Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
whereby the consumer is an active participant in generating and manifesting that experience.
The experience now has to be something more than simply the act of searching and buying
products in a pleasing physical environment or virtual environment. Brands must deliver a
unique immersive themed sensory experience and importantly an emotional one; it must make
the consumer feel good. Moreover a brand experience platform that allows for fl exibility and
reactivity is desirable, change will be necessary as consumers get bored very quickly and as such
the 'experience' must continue to evolve and change so as to allow on-going new experiences,
thus the experience is always new and therefore desired.
Today and in the future, marketers want to extend their contact with customers through time.
In effect the brand must change from being thought of not as a product or a service but an
invitation, specifi cally to an emotionally satisfying and enduring relationship. The brand promise
should connote the quality of that relationship. Branding must then become more than seduction
and emotional manipulation or indeed the construction of artifi cial needs and desires - it
becomes the fostering and promotion of trusting relationships and demonstrating intelligence,
caring and human common sense to satisfy real existing human needs. As such marketers
must get back to creating and telling compelling brand stories based on substance and not spin.
Brands are beginning to seek to build platforms which enable them to engage their customers.
Increasingly, these platforms get people to be part of the narrative or story and to contribute to
it. It is a totally different approach to the traditional brand building and advertising strategy based
around intervention.
Concluding remarks - vectors of future success
In summary, perhaps more than most sectors, the tourism industry is experiencing unprece-
dented change at an extraordinary pace. Trends and changes in the environment are converging
to create an entirely new tourist consumer. This consumer represents a new geo-demographic,
shirking the materialistic values of previous generations, placing new importance on people,
societies and environments and expecting businesses to follow suit. New consumers will not
accept mass marketing communications or the one-product-fi ts-all approach; they want person-
alized treatment, real, true and authentic experiences and expect products and services to func-
tion as a gateway to authentic living. Consumers live in a 24 hour information society where
new technologies play a bigger role than that of the mighty television. They have education,
knowledge and understanding of the tourism sector and all it offers and are savvier about product
portfolios than operators themselves.
The new breed of consumer will only respond to trustworthy, truer brands - brands that
understand their personal needs and fi t into their lifestyles. In terms of a 'world view' clearly
not all states and consumers are at the same stage with regards to consumption practices and
technology - global disparities still exist at present, nonetheless as technology becomes ever
more affordable and accessible and as consumers share more experiences via social networking
sites, it is evident that this consumer attitude will become dominant. Customer-centricity is then
crucial - customers must become the pivotal strategic focus for fi rms. As such we are at the
beginning of a journey from 'brand building' and 'customer relationship management' to
the new standard of consumer agency.
New business and marketing models must emerge. The era of brands dictating through
annoying and disruptive advertising is now being replaced by interactive community-orientated
engagement marketing. Tourism marketers in conjunction with their consumers must move
towards creating immersive brand experiences that provide the best end-to-end experience
whilst delivering both sales and on-going loyalty. This new vision of tourism marketing is driven
