Travel and Tourism

Special Characteristics of Travel and Tourism

Marketing in the Service Industries

The hospitality and travel industry, along with other service industries, has not followed the same historical evolution in marketing that you have already read about in the previous chapter. The services marketing concept, which is based on a recognition of the uniqueness of all services - a branch of marketing that specifically applies to the service industries - has lagged behind by as much as 20 years.

The principal reason for this fact is that many managers have “come up through the ranks” in the hospitality industry. E.g. hotel company presidents were front desk clerks. As they advanced, their individual business environments stressed the technical details of the business.

The second reason is that major technological breakthroughs came later than they did in the manufacturing and packaged-goods industry. Mass production, which is introduced by Henry Ford in the early 1990s, did not arrive in the hospitality and travel industry until three or four decades later. E.g. Pan American offered first transatlantic passenger flight in 1939. McDonald’s opened in 1955, etc.

Services and their Characteristics

Services have several unique characteristics as follows;

Intangible nature of services. The essential difference between goods and services is that goods are produced but services are performed.

Inseparability. This means that the act of production and consumption is simultaneous and takes place in the same environment, not in the consumer’s home environment. It also means that most of the staff of the service companies have some consumer contact and are seen by the customer.

Perishability. Products can be stored for future sale; services cannot. Services are perishable “like a running tap in a sink with no plug”. The sale of an empty hotel room, airline seat is lost forever. Services, more importantly, the time available to experience them,...