budget allocation for the promotion of tourism products.

Given the importance and implications of tourism in contemporary society, but also the quality attributed to it: "communications industry" has made many people, businesses and government institutions to pay special attention, especially in this area, actually what we will follow through this material.

Review literature to support theme of the paper

The effectiveness of any communication system depends on how the organization manages to develop information (messages), to choose the audiences target and that means (media) by which messages are to reach audiences target. Basically, all of which are more or less related to the communication targets.

What you need to know when you establish communication objectives is to know the behavioural response - (knowledge, opinion and attitude favourable, incentive to buy etc..), this response level (degree in which the percentage of the total audience target will fulfil) and the period of implementation (the time by which it will achieve that level of behavioural response among the audience target). This is supported by F. Foltean and L.Ladar - coordinators (2000).

The results of marketing research in the field of communication, are in addition to the foregoing, because ...the influences of various communication tools of marketing mix in the various stages of the communication process (is about communication patterns), helps to clearly define communication objectives, identifying the response required by the target audience, that help while marketing specialist to choose the best tools of the marketing mix for the given situation. Those aspects are highlighted by P.R. Smith (1993).

The communication models, whose evolution as we have shown, corresponding the purchase decision making stages, causes reactions from consumers, that can be at three levels: cognitive, affective and behavioural or conative. They will be described below in the first table of the paper (see below table no.1) and they are adapted from the models of consumer response level to communication strategies of the organization, taken by Kotler and Dubois (1989), the communication models of Smith (1993), thus establishing link between the consumer behaviour theory and the communication theory and while showing the stages through which a buyer passes from its natural state to the daily buying.

These models are called: response message or hierarchical models. They help in the prioritization of communication, determining cognitive, affective and behavioural (conative called) responses, from the public audience. Although, all of these models are not conclusive in reflecting perception of purchase (not all buyers go through all stages of purchase, the steps do not walk in hierarchical form or impulsive buying encounter answers, especially in the case of simple buying process), however, gave the complex character that it requires, the purchase process of a service (including the tourism) its proves his practical utility, helping their understanding of communication planning.

If we try to establish a correlation between what the literature, says about communication goals, on three approach levels and characteristics of tourism products we observe that:

- the cognitive, communication is informative and has like objective the familiarity target segments with the considered product, most often is about a product or a new tourist destination, located in the launch or the decline phase of the life cycle; in this stage the communication objectives could be: consumer information or facilitating there knowledge that the market has a product or a new tourist destination; information about other actions of other instruments of marketing mix - sales promotion (i.e. - price reduced by 50% from baseline if the consumer purchases a journey of at least 10 days); suggesting new ways to see the touristic sights (i.e. - the action associated with the catering companies and of the food industry that relies heavily on the value of the money given by the people, urging them to collect the packaging of food after they has eaten, then change them with a ticket to one of the tourist attractions in the area) , suggesting the idea of listening to a certain thought leader, trainer reviewer (i.e. - the advertising of a tourist destination by a famous actor who in addition played a leading role in a film, whose action took place at the tourist destination) or explain how you can visit a tourist destination.

- emotional level, communication is based on the formation of a favourable image of the product or tourist destinations closer to the consumer by introducing / reintroducing brand element, very important aspects in tourism activity, the products often is here in corresponding growth phase of the life cycle, branding or re-branding and communication objectives include: conviction (i.e. - the intervention of the sales of the travel agent will suggest what the person wanted for a long trip to the Monasteries of Bucovina, that after a sustained activity for several months after the other issues addressed in the family, this summer on a trip with his family in those places is the tourism product that is actually needed) seduction (i.e. - public relations initiating action, such as to establish an Open Day) and enhancement of the tourism product or destination (i.e. - publishing of brochures that provide evidence that dreams tourism product, indicating the brand product or brand tourist destination, that person wants to buy).

- conative level or behavioural, communication aims to purchasing and visiting tourist desired destination. This action includes using methods of the specific marketing mix, such as: sales promotion and sales forces (discounts for loyalty and membership in a travel club, like Club Med, providing additional trips within the same journey in the same price, allowing for a period of time, some people, usuall y the opinion leaders, such free products to serve a period of time dining at a hotel or granting souvenir from the end of the visit of a museum, not before the visit, to create an approach sense perceptual).

In other words, setting communication objectives helps us understand best what types of the communication mix's tools to use depending on the characteristics, contexts and different situations. This attempt to represent graphically below, in figure no. 1, developed based on the model made on 1961 by Lavidge & Steiner - hierarchy of effects model, considered one of the most complex communication patterns.

The correlation established and described above, recommended that for a marketing communication plan that has, for example the target - raising awareness, or draw consumer's attention to a product or service, is recommended to use communication tools largely represented by the advertising and public relations. Advertising uses various non-personal communication channels, publishing brochures, audio-visual media etc. and public relations is manifested through press conferences, press releases, media visits and other events organized on various occasions, sponsorships in order to improve the brand image of an organization, presentation and narrative form of advertisements that use nonpersonal communication channels.

If you want to stimulate opinions, attitudes towards making recommendations, develop preferences, or correcting bad image about a product or a tourist destination, the communication literature (as we noted in the figure above presented), also recommended the use of public relations tools, such as lobbying, participation in fairs and exhibitions, sightseeing familiarization, others events using more personal communication channels. Sales promotion by participating in contests, open point's sale of travel packages and tourist information and promotion are also recommended. We must not forget that just because research conducted over the last century, advertising, as we described above, can also be activated to influence opinion leaders, but also in educating consumers using their channels of non-personal communication, along with those personal.

Methodology

The communication strategy aims to answer two key questions for an organization or tourist destination: Where the tourist organization or tourist destination wants to be? and How to get, where it proposed ? If the last question just strategic issues - marketing communication plan, the answer to the first one, we will clarify in this paper.

Communication goals so established will be integrated into the strategic objectives and then the other elements of the marketing mix - product, price and distribution. The coordinators of a communication strategy will need to know, to achieve efficient work in the field: targeted market segments by the type of service or product, organization and product/service positioning market, especially in the dynamic action of the internal and external cultural environment factors, on strong trends of globalization and competition tourism market like it is defining.

Theories of communication and consumer behaviour underlying the marketing strategy of communication, confirms this thing. As shown, Pender (1999) due to this dynamic socio - cultural influences, developed at least two models of consumer travel behaviour: classic - along with the other factors described in this paper is based and interference socio-cultural factors and the other, namely structuralist model, which focuses entirely on socio-cultural influences.

Moreover, cross-cultural and multicultural research, complemented by the pragmatic findings of the advertising agency Young and Rubican, shows that the middle and peak social categories (peak upper class, upper middle class stratum and middle social class) are common needs and aspirations, which can be identified similarities in lifestyle with cultural orientation values, regardless of national culture they come from. This pattern could be applied to travel consumers who mostly belong, as shown even The World Tourism Organization statistics, to middle social class backgrounds.

Marketing maxima: think globally, act locally, remains valid in the international market, and therefore tourism. The problems go beyond communication, even within the new international context of the tourism consumer and the international public-private partnership working in tourism, these being established by the cultural particularities (i.e. - purchase patriotic), by the status, the role of tourists to residents and language - consider as true communication barriers in the sector.

From this perspective, there is also the question of standardization especiall y advertising actions, which was and remains the source of much discussion and the researches of Kahler and Kramer (1977) shows that: the success of standardization (communications field) is dependent on the similarity of the motivations for buying and conditions of product/service use.

The essential, if the international market has a similar set of needs and interests, an adaptation of the advertising message is making more successful, shows James Killough (1978).

With all these scientific achievements, Ogilvy and Mather, said, referring generall y to the subject matter of us, that differences in national culture, social and psychological will remain for a long time, so that a common market (at least in Europe) could still really there.

Using theoretical and practical approaches to the theme of the proposed, methodology presented may be that: to achieve effective communication, to adapt communication strategy and marketing mix to its communication objectives, we should to know and to remove barriers that influence consumer behaviour , starting at the macro-cultural environment, continuing to micro-cultural environment and finishing the individual. The more we remove barriers, in-depth (knowing view of the people group about the world and themselves), the less we achieve more ambitious communication goals like: preference awakening and stimulating conviction.

Targeting communication strategies, as shown above and representation - see in below figure no. 2 is based on knowledge of the audience target (consumers of tourism, local community or tour operators).

Underlying study of the pattern of communication will have to mix, quantitative research (which is a lot more to reach those interested in basic market research information provided by tourism) and qualitative one (often based on focus groups, requiring more time and more money), to use raw data obtained from the interpretation of information resulting from the research referred to, along with the secondary data, coming from the other sources (previous studies, inter and multi-cultural researches).

Knowing information on THE MACRO-CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT of the audience consumer - will looking for the origin of tourists, social category or categories to which they belong. These data will help us, along those acquired from other sources - using values dimensions guidance, initially developed by Hofstede, systematized in the form presented in the paper by R. Rugimbana and S. Nwankwo (2003), to obtain, for each national culture basis, other highly useful data such as:

- human relations to others, which divides cultures in: individual and collectivist; recall this preference to travel alone or in groups, the level acceptance of certain products, level acceptance of new brands, not because I feel that's fine, but for fear of being outside the group trend;

- people's relationship to power which has implications for communication; in this regard, we mention: the buyer attitude towards the way of making a product legally, the tourists relation to communication rules imposed in each country etc.

- relation to affective is a cultural values dimension guidance; tourism is an activit y that promotes things, using emotional arguments; knowing so national cultural profile of the auditor, we know how to appeal to the making of the promotion message according to the origin of tourists;

- relationship to space, generates a series of reactions of the individuals to the perceptual factor of consumer behaviour and the message communication process;

- the individual's relationship to time, suggests very helpful information on planning communication activities, on how tourist supports new, or is made aware of a tourist destination.

All of these values dimension guidance are based ultimately on values, human experiences, norms whose meaning are given to social communities and ultimatel y create the behaviour of the reference groups and the individuals. Consumption behaviour of all persons that divide the same cultural framework, is common.

Without much effort, we will thus establish communication objectives, such as: the awareness or the knowledge (information and education) of tourists on a tourist destination or a new tourist service and organize then, according to barriers that affect communication, marketing mix of the communication. In this case, we shall combining advertising, public relations and direct marketing, as communication tools.

Benefits, added a possible reduction of the cost of communication actions lead by advertising, can be reduced by limiting the use of marketing communication actions at favourable opinion level. Thus, having information on the psycho-demographic we fail to tackle a transversal communication model (i.e. cover man y age groups, from the same socio-occupational and social class) with much greater impact on audience.

Going forward, on the second level of the research and the knowledge of the consumer, THE MICRO-CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT of its origin, we can use a number of elements already developed in intercultural studies, complemented by research on macro - environment cultural analysed above. In tourism case, most often behaviours in the consumer's decision are uniform.

At this level, we are able to identify: the opinion leaders in each national culture or subculture that prefers practicing tourism, the decision marketing units - DMU from the socio-professional environment (depending on the values dimension guidance, the relationship to others, the relationship to power and the relationship to rules).

The downside would be that, at this level, we can't see when the leaders distance themselves from the audience target and whether they know the tourist product well and tourist destination. In this phase (research level), communication objectives that can be established could be: information, knowledge, suggesting / providing quality, value and performances of the tourist destination or tourist service. The most commonly marketing mix tools that are used could be: public relations, publishing promotional materials and not least the sales promotion.

Note, that these positions intervention, the nature of personal data is becoming important, and the mix of communication tools go from using non-personal communication channels to the personal one, which in fact are less expensive, but should be carried out more attention. The downside would be that at this time, the target auditor growing research costs, the time setting goals also increase, but at the same time increases the accuracy of the information you will be able to open the way to the third level of consumer knowledge - THE INDIVIDUAL (research level).

Understanding the opinions, attitudes, motivations and perceptions of visitors on a tourist destination, especially on a certain kind of tourism product, knowing habits primary reference groups - family, using the information provided by other level of the research, we will segment the market so that, we will enable tourism companies (most developed entrepreneurial system) to act on niche markets, enabling cost reductions on sales of agency staff, as well as efforts in research, if the relevant levels of the research. At this level, tourism companies can follow the strategic objective of marketing - loyalty and client satisfaction.

Discussions

Establish communication objectives and ultimately the marketing mix them, according to the degree of knowledge of the consumer profile, we can streamline communication in terms of reducing costs incurred in advertising, number of the personnel involved in the communication process, time spent on consumer market research and the marketing of tourism organizations if:

- tourism actual demand will gradually study, positioning the tourist product and the tourist organization at the beginning to competitors, even as the consumer consciousness;

- will be made a solid public-private partnership, based on a unit, coherent and participatory public policy;

- differentiated intervention there will be consistency in the two parts involved in tourism communication: public and private.

Local or central authorities intervene, relying on research intercultural knowledge applied macro-environment and micro-cultural environment in achieving the kind of communication objectives: information, consumer and community awareness on what constitutes tourism and even the formation an image (opinions) favourable tourist destination; this involves generating a communication marketing strategy with substantial resources (human, material, financial and intangible).

Entrepreneurs, following the same concerted and correlated plan, will follow the persuasion actions, using the benefits of the communication efficiency of the local/central governments resulted in favourably influencing opinion on travel destination.

Resources needed, so an entrepreneur for research and promote the purpose of loyalty and customer satisfaction will be much smaller and the strategy more efficient.

The greatest risk, of such marketing communication plan is the lack of communication between partners and no advertising budgets correlation with annual budgetary projections of public authorities and multi-annual privat e entrepreneurs.

Conclusions

Tourism as a complex phenomenon of our times, as we have shown, is the first of all a lived experience of life by the visitors of a tourist destination and also for its residents. It also, relies on an intensive inter-human relationship, the result of communication and collaboration between the sectors of economy: public and private.

Of course, we must not forget its features (it is a service - intangible) that are consumed and produced at the same time and space variable in terms of its components, perishable and difficult to standardize, for which offers no guarantee after purchase, so it need to continuously provide material evidence of positive confirmation of the purchasing. The framework, that I have just presented open the way for socio-cultural factors knowledge to facilitate effective communication of the tourism activities.

In the practice of tourism, there are a number of barriers that preclude communication, like: language, status and role of tourists, on the one hand, the residents on the other hand, other cultural differences (political barriers, buying so-called patriotic). These barriers are considered factors that influence communication, acts on the transmitter, the power and especially on the receiver and its behaviour response.

Perspectives of cultural anthropology, psychology, individual and social psychology has much to offer by developing trans-disciplinary education and research on tourism. Tourism - the life experience provides the opportunity to examine the science mentioned special forms, important of the human experience, which often exist outside conventional forms of human behaviour.

Concluding, based on the above considerations on tourism, but also that it is practiced by middle social class, where there are common needs and aspirations, which can be identified by similarities in lifestyle, regardless of national culture from which they come. In tourism sector, effective communication, you can create "patterns of communications" (communication mixes). These will focus on:

- identify the communication objectives, obtained under behavioural responses offered by gradual knowledge (multi-levels research: macro-cultural, micro-cultural and individual) of the tourism consumer, socio-cultural perspective;

- correlation of the communication tools in the mix communication with the objectives and the research level of the consumer profile;

- balanced allocation, depending on the funding opportunitiesof the communication intervention (the multi-level profile consumer research, the communication objectives and the communication mix tools) between two sectors: public and private, such as to define an effective strategy of the communication tourist image.

References

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