Unit 5 Marketing in Travel & Tourism: Gatwick Airport Case Study

This report explores the critical role of marketing within the travel and tourism industry, particularly focusing on the application of marketing principles and strategies by companies like Gatwick Airport and Thomas Cook. It delves into the elements of the marketing mix, specifically product, price, and place, highlighting how Gatwick Airport provides various tangible and intangible products to enhance customer experience. The report also emphasizes the importance of service sector mix elements such as people and physical evidence in building customer trust and satisfaction within the tourism sector. Furthermore, it touches upon the concept of the total tourism product, underscoring the necessity for companies like Thomas Cook to ensure the delivery of all required products and information to customers for a seamless and fulfilling holiday experience. The report references academic works to support its analysis of memorable tourism experiences and the complexities of defining a tourism destination.

Marketing in Travel
and Tourism

Tourism and travel sector industry is depended on the
marketing process and strategies so much. As these
companies are involved in selling their services that cannot
tried by the client before purchase. The services of the
tourism sectors are intangible in nature so they require some
special techniques to market these services to customers.
INTRODUCTION

The elements of the market mix are as follows:
• Product: Gatwick Airport is one of the largest airports in
UK. It provides various products to the customers of
various linked organizations like Thomas cook. The
airport authority provides god food, market place for
shopping etc. Products are tangible goods that are
provided by companies to their customers in exchange of
some monetary transactions. The product of Thomas
cook re like different tour packages for kids, couples, old
age people etc.
The product, price and place elements of
the marketing mix

• Place: The place includes the location where the services
can be utilized Like the services provided by the Gatwick
Airport siting area, lounge to spend leisure time and rest
during waiting hours. The place for the company is
serving travel arrangement largely affects the attracting
travelers Like in current marketing strategy firm is selling
packages for Egypt and Morocco
CONTINUED..

The service sector mix elements involved in tourism
sector are defined as follows:
• People: The people are the important assets of the tourism
sector companies as they are the ultimate person who is
dealing with the customers. Thomas cooks is client
friendly workforce to satisfy customer.
Importance of service sector mix elements

• Physical evidence: As the tourism sector is involved in
intangible service providing industry it is necessary that
the company provide physical evidence to client by the
hosting services, infrastructure of company, cultural
value and the product and all required information about
the holiday packages as an evidence to ensure the quality
of services.
CONTINUED..

The companies like Thomas cook is involved in providing
many more services with a holiday packages. The concept
of total tourism product defines ensuring the delivery of all
required product and information to customer that may be
required during utilising companies holiday packages.
Concept of the total tourism product to an
individual tourism business

Kim, J.H., Ritchie, J.B. and McCormick, B., 2012.
Development of a scale to measure memorable tourism
experiences. Journal of Travel Research. 51(1). pp.12-25.
Saraniemi, S. and Kylänen, M., 2011. Problematizing the
concept of tourism destination: An analysis of different
theoretical approaches. Journal of Travel Research. 50(2).
pp.133-143
REFERENCES