Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The position of a tourism business within the resulting matrix was seen as dynamic rather than
fi xed, with businesses able to move between cells over time.
Interdependency between tourism businesses and others involved in tourism provision is an
accepted characteristic of tourism marketing (e.g. the 'composite product' of Burkart and Medlik
1981: 195; Middleton 1994: 31). Marketers need to manage their supplier networks who produce
the different elements of the tourism product (for example, the food suppliers to the hotel
restaurant; the hotel rooms and self-catering units to the tour operator) and for the business
investing in sustainability, this means using suppliers meeting certain sustainability criteria and
standards. Under the auspices of social marketing, Polonsky, Carlson and Fry (2003) have
proposed the 'harm chain' concept as a way of bringing together networks of stakeholders with
Porter's value chain as embedded in standard marketing practice to address 'harm' or negative
consequences arising from both direct and indirect (externalities) exchanges amongst stakeholders.
Types of 'harm' might include carbon dioxide emissions, poor living standards of tourism and
hospitality workers, or inequities in fresh water supplies. Identifi cation of 'harm' is the fi rst step
in developing a harm chain, and subsequent steps include resolving where the harm originated,
how it might be prevented and who is being harmed (Polonsky
et al
. 2003). The harm chain
is based on four exchange-oriented stages where harm may happen, namely pre-production,
production, consumption and post-consumption. The harm chain also categorizes stakeholders
using the criteria of those who cause or bring about the harm, those who are harmed, and those
who help in alleviating the harm. The four stages and the three stakeholder types are brought
together as a matrix, the harm table (Polonsky
et al
. 2003). From a tourism perspective, given the
inseparability of production and consumption, it may be useful to merge the stages of production
and consumption to produce a harm table that is a three by three matrix.
Communication has long been the preserve of the marketing practitioner and communication
for responsible behaviour is an obvious area of engagement. Alongside criticism of using cost-
saving messages as habituating the wrong behaviours for responsible choices in more complex
product categories (e.g. fl ying) are criticisms of fear appeals (e.g. Futerra 2005; Obermiller 1995).
The argument is that fear appeals in sustainable communications results in consumer apathy, an
overwhelming feeling that little can be done, and is particularly unsuited under circumstances
where the supporting infrastructure for pro-environmental behaviour (e.g. recycling facilities)
are poor (Futerra 2005). Conversely, recent arguments have been made for appeals that prompt
target audiences to refl ect on the importance they attach as individual consumers to intrinsic
values, even if they are naturally extrinsically-oriented (Common Cause Research 2012). This
appeal for refl ection is argued as being more effective than communicating systemic concern
about big environmental and social issues and is partly predicated on the notion that individuals
possess a greater mix of extrinsic and intrinsic values than originally believed (Common Cause
Research 2012). Within communication research and the quest for responsible consumer
behaviour, the rise of Web 2.0, mobile technologies and the power of social media merits
attention. For example, tourism businesses devising social media network strategies and content
strategies could experiment with social infl uence scores (e.g. Klout scores) for bringing on-side
infl uential bloggers with expertise on sustainability, responsibility or on pro-environmental
consumer behaviours.
Governments, regulatory bodies, retailers (travel agents) and tourism businesses have the
strategic option of practising choice editing for responsible tourism. Choice editing is the pre-
selection of products offered to consumers - under these circumstances according to sustainability
criteria - and has success in various product categories (Sustainable Development Commission
2006). Applied to tourism, the goal would be to remove less responsible tourism from the
possible choice sets of consumers, leaving the would-be tourist with a selection of possible
