Sustainable Tourism Destination Brand Concept for Santorini, Greece

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of a sustainable tourism destination brand concept for Santorini, Greece, focusing on balancing the needs of visitors, the industry, the local community, and the environment (VICE model). It includes a historical overview of Santorini as a tourist destination, an analysis of the supply and demand for tourism products, identification of current and projected visitor markets, consideration of the host community's aspirations and values, a SWOT analysis, a PEST analysis, and an assessment of key tourism impacts. The report also recommends appropriate strategies for developing and enforcing a sustainable approach to tourism development and growth, marketing strategies, and addresses the issues, challenges, and opportunities facing the destination across the short, medium, and long term. This document is available on Desklib, a platform offering study tools and resources for students.

Running head: MANAGEMENT
Management
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Table of Contents
1. Brief historical overview of the place (destination)...............................................................3
3. Current and projected visitor (target) markets.......................................................................4
4. Host (Local) Community’s aspirations and values................................................................6
5. SWOT analysis.......................................................................................................................7
6. PEST Analysis.......................................................................................................................9
7. Key, current but also anticipated, tourism impacts..............................................................10
8. Appropriate strategies to develop or enforce a sustainable approach to tourism
development and growth..........................................................................................................10
9. Recommendation of Marketing Strategies...........................................................................11
10. Issues, challenges and opportunities facing the destination across the short, medium and
long-term..................................................................................................................................12
Reference List..........................................................................................................................13

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1. Brief historical overview of the place (destination)
The island of Santorini is a precious part of the Aegean. This location is an attraction
in itself with various sighting locations to be visited and various activities to be done. The
primary attraction of Santorini is emphatically the volcano that is responsible for the
attractive shape as well as the stunning natural beauty of the place. There are various agencies
that organises excursions that enable a visitor to explore the place, close up. There is
spectacle of picturesque churches and chapels that bear evidences of Cycladic architecture.
These structures are beautifully whitewashed and blue domed. Among the most spectacular
places in Santorini, the monastery of Prophet Elias is a representation of heavenly beauty.
There are some great museums as well as archaeological sites also. The ruins of the Venetian
castles is also an important tourist spot. Another important spot that is very famous among
the tourists is the Akrotiri Lighthouse. This is a beautiful building that is surrounded by
spectacular surroundings offering majestic images, especially at the time of the sunset
(Avgeli, Soteriades and Sakoualou 2018).
There is an array of extraordinary beaches all alongside the island. There are also rare
landscapes with crystal clear water heightening the view. Along with these sites, thrilling the
viewers with captivity, there is also the presence of some of the finest wineries where the
visitors can taste some of the exquisite local wine form Santorini. All these and lot more
bears a promise of an unforgettable vacation.
2. Supply and demand overview for tourism products
The beautiful volcanic island of Santorini in Greece has been facing dire
consequences owing to excessive tourism. As Lichrou, O’Malley and Patterson (2017),
suggests, there is an acute need for undertaking an integrated coastal management scheme
and following that set up an organisation for destination management. Otherwise, Avgeli,
Soteriades and Sakoualou (2018), alarms that the rate at which the natural features of

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Santorini is being destroyed, would turn out to be fatal for the exquisite natural locations.
Again, in addition, Kakoudakis and McCabe (2018) adds that the farm lands are needed to be
preserved that are being constantly reduced for tourism constructs. The actual tourism
demand in the location is 1.3 million tourist visits every year. The majority of the pressure of
tourism is on the 73 kilometres spread Cycladic isle every year. As analysed by eminent
geographic analyst like Kakoudakis and McCabe (2018), the infrastructure in the island
including airport, road network, water supply as well as sewage system, ports as well as the
energy grids are not able to meet demands from the 85000 visitors who occupy the stress of
the island during the peak tourism seasons. Naturally, Sigala (2019), highlights that as an
outcome of this excessive pressure, the local business units are not able to offer quality
services to the travelling hordes that infiltrate the place every year.
As highlighted by the mayor of the place, alongside having a large number of
accommodation facilities in the place, there has been the emergence of huge amount of
uncontrolled construction. In the same context, Ioannides and Alebaki (2017), states that the
Vlychada beach have been at a high level of risk and this is one of the most popular beaches
at the place. The pollution level of the place owing to the increasing number of visitors who
come to cite the breath taking volcanic rocks of the place is increasing immensely. In fact,
Dixit (2019), observes that cases of tourists unnecessarily harming the thousands of years old
rock formations that are natural aspects of beauty of the place is a serious crime.
3. Current and projected visitor (target) markets
The tourism department of Greece has idealised that they are going to promote the
location of Santorini for tourism through the modern media promotional tools. In order to do
that, the local government has formulated a three year communication strategy for the spread
of tourism. The tourism strategy of the place, as Chung, Chung and Nam (2017), suggests,
have been formulated in order to allow better adaptation to the habitats of the tourists, the

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way the travellers try to acquire information, the destination choice criteria of the tourists, as
well as the channels that are used for purchasing of services and organisation of trips. In
alignment, Enriquez et al. (2017) suggests that the new tourism strategy would help in
increment of demand from the traditional as well as emerging markets that can provide feed
to the strong growth potential of the place in the context of tourism. The main target markets
for Santorini tourism at present are China, Russia as well as Brazil. The recently founded
Athens-Shanghai air route launched on a temporary basis would help to facilitate the process
of attracting tourists from China, greatly. In order to attract more tourists from China, online
activities have been undertaken by the tourism department of Greece (GNTO) that are going
to engage the major online platforms in China. There have been a large number of campaigns
to publicise Greek tourism in Chinese language over these platforms. In order to facilitate the
process of booking hotels or other trips to the areas of attraction in Santorini, the official
tourism website of Greece have been launched in the Chinese language.
The next big target market for Santorini tourism is Russia. There are ample plans on
the part of the GNTO, for the purpose of promoting Greek tourism in the inlands of Russia
(Kazantzidou-Firtinidou, Kassaras and Ganas 2018). Leading platforms as well as networks
of Russia have been involved for promoting Santorini, Greece tourism. Targeted events as
well as workshops have also been held in Russia by Greek tourism operator GNTO.
Another important target market for Santorini tourism is Brazil. The percentage of
Brazilian travellers have increased by 22% over the five financial years in Santorini (Trihas,
Kyriakaki and Zagkotsi 2015). That is why, the GNTO has decided that they would open an
individual office in the capital city of Sao Paolo so that the needs of the Brazilian travellers
can better catered to. Other than these potential markets, the increasing number of tourists
from United States cannot be ignored also. A number of webinars have been held by the
GNTO in order to appoint people as Greek travel agents in America.

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However, in spite of the presence of these high value target markets, the GNTO is
planning to attract tourists from all parts of the world to Santorini, Greece. That is why they
have formed an association with the key players in the tourism market, globally, like
Expedia.com. Tripadvisor.com, Travelzoo.com, Orbitz.com, Yahoo.com and so on (Skivalou
and Filippidi 2017). The best travel destinations and its glamour of tourism is promoted is
promoted via most potential social media channels like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram,
YouTube, Pinterest and Four Square.
4. Host (Local) Community’s aspirations and values
The locality and the locals in Santorini breathes with tourism. They are exploiting
every aspect of tourism in order to make a living. At the same time, as, Jenkins et al. (2015),
informs, the locals are exhausted with the extreme burden of tourism that have destroyed the
natural balance of their lives. At one stage, the villagers of Santorini were peace loving
communities, who used to lead their life with ease and causally. However, they are
wandering at the beck and call of the tourists only. There have been ample vegetation lands in
the place at a time and local farmers were highly dependent on cropping for their sustenance.
However, now, as Cirer-Costa (2017) suggests, the farming lands have been filled and used
up for construction of hotels and other facilities. As an outcome, Papachristou et al. (2016),
states that many of the locals are forced to live with the livelihood of a tourist guide or a
photographer and the seasons of tourism are the main seasons of income for them.
The hour of tourists start at around 9 am in the morning every day and the village that
have been silent even an hour ago, leaps in to action, reflexively. The narrow cobbled streets
of Santorini are one of the important aspects of natural beauty as well as tourist attraction of
the place. However, now they are packed with hundreds of tourists inching their way at
almost snail’s pace. This, undoubtedly hampers the natural habitat and lifestyle of the
villagers. The Butler’s Model of tourism stage can be highlighted here in order to justify the

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tourism demand up on Santorini as an exquisite travel location. There are six important stages
of tourism that any tourist destination brand goes through. The first stage is exploration that
involves locations where only few adventurous people only do visit. There is no availability
of proper toursu services. Santorini definitely do not belong to this stage of tourism
development. The next stage is Involvement whereby, tourism gradually develops in any
destination with the gradual emergence of businesses that provides accommodation, guide,
food as well as transport. The next two stages are Development and Consolidation.
Off these two, the first stage is where the big companies start investing in order to
foster profitable tourism in the area. As an outcome, the number of tourist visits emphatically
increases in that area by a havoc number. In the consolidated phase, the tourism emerges as
the most proficient industry in that area. After that the industry of tourism starts devastating
other local economies like farming, fishing, and so on. With Santorini, the case have been the
same. The emergence of tourism gradually subsided all other income opportunities for the
indigenous people when the agricultural lands begins to be confiscated for the development
of hotels and other facilities for the tourists. Finally comes the stage of Stagnation where
competitiveness in the tourism industry reaches its maximum height. The tourism exponents
start to promote the most exquisite locations of tourism and as such, tourism in that place
become condensed in few constrained locations only. The scenario with Santorini is exactly
the same, where places like Oia and Fira get the maximum exposure. The last stage of growth
as proposed by this model is Decline or Rejuvenation. In this phase, either decline of the
industry might occur whereby the tourists will start despising this spotas a tourist location or
rejuvenation will take place whereby any substitute location in the same area (other locations
of Santorini like Imerovigli) will gain prominence as a tourist site. Even tourism is stalked by
this and evidence of that can be found at the reviews that the travellers submit in travel

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websites complaining about the excessive tourist infiltration at the site that makes it
problematic for them to explore the place. Cases of stampede have also occurred at this place.
Scenes of traffic jam are
5. SWOT analysis
Strengths
Strengths of the Santorini tourism site in Greece are aplenty. The most important day
flexibility of the tourism packages that the tour operators with which the tourism authority’s
had established the contracts. There are budgetary flexibilities where the visitors can choose
the particular sites want to visit. Another important strength is the tailor made product
delivery. Sitting in the convenience of their home the visitors can book any kind of travel
package, hotels other accommodation facilities or any other information they need regarding
their tourism package in Santorini can be gathered anywhere over the internet (Antoniou et
al. 2017). There are lot of entrepreneur activities taking place in the Santorini site comma
because of which Greece is able to produce and new strength in the economy as well as
create a lot of employment opportunities that is giving a chance to the people working in
villages or acculturated with side incomes, to enter in the organised sector. The natural as
well as cultural resources of Santorini are plenty because of which there is a Confluence of
natural existence are the inhabitants as well as parallel growth of the tourism sector.
Personalized relationships between the tourism operators, local people and the tour operators
with the visitors helps in fostering growth of tourism in Santorini. Other factors like labour
loyalty as well as low turnover rate helps in the development of tourism also.
Weaknesses
Efficient management of tourism is one of the derogatory factors. Hike in the number of
tourists increasing day by day there is lack of efficiency in properly managing them and as
such the convenience of the tourists in visiting the sites at Santorini is being hampered.

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marketing of all the exquisite sites at century is not done properly because of which the
tourists crowding at some of the typically popular sites where is some other remarkable sites
are not been visited at all. Information Technology literacy along with a dominant level of
dependence upon the tour operators makes the business related to tourism at Santorini highly
concentric with a particular economic group. On the contrary many others are left out from
economic growth opportunities. The people walking in the tourism sector slack education and
training and because of which the client service quality is also poor in majority of the tourism
areas (Kakoudakis and McCabe 2018). Proper transportation as well as accessibility features
also lacking because of which tool is coming from many parts of the world face issues in
accessing the sites they want to visit. Lastly, and other important weakness is the seasonality
of the tourism in Santorini. During the pics isn't there is excessive amount of tourism that
cannot be handled properly and efficiently by the tour operators and on the contrary on the
lean seasons there is lack of tourist visits because of which the business growth gets to halt.
Opportunities
There is ample support from the European Union in development of centre near tourist site.
Redistribution of labour in European domain gives opportunity to lot of Institutions to set up
tourism facilities and grow their business in Santorini. trains of rapid hike in tourism demand
provides that the sector tourism at Santorini will grow further providing for the opportunities
to develop the economy of the country as well as boost the business of the sector (Ioannides
and Alebaki, 2017). Ample use of information technology in marketing the tourism business
of Santorini is responsible for the Rapid growth of tourism demand here. The development is
going on at high pace comma which proves that in the future the tourism domain will spread
further.
Threats

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Environmental degradation that is occurring due to visit of high number of tourists is one
major threat. Concentration as well as globalisation of the business reduces the chances of
business growth of local entrepreneurs. Other than that oversupply of tourists combined with
lack of adequate Infrastructures including political intervention are the other Threats that this
industry might have to survive.
6. PEST Analysis
Political influence
There is lot of political intervention in Santorini tourism business. The government
wants the business to grow globally and as such Global entrepreneurs are getting a high
chance to spread their business. The local business trying to merge the business are suffering
a setback.
Economic impact
The economic impact of the Rapid insurgence of high number of tourists that is
growing in harmonic progression every year is huge on the revenue generation of the tourism
sector as well as the Government of breeze. Revenue generation of the tourism department of
these based on the single travel destination of Santorini has taken place by 5. 8% in the
financial year of 2016-17 and it is projected that in the year 2019-20 the same route will take
place by 11. 5 to 12% (Lichrou, O’Malley and Patterson 2017).
Social influence
The social influence of the emergence of Santorini as a highly popular tourism site
gradually, is huge. Initially when the tourism business was not prospered, there was
dependence of the local people on agro based economy. Later when for the construction of
Hotel restaurants and other accommodation facilities owing to emergence of lot of tourists
happened, agricultural lands started to disease and the people dependent on agro based

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economy now started to work in the tourism sector (Lichrou, O’Malley and Patterson 2017).
The shift of economy might affect the future growth of individual prosperity of the people of
Santorini in an unpredictable way.
Technological influence
There is high level of insurance of Information Technology and social media on the
spread of the popularity of Santorini as a travelling site globally. The Greek travelling
websites are published in almost all important languages of the world so that people from all
corners can visit Greece and especially Santorini. Secondly, social media marketing, pay per
click advertising, Facebook marketing, social media trafficking as well as other devices have
been employed in order to attract tourists from all parts of the world and also some tourist of
specialised target markets, as discussed above have been implemented by the tourism
department of Greece. This is definitely helped in the upsurge of the rate of tourist visit per
year.
7. Key, current but also anticipated, tourism impacts
The key impacts of the spread of tourism in Santorini is two-fold. Firstly the emergence of
tourism has helped the local people to gain employment in the organised sector, develop a
high rate of revenue generation from the end of the tourism department of Greece which has
helped in stable growth of the GDP. Another important factor is that the local people has lost
their habitat, lifestyle and forced to enter into the tourism sector in the form of travel guides,
photographers and so on in order to ensure their sustenance (Lichrou, O’Malley and Patterson
2017). Nevertheless the main concern, currently is that Santorini is becoming overpopulated
with tourists because of which the local Habitat is severely affected. Even, as expressed by
various tourists in their blogs and travelogues, the excess insurgence of tourism has been
detrimental to their experience of visiting Santorini also. If this is the case in the future years

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to come, the prosperity of tourism might come to a halt as Santorini will be also disregarded
by the tourists as a popular tourist spot that is thickly populated by tourists.
8. Appropriate strategies to develop or enforce a sustainable approach to tourism
development and growth
In order to ensure sustainable growth of tourism in Santorini, certain specialised strategies
have to be adopted. Firstly the number of Hotel Constructions at definite sites have to be
checked. Access accommodation cannot insert a proper tour to the tourists. The private tour
operators mostly charge rates from the tourists as they feel and the experience of tourism is
not the same for all tourists.
It is necessary that the government implements their own tourism road map. As over
population of tourists has been a great scenario for some years consecutively, the government
should think of giving a selective entry to tourists, on First Come First served basis (Dixit
2019). Definitely and attraction among tourists to rainy will increase and the rate of the
products and services related to tourism might also increase without an adverse effect of
customer satisfaction decrease.
The branding of Santorini, Greece is another important strategy that is essential for
the purpose of development of customer perception. Successful management of such
perceptions as well as experiences can be helpful in securing enduring benefits for the tourist
destination, Santorini, Greece. In this context, it can be stated that the branding slogan for
Santorini, which is “Santorini, The One" will take up a unique role in flourishing consumer
loyalty. The promotional videos that have been recently released by Oglivy in order to foster
branding for Santorini will continue to attract tourists in the upcoming years.