Relationship Marketing Era in Tourism

Resorts often use relationship marketing.

The term relationship marketing refers to a marketing strategy in a business develops a relationship with its clients in order to assure their continued loyalty. In the tourism industry, relationship marketing refers to developing a detailed understanding of what your clients want from a holiday and working to fulfill these wants.

History

Relationship marketing offers a hand to customers.

The term "relationship marketing" was first used in the United States in 1983. It originated in Europe in the 1980s, where businesses quickly began to use the strategy. Since its introduction to North American universities, relationship marketing has been widely discussed and has begun to be applied to various North American industries. In the tourism sector, it is most evident in resort marketing, where repeat customers are relatively common and there are more opportunities to communicate with the client.

Function

A business improves by communicating with its customers.

Relationship marketing encourages a business to develop relationships with other parties, such as customers, suppliers and partners, to maintain their' loyalty to the business. To accomplish this goal, businesses try to maintain a high level of communication with the parties in order to understand what they want and need from the relationship. Not only does this mean that the business can fulfill those wants and needs, but it also makes it obvious to the other parties that the business cares about their relationship, thereby encouraging trust.

Example

Many hotels engage in personalized conversations with their customers.

When a resort hotel provides feedback cards to customers, it is engaging in basic relationship marketing. The card tells the customer that her opinion concerning the running of the hotel is valuable to the management and will be taken into consideration. This generally makes customers feel more inclined to return, especially if the hotel tries to fix any problems that the customer had before. Some hotels also take customers' email addresses at registration so they can communicate with them in a more personal way after their stay. The fundamental concern of relationship marketing is to make customers feel they are being personally asked what they want, rather than being part of a survey.

Developments

There are many ways for businesses to communicate with customers.

In the 2000s, relationship marketing in the tourism industry developed a new branch, called consumer centric marketing. With this approach, the customer provides the business with personal information. This information is then used to create products tailor-made to the customer. Personalization of the product encourages the customer to come back to the business. This process does involve more data monitoring, as each customer requires his own file, but it also encourages far more customer loyalty.

Considerations

A happy customer.

Relationship marketing has not ceased to be important as a result of consumer centric marketing. It remains an important marketing strategy in the tourism industry. It is important to remember that relationship marketing is about having meaningful communication with the customer. This means that the business should not use mass emails to talk to its customers but should use programs to personalize all emails, as well as using the information provided by customers to tailor the business to its customers needs.

References

• University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame; Institute for Ethical Business Worldwide; Patrick E. Murphy et al.; 2010.
• University of Bournemouth; Customer Empowerment in Tourism through Consumer Centric Marketing (CCM); Dimitrios Buhalis; 2007.