Tourism Marketing
Chapter 11 – Marketing planning: the process
The particular significance of marketing plans: seven main reasons why staff time and resources are allocated to marketing planning at the tactical or operational level:
To identify and focus management attention on the current and targeted costs, revenues and profitability of an organization, in the context of its own and its competitors’ products and segments.
To understand the role of stakeholders in the development of strategic marketing planning for the organization.
To focus decisions on implementing the strategic objectives of an organization in their market context and specifying competitive short-term action plans relevant to the long-term future.
To set and communicate specific business targets for managers/strategic business units (SBUs) to achieve in agreed time periods.
To schedule and co-ordinate websites, booking systems, promotional and other marketing action required to achieve targets and to allocate the resources required as effectively as possible.
To achieve co-ordination and a sense of joint direction between the different departments of an organization, and to communicate and motivate all levels of staff.
To monitor and evaluate the results of marketing expenditure and adjust the planned activity as required to meet unforeseen circumstances.
Alternatives to marketing planning: guesswork, hunch, ‘gut feel’ for the market, simple intuition or vision.
11.1. Logical steps in the marketing planning process:
Diagnosis: based on the analysis of company databases, supplemented by marketing research as necessary and drawing on available published and unpublished data.
Prognosis: market-research based but future orientated. Diversification into other products and markets may require investment years ahead of estimated revenue flows. Since marketing planning is focused on future revenue achievement, it is necessarily dependent upon skill, judgment, foresight and realism in the prognosis
The particular significance of marketing plans: seven main reasons why staff time and resources are allocated to marketing planning at the tactical or operational level:
To identify and focus management attention on the current and targeted costs, revenues and profitability of an organization, in the context of its own and its competitors’ products and segments.
To understand the role of stakeholders in the development of strategic marketing planning for the organization.
To focus decisions on implementing the strategic objectives of an organization in their market context and specifying competitive short-term action plans relevant to the long-term future.
To set and communicate specific business targets for managers/strategic business units (SBUs) to achieve in agreed time periods.
To schedule and co-ordinate websites, booking systems, promotional and other marketing action required to achieve targets and to allocate the resources required as effectively as possible.
To achieve co-ordination and a sense of joint direction between the different departments of an organization, and to communicate and motivate all levels of staff.
To monitor and evaluate the results of marketing expenditure and adjust the planned activity as required to meet unforeseen circumstances.
Alternatives to marketing planning: guesswork, hunch, ‘gut feel’ for the market, simple intuition or vision.
11.1. Logical steps in the marketing planning process:
Diagnosis: based on the analysis of company databases, supplemented by marketing research as necessary and drawing on available published and unpublished data.
Prognosis: market-research based but future orientated. Diversification into other products and markets may require investment years ahead of estimated revenue flows. Since marketing planning is focused on future revenue achievement, it is necessarily dependent upon skill, judgment, foresight and realism in the prognosis