Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
taking into consideration that value is unique to each customer and is associated to
personalized experiences;
products and services are only means to an end.
Prosumption is then transforming the customer-company relationship by allowing consumers
to co-construct their own unique value. This new type of operation is turning the 'supply chain'
into a 'demand value chain', by reversing the fl ow of marketing from 'company to customer' to
'customer to company'. Enlightened tourism marketers will collaborate with consumers to build
a dialogue and exchange process that creates value for both parties. This shift in thinking moves
the emphasis from what marketers do to consumers to what consumers want from marketing.
New e-tourist generation
Technology continues to play a massive part in changing entire business models in almost every
sector. The impacts are obvious - the way products are designed, created and marketed has
altered immeasurably. For marketers, technology can be a threat or an opportunity. The
potential that new technologies present for meeting and exceeding the needs of the new
tourist are immense. With an understanding of the need for consumer-centricity, marketers must
harness the Internet and other new media as a means of gaining consumer intelligence. Those
tourist operators which have managed this have developed a competitive edge which cannot be
rivalled. With big data, comes the ability to tailor and customize communications, develop brand
relationships which have strength and endurance and build bonds with consumers which shut
out the competitive voice.
Nonetheless, repeatedly, studies show that technology investment in the tourism industry
signifi cantly lags behind other sectors - the sector has simply not taken an active role in
developing or adapting new technology (Dwyer
et al.
2008). It has been argued that this is due
to the structure of the industry made up largely of small and medium sized enterprises.
Yet fi ndings from Dwyer
et al.
(2009) indicate that practitioners are aware that technology
actually offers the platform to compete with larger organizations on a more level playing fi eld.
Opportunities to develop, maintain and maximize competitive advantage remain signifi cant.
For tourist consumers, the world of products and services will never be the same and is in
constant fl ux. The current fragmented world in which we all live, part-physical, part-virtual, with
what seems like infi nite touch points available to us is the new reality. A new 'marketsphere' has
emerged - a technology-driven, borderless world with fragmenting media and diverse customers
resistant to traditional push marketing is now upon us. In particular, we have witnessed the rise
of social media. Social media has become a ubiquitous feature of online life - given the greater
accessibility and reduced cost of broadband, coupled with the accelerated development of
communication tools such as microblogs and video sharing websites are of much interest to the
industry as these are increasingly viewed as a relevant metric of brand value. Consumers'
engagement with social media in the tourism arena has evolved beyond anyone's expectations
(Buhalis and Law 2008) providing a forum for '
twinsumers
'
- our taste twins, fellow consumers
somewhere in the world who think, react, enjoy and consume the same way we do and on
whose advice/information we rely to make purchase decisions. Tourism marketers must focus
not only on customer service as a means of harnessing these forums (Dickie 2012) but also take
advantage of this propensity to engage online. Consumers want to interact, but expectations of
the quality of these interactions are very high.
Yet the tourism industry is in danger of missing opportunities. Focusing primarily on an
e-commerce model that centres on reducing channel costs, where price has become the primary
