Citation
Sotiriadis, M. and Apostolakis, A. (2015), "Marketing challenges in travel, tourism and hospitality industries of the European and Mediterranean regions", EuroMed Journal of Business, Vol. 10 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/EMJB-07-2015-0035
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Marketing challenges in travel, tourism and hospitality industries of the European and Mediterranean regions
Article Type: Editorial From: EuroMed Journal of Business, Volume 10, Issue 3.
Modern marketing is a management orientation and a systematic process integrating the techniques used by managers to influence demand. Further, marketing is outward looking and proactive to the changing business environment, and customers’ or visitors’ needs, expectations and behaviour (Middleton et al., 2009). It also constitutes a response to business conditions, especially amidst fierce competitive pressures that are now found to underpin the travel and tourism markets in almost all parts of the world. The importance of marketing orientation and approach and the need for improved marketing techniques has been well documented (see, for instance, McCabe, 2014; Morrison, 2013). It is quite clear that marketing is a proactive approach to business, conducted at best within a volatile market environment.
The European-Mediterranean region is an important destination in the globalized tourism market. During the last four decades, all Mediterranean destinations have experienced a rapid growth and, sometimes, over-expansion of tourism industries. Nowadays, these destinations have to address and overcome the challenges and threats resulting in the market developments and business environmental changes. Marketing in the fields of tourism, travel, hospitality and leisure industries is one of cutting edge and most challenging themes of recent years. Within the context of “Experience Economy” in general business environment and consumer behaviour in particular, the task of providing unforgettable tourism experiences to visitors and guests is the most critical priority for all tourism-related businesses and destination marketers (Sotiriadis, 2012).
That is why the EuroMed Journal of Business (EMJB) has decided to dedicate a special issue on this theme. The main aim of this Special Issue was to invite papers that provide insights and an enhanced understanding of the current state-of-art research in tourism-related industries in European and Mediterranean regions. This Special Issue focuses on the marketing responses to contemporary challenges and issues within the context of the current environment of fierce competition. It also focuses on the marketing strategies and practices that organizations develop in order to manage their way through the existing problems.
This Special Issue of the EMJB encompasses six papers, each one of them focusing on various marketing issues in the tourism and hospitality industries. The majority of the papers use case studies located in and across the Mediterranean. All six papers aim to put forward ideas and concepts that would help shed some light in the travel, tourism and hospitality fields of study. Each one of the papers provides a timely and topical application of contemporary marketing practices to readers and scholars in the area.
The selected papers in this Special Issue reflect the current discussion on some very up-to-date topics. In particular, the study “Preferring green and rejecting ‘unethical’ hotels”, by Tilikidou and Delistavrou, focuses on the classification of ethical tourists in the hospitality industry in Greece, while subsequently frame the market of green or ethical hotel customer guests and identify the factors that influence ethical consumer behaviour in the hospitality industry. One of the most interesting findings of their paper was that external influences (i.e. what opinion leaders advocate) tend to influence ethical consumers’ hehaviour in the hospitality more, as compared to internal influences (i.e. what respondents believe to be right). Pursuing a structural equation modelling (SEM) approach in their study entitled “Britain in bloom? A study into Chinese tourists’ experience”, Lin, He and Vlachos target Chinese visitors in the UK and examine their experiences based on a conceptual model of tourist satisfaction and destination loyalty. The driving force behind this investigation rests on the considerable impact of Chinese outbound tourists to European destinations.
The empirical findings confirm that visitors of Chinese origin tend to be more influenced from culture-specific, as opposed to destination-specific factors. The authors conclude that this could be an important finding for every destination aiming to attract Chinese tourists. The abovementioned findings are confirmed in the study entitled “Strategic framework showcasing Greece in the Chinese tourism market” by Kapiki et al., where they conclude that Chinese visitors to Greece are mostly drawn by the authenticity of the Greek islands, cultural heritage and safety. The study is particularly important because it represents one of the first attempts to concentrate on the particular requirements of this tourism market in Greece.
On the other hand, the paper, entitled “Contrasting quality of service experience for northern and southern Mediterranean tourists” co-authored by Schlesinger, Cervera and Pérez-Cabañero, adopts a more holistic approach in their investigation trying to examine tourists’ service experiences across seven north and south Mediterranean city destinations. Their motivation derives from the need to consider the quality of the service experience in a holistic and comprehensive way. The authors use a standardized survey questionnaire, deployed across seven Mediterranean cities to collect their data. With the use of exploratory descriptive statistical analysis they conclude that tourists perceive northern Mediterranean destinations differently from destinations in the southern Mediterranean. Tourists report high tourist involvement in northern destinations, whereas, in the south, tourists’ emphasize on destinations’ hedonistic features.
Mason and Moretti, in their study “Antecedents and moderators of golf tourists’ behavioural intentions: an empirical study in a Mediterranean destination”, follow on the same path albeit adopting a more focused approach. In particular, the authors consider tourists engaging in golfing activity during their vacations. Their objective is to differentiate golf tourist markets according to perceived quality, satisfaction and behavioural intentions. They argue that quality perceptions are a strong indication of heterogeneity among golf tourists. Hence, quality indicators could be a useful tool for marketing managers to segment the tourism market more effectively, and subsequently becoming more competitive. The last paper “The importance of social media on holiday visitors’ choices – the case of Athens, Greece”, by Kavoura and Stavrianeas, deployed a survey questionnaire to a sample of 301 respondents at the Athens International Airport. The authors’ focus is upon destination image and how different groups of visitors (differentiated based on their nationality and gender) perceive the importance of social media as sources of information for tourism purposes. Their empirical findings maintain that Facebook seems to be one of the primary sources of information regarding tourist destinations in the Mediterranean. Other popular sources of tourist information were official web sites/blogs and photo sharing sites.
Overall, the collection of papers in this Special Issue presents an original set of detailed case studies that highlight various aspects of the evolving paradigm in tourism marketing. One aspect that emerges all too prominently is that of the experience economy. In particular, all six of the papers feature some aspects of the experience economy, either directly or otherwise, indicating in this way its significance and a turning point in the marketing field. The examination of the experience economy through the various case studies ranges from the visitor, to the destination (e.g. how does a destination improves visitors’ experiences), to the particular services offered.
All six papers in this Special Issue have, one way or the other, identified the strong competitive forces permeating the tourism industry in and across the Mediterranean sub-region and propose various methods and approaches for tourism destinations to overcome these forces. Another interesting fact that emerges from the collective consideration of the papers appearing on this Special Issue is that quality, and various aspects of it, play an overwhelming role in the operations of the tourism industry. Thus, the papers included in this Special Issue cover dimensions of quality ranging from information provision, to hospitality offerings, to authentic quality experiences and to perceived notions of quality. It is particularly heartening that all papers and their respective authors assign such a central role on quality notions, paving in this way tourism managers’, practitioners’ and policy makers’ way towards more elaborate and experiential-based tourism offerings (Morrison, 2013).
Clearly, the field will continue to need multiple and varied cases akin to those presented in this issue. This collection adds useful and pertinent examples in pursuit of exploring and elaborating the field. Completing this editorial, we would like to mention that without the interesting papers and the assistance of Professor Dimitrios Vrontis and the Editorial Office of EMJB, this Special Issue would not be easy at all. We also like to thank all the authors and the reviewers for their contribution and valuable work; they have considerably facilitated our task.
Professor Marios Sotiriadis - Department of Transport Economics, Logistics and Tourism, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa
Dr Alexandros Apostolakis - Technological Educational Institute of Crete, Heraklion, Greece
References
McCabe, S. (Ed.) (2014), The Routledge Handbook of Tourism Marketing, Routledge, London
Middleton, V.T.C., Fyall, A., Morgan, M. and Ranchhod, A. (2009), Marketing in Travel and Tourism, 4th ed., Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford
Morrison, A.M. (2013), Marketing and Managing Tourism Destinations, Routledge, New York, NY
Sotiriadis, M. (2012), “Tourism destination marketing: approaches improving effectiveness and efficiency”, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology, Vol. 3 No. 2, pp. 107-120