Guest editorial

Citation

Tsiotsou, R.H. (2010), "Guest editorial", Marketing Intelligence & Planning, Vol. 28 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/mip.2010.02028daa.001

Guest editorial

Article Type: Guest editorial From: Marketing Intelligence & Planning, Volume 28, Issue 4

About the Guest Editors Rodoula H. Tsiotsou (PhD) is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Department of Marketing and Operations Management, University of Macedonia, Greece. She has published in a variety of international scientific journals such as The Service Industries Journal, Journal of Marketing Management, International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, Applied Financial Economics Letters, Journal of Targeting, Measurement & Analysis for Marketing, International Journal of Non profit and Voluntary Sector Marketing, Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, Journal of Vacation Marketing, and Journal of Hospitality and Leisure Marketing. Her research interests include services marketing (sport and tourism), branding, non profit marketing, and e-marketing.

Vanessa Ratten (PhD) is an Assistant Professor at Duquesne University, Pittsburgh. She has published in numerous journals including the Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, Journal of High Technology Management, European Journal of Innovation Management, Journal of Management & Organization, International Journal of Educational Management, Thunderbird International Business Review and the International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management. She has co-edited a book Handbook of Research on European Entrepreneurship (Edward Elgar, 2008) and Handbook of Research on Asian Business and Entrepreneurship (Edward Elgar, 2009). Her research interests include entrepreneurship, sport, and team performance management.

Welcome to this special issue of the journal Marketing Intelligence & Planning on the topic “Marketing Tourism Services: Responding to Current Challenges”. There were 24 submissions received for this special issue and the articles included in here are the best suited given the theme of the special issue. All articles submitted for the special issue underwent a double blind peer review process. The special issue consists of eight original articles. There is a mix of conceptual and empirical research, which reflects a number of different perspectives of how tourism marketing is developing internationally.

Tourism represents over 4 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP) and over 3 percent of employment worldwide. Tourism services all over the world are currently facing rapid changes due to market globalization, intensified competition and the dynamic evolution of new technologies. International events such as terrorist attacks, wars and severe diseases (i.e. SARS, influenza A – H1N1) have resulted in diminishing tourist demand and consequently decreased their business. Moreover, it is expected that tourism will be one of the industries that will mostly be affected by the current recession.

The long-term existence of tourism services in such a fierce competitive and financially difficult environment depends not only on their ability to satisfy customers’ needs and desires but also to effectively respond to current global challenges. The special issue provides an opportunity for discussion and exchanging of ideas among academics, marketing managers, administrators and individuals involved in the tourism industry both in the private and public sector. The objective of the special issue is to present the current state of tourism marketing internationally, discuss challenges and opportunities, and draw conclusions for future developments.

Overview of the contributions

The range of papers offered in the special issue attempts to capture the scope of interest and different approaches that tourism marketing research attracts. Several issues emerge in the papers of this special issue: building customer experiences in tourism, e-marketing applications and effectiveness in the tourism industry, brand management in tourism, and segmenting and targeting specific groups of customers (e.g. mature tourist market). Paper’s themes indicate that tourism marketing research is dealing with a wide range of topics; however, most of them focus on branding-related issues such as building destination brand image and brand equity as well as the implementation of e-marketing and its effects on customers decision-making process and tourism performance. Moreover, the selected papers present research conducted on various countries and regions such as Norway, Macau, Cape Town (South Africa), Greece, USA and UK capturing various points of view and providing an international flavor to the special issue.

The first theme concerns developing attractive and satisfied experiences when marketing tourism destinations and includes two papers. The paper of Claes Högström, Marina Rosner and Anders Gustafsson titled “How to create attractive and unique customer experiences – an application of Kano’s theory of attractive quality to recreational tourism”, identifies the differences across quality dimensions and their role in creating experienced quality and satisfaction among tourists. Based on Kano’s theory of attractive quality and extending the work of Brady and Cronin (2001) on service quality creation, the paper shows the importance of a destination that offers conditions that support specific goals or desired activities in order to achieve customer satisfaction. Specifically, the findings indicate that the physical service environment has a major influence on customer satisfaction whereas the physical conditions affect perceived destination image. The second paper comes from Mark S. Rosenbaum and Ipkin Anthony Wong and it is titled “Value equity in event planning: a case study of Macau”. The paper examines the role of value equity and its dimensions (service quality, cost and convenience) on customer satisfaction on two tourism markets: business and leisure travelers. The results show that though value equity is positively related to customer satisfaction among both business and leisure travelers, some major differences exist regarding how these groups respond to an event’s marketing actions that promote value and how they derive satisfaction from value. For example, leisure travelers place more emphasis on a venue’s space and layout than business travelers. In terms of satisfaction, business travelers place more importance than leisure travelers on service quality but are less sensitive to an event’s price.

The second theme consists of one paper and considers the application of internet marketing and its influence on tourists’ purchase decision process. The paper of Marianna Sigala titled “Measuring customer value in online collaborative trip planning processes” analyses the role and functionality of geo-collaborative portals’ information and web mapping services in assisting collaborative trip planning processes. Dr Sigala develops and tests a model for measuring the multi-dimensionality of customer value perceived by system users. The findings of the study provide evidence of the existence of both “give” (risk, time and effort to use the system) and “get” (functional, social and emotional) customer values and that customer value in collaborative trip planning consists of four dimensions named functional, social, emotional/aesthetical, and non-monetary types of value.

The third theme of the special issue consists of the paper of Simon Hudson titled “Wooing zoomers: marketing to the mature traveler”. This is the only conceptual paper of the special issue which highlights consumer trends relating to the baby boomer generation and identifies the relevant marketing communications required to connect with these travelers. Based on a thorough review of literature, the paper suggests that traveling boomers are looking for a memorable experience rather than a holiday, seeking authenticity, spiritual and mental enlightenment, nostalgia, convenience and spontaneity, all packaged in a safe, customized, healthy, green wrapping and delivered with great customer service. To connect with these boomers, marketers should emphasize youth, use nostalgia, and show how to improve boomers’ lives, provide detailed information, promote the experience, and use a variety of media.

The fourth theme focuses on branding issues facing tourism enterprises in the increasingly competitive market for international tourists and consists of three papers. The first paper comes from Girish Prayag and is titled “Brand image assessment: international visitors’ perceptions of Cape Town”. The paper attempts to assess the image of Cape Town by using a combination of unstructured and structured methods. Scenery, friendly people, Table Mountain and value for money were the image attributes found to differentiate Cape Town form other destinations. Methodologically, the findings show that free choice and word association techniques are complementary and both have strengths and weaknesses in identifying the image structure. The free choice technique offers a more balanced view of cognitive and affective brand image associations while word association is better at capturing holistic images. Moreover, the results of the study confirm image structure as comprising of cognitive, affective and holistic impressions. The second paper is written by Nicola Greaves and Heather Skinner and is titled “The importance of destination image analysis to UK rural tourism”. The paper examines the image of the Forest of Dean in Wales, UK, as a tourism destination in order to enable the forest to achieve a greater competitive advantage and increase its profile as a unique rural destination in the UK. Based on qualitative and quantitative data from visitors and potential visitors, the findings indicate that the key image attributes of the Forest of Dean are “beautiful nature” and “wildlife with the woodlands”. This study shows how a destination can build upon its unique characteristics when developing its brand image. In this vein, the last paper of the special issue comes from Kevin K. Byon and James J. Zhang and is titled “Development of a scale measuring destination image”. Based on cognitive-affective attitude theory, the authors develop a scale for measuring the destination image of a small rural city in the USA. Based on a sample of 199 respondents and the results of confirmatory factor analysis, the authors reduced the initial 32-item instrument to 18 items and identified four dimensions of destination image named infrastructure, attractions, value for money, and enjoyment.

The last paper by Rodoula Tsiotsou and Vanessa Ratten is titled “Future research directions in tourism marketing” and concludes the special issue by identifying key areas in tourism marketing requiring further investigation. Specifically, the paper identifies market segmentation, targeting and positioning, e-marketing, brand management and strategic marketing as emerging topics for future research. The paper provides directions to tourism and marketing academics regarding the specific sub-topics that are under-investigated in tourism marketing and encourages more research in these issues.

In bringing this Guest editorial to a close, we believe that the readership of the Marketing Intelligence & Planning will find that the papers of the special issue will stimulate their thinking on emerging issues in tourism marketing and provide the grounds for future research developments.

Acknowledgments

We would like to express our gratitude to the editor of the journal, Professor, Gillian H. Wright for her support and guidance in guest editing this issue as well as Ann Marie McDonald for her help in its management.

We also wish to thank the distinguished panel of academics that assisted with the rigorous double-blind reviewing process for this special edition. Specifically, the editorial review board of the special issue consisted of:

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  Dr Konstantinos Alexandris, Aristotles University of Thessaloniki, Greece.

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  Professor George Baltas, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece.

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  Professor Enrique Bigne, University of Valencia, Spain.

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  Professor Dimitrios Buhalis, Bournemouth University, UK.

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  Dr Evaggelos Christou, University of the Aegean, Greece.

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  Dr Glen Croy, Monash University, Australia.

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  Professor Sara Dolnicar, University of Wollongong, Australia.

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  Professor Christine Ennew, Nottingham University, UK.

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  Professor Matthias Fuchs, Mid-Sweden University, Sweden.

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  Professor Alan Fyall, Bournemouth University, UK.

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  Professor Ronald E. Goldsmith, Florida State University, USA.

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  Dr Sameer Hosany, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK.

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  Professor Simon Hudson, University of South Carolina, USA.

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  Professor Rob Law, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong.

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  Dr Xiang (Robert) Li, University of South Carolina, USA.

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  Professor Drew Martin, University of Hawaii (Hilo), USA.

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  Professor Luiz Moutinho, University of Glasgow, UK.

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  Professor Christine Oschell, University of Montana, USA.

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  Dr Mark S. Rosenbaum, Northern Illinois University, USA.

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  Dr Rodney C. Runyan, University of Tennessee, USA.

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  Dr Marianna Sigala, University of the Aegean, Greece.

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  Dr Dionysis Skarmeas, Leeds University, UK.

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  Dr Claire Haven-Tang, University of Wales Institute Cardiff, UK.

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  Professor Asli D. A. Tasci, Mugla University, Turkey.

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  Professor Muzaffer Uysal, Virginia Tech University, USA.

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  Dr Cleopatra Veloutsou, University of Glasgow, UK.

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  Dr Ipkin A. Wong, Institute for Tourism Studies, Macau.

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  Professor Arch Woodside, Boston College, USA.

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  Professor Jorge Zamore, University of Talca, Chile.

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  Professor Yorgos Zotos, Aristotles University of Thessaloniki, Greece.

Rodoula H. Tsiotsou, Vanessa RattenGuest Editors