Be able to organise a promotional campaign for a travel and tourism organisation - Travel and Tourism - page 198

Be able to organise a promotional campaign
for a travel and tourism organisat i on

SECTION 4

Promotional campaigns are an essential part of
every travel and tourism organisation's marketing
activities, making customers aware of products and
persuading them to buy products or visit attractions
and destinations.

• R ealistic - object i ves must fi t in with the

organisati o n's overall business aims;

• T ime d - it is important to set time deadlines for the

promotional campaign.

Promotional plan

Activity 5.12

Every successful promotional camp ai gn starts with a
comprehensive plan, which covers:

Plan a promotional campaign, with stated marketing
objectives, for a coach company in your local area
that sells UK and continental holidays. Explain how
the planned campaign would enable the objectives
to be met.

1. Objectives;

2. Promotional methods;

3. Target group;

This activity is designed to provide evidence for P5 and
M4.

4. Timing;

5. Budget;

6. Proce d ur e s for monitoring and evaluation.

Promotional methods

Depending on the size of the campaign, the plan may
be drawn up by staff in an organisation or they may
employ an outside agency or consultants to help.

In the second section of this unit on the marketing mix
we saw that promotion has six main components:

Objectives

• Advertising;

• Public relations (PR);

We saw earlier in this unit that all marketing objectives
must be SMART (see page 192). In the case of a
promotional campaign, this should mean:

• Sales promotions;

• Direct marketing;

• Internet marketing;

• S pecifi c - an objective such as 'increasing the

number of visitors from the Midlands to a Welsh
hotel' is far more meaningful than 'let's try and get
more people to visit the hotel' ;

• Print materials.

Most travel and tourism organisations use a combination
of these methods in their promotional campaigns.
For example, a national tourism organisation such
as VisitBritain will carry out advertising in overseas
countries, run extensive PR campaigns about the
attractions of Britain, offer sales promotions in
conjunction with companies such as British Airways and
Hilton Hotels, carry out direct marketing to selected
groups and individuals, market via the internet and by

• M easurable - 'to increase occupancy in the hotel by

5 per cent this year' gives management and staff a
target to aim for;

• A chievable - setting an objective such as 'increasing

guest numbers by 50 per cent over the next three
months' is unlikely to be met;