Planeta Forum

[planeta]

How should ethical products and services be marketed? -- This question will be be reviewed in Ethical Travel Dialogue conducted online June 13-July 21, 2006.
http://www.planeta.com/ecotravel/tour/etd.html
http://forum.planeta.com/viewforum.php?f=79

REQUEST -- Please keep messages brief, preferably less than three paragraphs or 250 words. If you have a relevant URL, please mention it within hyphens or on a separate line.

Example: The City Parks Gallery -- http://www.flickr.com/groups/cityparks -- is open to anyone with a Flickr account and who wishes to share pictures of urban parks.

REFERENCES

Ethical Marketing of Ecotourism
http://www.planeta.com/ecotravel/tour/marketing.html

How to write a media release
http://www.planeta.com/ecotravel/tour/mediarelease.html

How to host a press trip
http://www.planeta.com/ecotravel/tour/presstrip.html

[planeta]

Preliminary Results from the Tourism Marketing Survey
http://www.planeta.com/planeta/06/0605naturalezanotes2.html

In May Planeta.com launched a Tourism Marketing Survey (which runs through the end of July). We wanted to know what tourism professionals (hotel owners, in-bound and out-bound operators) and guides thought of government marketing campaigns, particularly as it relates to ethical travel -- ecotourism, responsible tourism, etc.

Respondents have given government marketing campaigns a low mark. Travel operators either do not know the PR agencies that represent the country or have no meaningful contact. Small operations tend to feel that government campaigns work against them. That said, they have some interesting recommendations.

WHAT OPERATORS SUGGEST

Richard Edwards: If there was 1/10th as much time spent on facilitating the connection between existing ecotourism suppliers (or suppliers that could be ecotourism if it they saw the benefit) and wholesaler clients, as is spent on "training" people in-country on how to start an ecotourism business, those businesses would have an exponentially better chance of succeeding.

Frank Segieth: I recently attended the COP-8 in Curitiba about the Convention on Biological Diversity. Much is said about the important role of ecotourism in the context of conserving biodiversity and in the context of "bridging" the gap between biodiversity and poverty. Few things are done in concrete to reach this goal. What from my point of view really would be important (and very simple) is that the organizations working toward conservation and biodiversity (UNEP, World Bank and others) evaluate local promising ecotourism companies and dedicate a page that link to responsible ecotourism tour operators and their projects.

[valere]

The internet has caused a sea change in the tourism business. The old model of departure-area operators and agents serving a local clientele (PUSH) is rapidly being replaced by PULL (internet-specific companies and local facilities offering their services directly to an international market). Not only in physical terms, in marketing philosophy, we are learning to attract customers rather than to target and promote at them.

Satellite and cable TV is exponentially increasing TV awareness opportunities with 1,000's of channels; mobile telephony is just beginning its growth into 3G, and challenging landline costs, leading to a vast telemarketing industry. Now the old Advertising Agency model is being challenged, destroyed and re-created in a new mould. "Below the line" advertising and marketing is expanding, whilst the established "Above the line" space and time buying marks time. New agencies, specialise in off-beat promotions, internet marketing, telephone and SMS marketing.

LESS AND LESS DO THE BULK OF THE POPULATION TRUST THE MEDIA.

Tour operators and other entrepreneurs marketing caused the travel and tourism industry to happen and to grow like Topsy over the last 50 years.
Now, it’s possible to market in many different ways.

In my view, our methods of marketing define who we are and what we want to be. As Marshall McLuhan wrote - “The medium is the message”.

Ethical Tourism, Voluntourism, Solidarity Tourism, EcoTourism, Responsible Tourism, ProPoverty Tourism, Conscious Tourism, is, by its nature as “Alternative” and “Organic” as Yoga and Reiki and Health Food and Acupuncture, to name a few. To be successful, we need to be alternative in our marketing too.

We need to learn to visualise our benefitting communities and environments and cultures with tourism and transfer this knowledge to our practical marketing. We need to learn to use our clients to create great “Word of Mouth” BUZZ campaigns. We need to learn how to attract appropriate clients through the internet. We need to learn how to market ORGANICALLY and use these methods to change the way tourism is seen and to fulfil its many potential benefits.

Alternative Marketing for Alternative Tourism? Tourism Organic Marketing? These are the routes we need to be taking for conscious tourism to succeed and grow.

[chinacontact]

I think the Fair Trade movement has shown to work well in Europe when it comes to produce and can be applied to tourism with the right research and commitment. Tourism Concern is leading this work and needs all of our support to complete it and lauch a Fair Trade label for hotels, holidays and package.

Roy

[planeta]

We have had some very helpful comments in this branch of the dialogue. Marketing plays an important role and one which we further explore elsewhere in the forum
http://forum.planeta.com/viewforum.php?f=19

That said, I question whether 'fair trade' labels work. What are the criteria? Do consumers or communities have a voice? Show me a process which includes public in-house critiques and I am on board. Otherwise, I remain skeptical about most certification measures.
http://www.planeta.com/ecotravel/tour/certification.html

In the past few years I have been compiling a directory of ecotourism resources for Transitions Abroad magazine (in effect, certifying the certifiers). We would like to notch up our criteria a bit.

Following a conversation with Conservation International's Jaime Sweeting earlier this year, Transitions Abroad's editor Sherry Schwartz and I discussed how to ask organizations with responsible tourism programs to fill out a survey and explain what standards and criteria they use.

The application is online -- http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=506202238667 -- and will be open through the end of this month.

Details
http://www.planeta.com/planeta/06/0607tadirectory.html