Marketing and Market Development

[planeta]

TOPIC: Marketing and Market Development
1. Internet marketing
2. Cooperative marketing
3. Event marketing
4. Destination marketing
5. Rural marketing

MODERATOR: Richard Edwards

SETTINGS: Active participants can reply to this topic

PARTICIPANTS:
http://www.planeta.com/ecotravel/tour/e ... .html#part

REFERENCE

Ecotourism Emerging Industry Forum (Nov 1-18, 2005)
http://www.planeta.com/ecotravel/tour/emerging.html

[jsweeting]

My principle interest here is to see how we can use markets (both direct to the consumer and within the supply chain) to increase competitiveness and profitability of tourism SMEs working in high biodiversity areas. The more successful SMEs are the more people they can employ and the greater likelihood for getting local communities to support conservation --because they see more economic benefit from protection than destructive utilization.

How do we more effectively help grow these kinds of businesses? How do we encourage European and North American outbound eco/adventure (and for that matter Mass Tourism) operators to be more proactive in seeking out and supporting such SMEs and promoting those that are most committed to making a difference in the lives of local people and conservation?

[Tropic]

I agree that this topic may be one of the most important in this forum, being sustainable means making a profitable business.

Here in Ecuador most SME or CBE ecotourism projects are limited in several areas related to its commercialization.

I think that the best results we could look for is learn how our small enterprises can reach this "large market of socially-conscious travelers making uninformed decisions that can be easily persuaded" with limited marketing budgets and skills; I believe that if we can find practical suggestions many people and communities will be able to present their experiences to the world.

[Aivar_Ruukel]

My principle interest here is to see how we can use markets (both direct to the consumer and within the supply chain) to increase competitiveness and profitability of tourism SMEs working in high biodiversity areas. The more successful SMEs are the more people they can employ and the greater likelihood for getting local communities to support conservation --because they see more economic benefit from protection than destructive utilization.

How do we more effectively help grow these kinds of businesses? How do we encourage European and North American outbound eco/adventure (and for that matter Mass Tourism) operators to be more proactive in seeking out and supporting such SMEs and promoting those that are most committed to making a difference in the lives of local people and conservation?

I am representing this group - "tourism SMEs working (and located) in high biodiversity areas". We have been in business 11 years, offering bog-walking, canoeing, cross-country skiing and other nature based activities in Soomaa National Park, Estonia.

It is not easy to reach markets, especially those that are far from you. My experience is that it is a continuous work - learning process of how to attrack and deal with Travel Trade. At least here in my country rural SMEs often have no skills and knowledge of how distribution channels work, how to designe a product , and put a price etc.

Looking forward for highly interesting dialogue on that particular topic.

[oliver]

Hi, this is Oliver Hillel from Puerto Princesa, Philippines. Please excuse me for my short message, but the topic is so interesting (and the participants so experienced) that I cannot avoid provoking a little debate... To make it short, in my experience there are only 2 ways to allow SMEs to get one step further in marketing: subsidies for 3-4 years AT LEAST (meaning training, technical assistance and persistent support), which will allow at least a few of them to pick up by themselves, or 1-3 leaders with a vision (the "follow the leader" approach). In most cases of SME networks that made a difference ( in Guatemala with Alianza Verde, in Europe with the "Gites Rureaux"), there was an organization that stayed on for a longer time, or a larger "anchor" enterprise that "created" a destination but (a rare case) allowed others to benefit as well. No technology by itself can do this - or can it???

Look forward to your replies!

[Richard Edwards]

Browsing around the forum I

[Meganew]

George & Richard,

I have to strongly recommend another reference - which I have already told Richard about - which is Harvey Hartman, Marketing in the Soul Age and Reflections of a Cultural Brand. He researches the market for sustainability products - largely organic foods.

Here is a key quote of his - which I am cutting pasting from my paper on markets for certification.

Sustainable products market research expert Harvey Hartman stated in 2004 that consumer research,

[Miker]

Hi this is Mike Robbins from the Tourism Company in Toronto, Canada. I would like to draw people

[George Duffy]

Neel and Megan,

Can you give an example or two of what you mean by business alliance?

George Duffy

[Richard Edwards]

All,

I promise that I

[Carol Patterson]

I believe the discussion so far presents a pretty accurate picture of what is needed for successful market development. With ecotourism and nature-based tourism dominated by small and medium-size businesses I think governments can and should play an important role in developing markets. The 4

[Miker]

Oliver asked:

Does anyone have a good example of efficient web-based marketing of an ecotourism business?

A colleague of ours, Todd Lucier owns and runs an ecolodge on the edge of Algonquin Provincial Park. His web site is particularly effective

[Meganew]

Apologies,

I actually posted the above item in the marketing forum. It is not really off this topic, but it was written to add to a summary in Triple Bottom line.

Megan

[Meganew]

Oliver,

I have a comment on your thoughts regarding Internet marketing, and I hope Ron Mader pitches in on this one!

I was the one to oversee the launch of ecotourism.org for The Ecotourism Society. Granted this was early, early in the days of ecotourism marketing. I remember racing to get that address, realizing how valuable that would be in about 1995 I think. Anyway, I also was the one to come up with the Your Travel Choice Makes a Difference Campaign and raise the original funding for this, launch it on the web, and also of course, get all of the tour operators and TIES members to list their companies as part of this campaign.

I was just chatting with Richard Edwards about this. The Travel Choice campaign was designed to have much more than a website at launch. We had brochures and 3 advertorials in Natural History Magazine as well to launch the campaign, and we did a significant number of press releases, and perhaps as many as 30-40 interviews on the topic. We designed this to get the press off the constant question of how ecotourism might harm the environment, and rather ask how the consumer can make a difference. It really, really worked.

Both of these efforts were very well received and changed the face of how The International Ecotourism Society was viewed - and created enormous new visiblity for the organization. I can assure you that having funds and having lots of staff time were not the reason we succeeded. I believe the TIES website remains number one in terms of ecotourism hits - though Ron may disagree on this...... And the Travel Choice campaign is still quite active - though I am not sure how well it functions as a tool for providing members with new clients.

In both cases, the key to our success was public relations. We received a tremendous amount of media interest and we fostered this actively. Stanley Selengut of Maho Bay Camps was the king of public relations and still is today and he always was proud to say that he only paid for one advertisement a year in Wedding Magazine I believe. I have always tried to position my projects - and this relates to the importance of market positioning for any project but particularly ecotourism. I believe we could look at every case of successful ecotourism projects and find that the web is just reinforcing what is being said in the media and that it is the market positioning that counts, backed up by smart media relations.

Megan

[febo]

I am trying to find out if ecotourism web masters are now the equivalence to those nice hostess you find at the hotels entrance giving the tourist certain confidence, like telling them that right at that place where they have just arrived are people can understand them.

What are the requirements to have a successfully internet marketing whether you are a consultant or an operator?

Is it better to have some one full time doing so?

Is there a tendency having better results if he or she is an American, European or at least an English native speaker?

Which are the best sites that reveal a good internet marketing?

I would like to receive opinions about our site: www.balam.org.mx

Gracias
Antonio Suarez