THE TOURISM BUSINESS

The Tourism Business

The role of the tour operator is to essentially sell accommodation, transport, activities and transfers in a combined all-inclusive package. The Tour operators’ product is different to that sold by other businesses in many ways and understanding this will go a long way to being successful.

1.    What you are selling is an intangible product that must be bought blind because it cannot be seen, touched or experienced by the consumer before use. Instead, tour operators prepare brochures which represent their products in words and pictures. These brochures cannot accurately give an impression of how any one particular client will experience the product, so sellers are often described as selling dreams. Buying a holiday is like buying a bar of chocolate; only memories are left after the product is consumed.

2.    You are selling a discretionary product, meaning that the clients do not have to buy it in the same way that they do food or fuel. When finances are tight or during a recession, they may choose to spend their money that would have gone on a holiday on other consumer durables such as a compact disc player or new washing machine.

3.    It is not a heterogeneous product. You could buy a refrigerator like your neighbour’s and expect it to look identical and operate in exactly the same way, but holidays are by their very nature varied. Anyone coming to Konkan on a food and nature tour will have a different experience whether they come in summer or monsoon, even if they went with the same operator, stayed in the same hotels and ate at the same restaurants.

4.    It is a perishable product.

5.    Package holidays suffer from inseparability. The behaviour of everyone involved in the product, from the hotel porter to the vehicle driver can have an effect on the outcome of the experience. If we purchase a washing machine, our enjoyment of the product will not be reduced by an irritating plumber who installs it.