Mobile billboard advertising

There are three aims of most tourism promotion. The first is to retain the established market of people for whom travel is a nor­mal form of recreation. Generally they are likely to be between thirty and fifty years of age, well educated, residents of urban cen­ters, and prosperous, with income of $25,000 a year or more.

The second purpose of tourism promotion is to increase the size of the market. In order for tourism to grow, it is necessary to tract people who would not have traveled much until the last years. These include not only office workers, but also industrial workers with much larger disposable incomes than ever before. It is significant for tourism that labor unions, having achieved high wage levels for workers in the industrialized countries, now fight for fringe benefits such as longer paid vacations and shorter workweeks.

The third goal of tourism promotion has been to overcome what might best be called its seasonal bias. In many countries, summer was the traditional vacation season. In the United States, for ex­ample, people went off to a resort in the mountains or at the sea­shore during the hot months. In France, the summer vacation has extended even to the shutting down of many stores and small busi­nesses. Hundreds of thousands of Frenchmen leave Paris in August for the south of France or for destinations outside the country.

Winter vacations have been heavily promoted to spread tour­ism more evenly throughout the year. There has been a big in­crease in facilities for winter sports. The biggest attraction of all, especially to people who must endure a cold and gloomy northern winter, is a vacation in sun. Some areas have been able to combine both attractions. The winter sunshine of Marrakech in Morocco, for example, has long made it an attractive resort, and now ski fa­cilities have been developed in the nearby Atlas Mountains for winter sports enthusiasts.

Many different organizations are involved in tourism promo­tion. They include official and semi-official tourist bureaus, the transportation companies, tour operators, retail travel agents, and individual hotels or hotel chains. Through their tourist offices, governments do a great deal of travel promotion, both in the form of advertising and publicity.

There are two major kinds of promotion — publicity and ad­vertising. Publicity might well be termed free advertising. It con­sists of stories placed in newspapers and magazines about travel, accommodation, restaurants, and other parts of the whole tourism industry. Many newspapers and magazines carry such stories regularly as features. Indeed, professional travel writers journey from resort area to resort area to report on the facilities and amenities that are available.

Another kind of tourism-connected public relations comes under the heading of familiarization. People in the industry, especially those involved in sales — notably travel agents — are frequently provided with free trips to tourist destinations. At best, they may be so impressed by what they see that they will push that area or resort. And at least, they will be able to answer questions from their own experience. Familiarization trips are often extended to other people in the tourism industry, especially tour operators and employees of the transportation companies and government bureaus.

Tourism advertising is a large business in itself. Most of the advertising is directed toward the large tourist-generating regions — the United States and Canada, Western Europe and Japan. Within those regions, advertising is concentrated in particular areas. In Canada and the United States, the cities of the northeast and of the Pacific coast produce more travelers than other areas, so they receive a great deal more advertising. In Japan and Europe travel and tour advertising is concentrated in urban conglomerations Tokyo, Osaka, London and Paris.

Media is a term that is used for the different means of spreading information in the form of news and advertising. Newspapers and magazines — the print media — and radio and television - the broadcast media — are usually included in the term. Once the market area has been pinpointed, the advertiser tries to select the particular medium that will reach those people who are likely to purchase the services that he is promoting.

Television reaches the largest market, one that generally cuts across different social and income groups. TV time is also very ex­pensive, so it is used principally by transportation companies and government tourist agencies for institutional advertising, keeping the name of the company or the region in the public view without giving many specific details about services. Radio serves a more limited audience. Radio, however, is unique in that it can reach people driving their automobiles.

Of the print media newspapers reach the broadest group of people. Many papers in big tourist markets have a weekly travel section. In addition to feature stories, the travel section carries many ads for particular tours and particular resorts. A person who has been intrigued by a general destination because of the colorful pictures on TV or travel posters could then find in the newspaper specific details about accommo­dation, tours, and prices.

Most magazines nowadays are directed to special interest groups. Some institutional advertising appears in magazines, but for the most part they carry advertising directed to the groups who read the magazines.

Another form of advertising is the brochure. It can be an elaborate pamphlet on glossy paper with beautiful color photographs, or a simple throwaway with a page of details for a tour. Tour operators distribute brochures and throwaways in large numbers to travel agents in the market area they are trying to reach.

A great deal of tourism advertising, especially of the institu­tional variety, stresses the destination, and in fact this is known as destination advertising. It is now generally accepted that the pub­lic does not really differentiate between one airline and another, no matter how pretty the stewardesses, how elaborate the meal service, or how brightly painted the aircraft. What the public is buying is essentially a destination, and that is what most of the airlines are emphasizing in their current campaigns.

Perhaps the most effective kind of tourism promotion is the one that cannot be manipulated by the industry. This is word of mouth, what one person says to another about his vacation. And this is indeed a major topic of conversation among people who travel. Like news stories, the results of word of mouth can be good or bad. A recommendation of a resort or hotel by one family to an­other can significantly influence the choice people are likely to make. On the other hand, a bad report spread around by disgrunt­led tourists may sharply cut tourism. Word of mouth guarantees that the tourism industry will provide more or less what it promises. One might say that it is a powerful force in keeping the indus­try honest.