Public Relations and Promotion in Travel and Tourism: Shanklin Report

This report delves into the realm of public relations and promotion within the context of the travel and tourism industry, specifically focusing on Shanklin, a seaside destination in the UK. The report commences by elucidating the pivotal role and significance of public relations as a promotional tool, emphasizing its impact on brand awareness, economic development, and the attraction of new business ventures. It then proceeds to analyze the diversity of the public within the tourism industry, identifying various tourist segments such as leisure, adventure, family, educational, food, and health tourists, and highlighting the importance of public relations for travel and tourism businesses. Furthermore, the report conducts a PESTLE analysis of Shanklin's environment, evaluating political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental factors influencing PR campaigns. It also explores the application of PR and promotional skills in content marketing, media relations, and creativity, culminating in the preparation of a comprehensive public relations plan. The plan encompasses market analysis, objective setting, target audience identification, and media selection, providing a structured approach to promoting Shanklin as a premier tourist destination. The report underscores the importance of effective communication, reputation management, and influencing tourist perceptions through strategic PR initiatives.

Public Relations and Promotion in
Travel and Tourism

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK...............................................................................................................................................1
A Role and importance of public relations as a promotional tool and analysing the diversity in
public......................................................................................................................................1
Analysing diversity of public in tourism industry..................................................................2
B. Analysis of Shanklin environment and preparation of PR plan.........................................4
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................6
A. Analysing the media used in public relations and assessing the relationship between media
and PR....................................................................................................................................6
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................7
A Reviewing effectiveness of Public Relations Campaign and discussing the action plan...7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Public relations are the relationships a company has with its stakeholders which includes
employees, customers, investors, suppliers, government and others. It is a tool of enhancing
and maintaining a cordial and healthy relationship with them. Promotion is an activity
undertaken by an organisation for brand awareness among its target audience. Present report is
about public relations and promotions by VisitBritain, a national tourism Agency in the UK,
promoting and marketing Shanklin, a seaside destination in Isle of Wight. Report will discuss the
importance and role of public relations in making Shanklin a popular tourist destination. It will
also discuss a PR plan and an analysis of Shanklin's environment will be done for
understanding the external factors affecting the place. The assignment will cover different types
of media which can be used in PR plan.
TASK
A Role and importance of public relations as a promotional tool and analysing the
diversity in public
Public relations hold a great importance for promoting and marketing Shanklin
destination.
Enhances brand awareness :PR programs like hosting charity events, sports events
would grab the attention of journalists, businessman, tourists about the place which will help in
promoting the destination. Brand awareness would result into attracting more numner of tourist
to Shanklin which would lead to economic development of the destination. (Camilleri, 2017).
Economic development of the destination: Shanklin will benefit from the PR activities
like cultural events hosted in the town, different launch events about the products etc., these will
boost the economic growth of the place like more tourism means more income into the
economy, resulting into improved infrastructure for the travellers and for the local residents. The
economic development of the town also includes increase in the living standard of the people
residing there as people would get more jobs in the hotels, restaurants, travel companies.
New business venturers: PR for promoting the Shanklin would grab the attention of the
different business people around the world. Big hotel chains like Hilton hotels, food chains like
KFC, McDonald's would be attracted to the seaside destination. Looking at the potential of the
place of attracting tourists, investment can be brought into the Shanklin.

Role of public relation
PR plays an important role in developing Shanklin as a tourist spot. PR helps in effective
marketing and advertising of the destination. also, preparation of attractive brochures about
destination, providing information to the public about the attractiveness of the town through
television, online media would help in better advertising of Shanklin. This relationship of PR to
marketing and advertising would increase the number of tourists at the place, it will also attract
the suppliers of different component that makes a place a suitable holiday destination, more
journalists and press would write about the place which altogether would result into promotion
of Shanklin in an effective way. Awareness through public relations offers great credibility and
the potential customers gathers more information through this promotional tool which is reliable
(White, 2018).
Analysing diversity of public in tourism industry
The tourism industry has diversity in their customers. Different types of tourists could be
attracted to Shanklin that are given as below:
Leisure tourists: Leisure tourists are those who takes holiday package just for fun,
excitement, and relaxation. These types of the public is interested in getting maximum comfort
from their holidays by taking a break from their hectic routine life. Tour operators in Shanklin
provides the comfort and satisfying accommodation to such travellers. This can increase the
income of the place.
Adventurists: These are the kind of people who visits the destination for adventures
such as scuba diving, paragliding, trekking, etc. The ultimate purpose of this audience is to take
good experiences from different adventurous activities out of their holiday. The seaside
destination like Shanklin can provide various adventurous services like scuba diving, rafting,
canoeing, zip lining etc. which could make the these types of travellers happy.
Family travellers: There is a family audience in the tourism industry for whom attractive
locations, safe environment, goods places for child such as museums, educational workshops
for the children, etc. Shanklin has a very peaceful and safe environment suitable for the family
holiday, fun and cultural events are the most common events occur there for the kids. (De Moya
and Jain, 2013).
Educational travellers: These types of tourists explore the destinations for educational
purposes. These people explore the historic and culturally driven places for getting knowledge
about the places. The destination also offers something to the educational travellers in the way
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of its rich culture, authenticity and the knowledge about the less discovered places near the
Shanklin.
Food travellers: This is one of the most popular category of tourists where people visits
the destination for exploring the food culture of the destination. Shanklin provides its highly
appraised sea foods to the tourists which is the sole attraction point of these kinds of travellers.
Health tourists: These are the types of tourist who visits the place as a part their
medical treatment like therapies include discovering new places for getting out of depression or
like people getting their medical treatment done at some other places. Happy, stress free and
fun loving beaches in the Shanklin would provide utmost satisfaction to these types of tourists.
Importance of public relations to travel and tourism businesses
Public relations plays a vital role in business of the Shanklin which can be seen through
points that are given below:
Increase in income of the place: Public relations can help increased the tourist
numbers through effective use of social media and spreading the brand awareness through
writing blogs, hosting big events etc. This has resulted into generation of income in the tourism
sector of Shanklin.
Effective communication with the external world: PR helps in communicating
effectively with the external environment. Tourists, suppliers, investors are all included in the
external environment and a healthy and effective PR programs assist in maintaining
relationships with them. Tour operators of Shanklin can use various techniques to effectively
communicating with travellers by which the destination can increase its income.
Reputation of Shanklin: Public relations builds and maintain reputation of the Shanklin.
PR events like charity, sports, cultural etc. depicts the promising hospitality of the place and
builds an image in the minds of the potential tourists that the place is good and it should be
visited at least once (Hays, Page and Buhalis, 2013).
Influences the tourists' thinking: Public relations helps in moulding the mind sets of
customers, tourists in the favourable direction for Shanklin. Effective PR campaigns and stunts
helps in managing the negative publicity about the place and spreading positive word of mouth
for Shanklin.
Acquiring sponsors: PR strategies helps in obtaining sponsors for itself and keeping
them satisfied by building good relationships with them. Sponsors are necessary in the Shanklin
for assisting and hosting various events for promoting the place. Through effective public
relations tools sponsors are obtained for the seaside destination.
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B.Analysis of Shanklin environment and preparation of PR plan
PESTLE analysis of the Shanklin would show the factors affecting the PR campaigns
and activities. The analysis is given below:
Political factors: The national agency is actively promoting the tourism sector in the
country which is a favourable condition for developing tourism business in Shanklin. However,
political factors such as instability of the government, high concentration of power leading to
high rate of corruption has restricted the place in developing as a favourite seaside holiday
destination.
Economic factors: Economic factors include GDP which shows the economic health of
the tourist destination Shanklin ( Kiráľová and Pavlíčeka, 2015). Low employment and less
infrastructural facilities have made tourists and hospitality firms in visiting and conducting
business in Shanklin. However, government's move of developing infrastructures and providing
employment to the people have made it suitable conditions for the tourism business in Shanklin
to develop and grow(Kunczik, 2016).
Social factors: Social factors such as population diversity, education level etc., affects
the tourism industry in Shanklin. The statistics of literacy rate in terms of higher education is
very low which makes the social environment a bit difficult for the tourism business to sustain in
Shanklin.
Technological factors: Technological factors such as latest technology in the
infrastructure like quick access to transportation, high tech services which would provide
tourists a medium for connecting with other nearby places, free online sites for the tourists etc.,
would help in developing and promoting the destination.
Legal factors: Different laws related to the hospitality and tourism sectors affects the
tourism in Shanklin. Health and safety standards, food, labour and wages laws for employees in
tourism industry etc., have great impact on public relations and promotions of the tourism
business of the destination.
Environmental factors: The weather conditions, non polluted town is one of its
attraction point which helps in attracting people from the world. Also, State's various
environmental laws for preserving the natural beauty makes the town more appealing. These
factors helps favourably for the PR trainee for promoting the place.
Applying various PR and promotional skills in
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Content Marketing: Traditional skills of public relations are writing and media relations.
A PR publicist is responsible for all the press releases of the destination. It has to be written
perfectly which conveys the exact to the point news to the people, should not be vague in
meaning, and grammatically correct. Content Marketing are also required in magazine
publications, journals and blogs. Preparing brochures, leaflets, templates are all covered under
the responsibility of PR and promotional department through which the branding and promotion
of the place is done. Shanklin seaside destination can be promoted with the help of Brochures
or leaflets.
Media relations: Public relations are characterised by maintaining an excellent media
networking for promoting the Shanklin. The media networking skills are requires as it helps in
making the place more popular amongst the customers and results into conversion of potential
customers into actual ones. Social media platforms like blogs, telling story of the place on
Instagram, Facebook would create more awareness about the destination(Míguez-González
and Huertas, 2015).
Creativity: PR campaigns needs to be creative every time for grabbing the attention of
its stakeholders. Creativity in the promotional events, PR campaign like charity shows, sport
shows, trade events etc., would help in attracting the tourists base for Shanklin.
Preparing a public relations plan for the organisation
A public relation plan is prepared by setting the goals and objectives, analysing the
situations, deciding the medium through which such promotional activities will be conducted and
lastly implementing and controlling the executed plan.
Public relation plan development
Analysing market situations: PR trainee conducts a research regarding the present
scenario of the market like taste and preferences of tourists, competitor’s position, own standing
in the market, etc. through conducting surveys, taking personal interviews, observing the culture
and habits of the travellers and residents of Shanklin.
Defining objectives and goals: Goals and objectives are defined. Main goal is to
Increase the income of the destination by 20% till the year and creating brand awareness are
the main aim of PR camping.
Determining the target audience: The action plan includes the identification of target
audience as knowing whom to attract according to segment's needs and specifications. Target
audience that can be selected for the cmpaign is young adults which are most interested in
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travelling. For example target audience is business tourist and adventure loving people as
Shanklin provides adventurous services like scuba diving, cycling, trekking etc.
Selecting media: PR campaign's medium is decided for building the awareness and
attracting the tourists and for saying story, news and facts about the events and promotional
shows in the destination. Blogs for the creating positive publicity of Shanklin. Online media like
providing brochures and other related information through State's official site, social sites such
as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc., for reaching out the masses. TV, radio are the other
medium selected for making people aware of Shanklin and its offerings.(Various Media Used in
Public Relations, 2013).
Implementing the plan: Plan will be implemented by analysing the market situation of
Shanklin. Next step in the preparation of the plan is executing the plan according to set rules
and policies for achieving the goals and objectives of increasing tourists and building brand
awareness of Shanklin.
Monitoring and controlling: Lastly the executed plan is monitored through continuous
follow ups and feedbacks and the corrective steps are taken for making PR campaign succesfull
in achieving goals and objectives (Law, Qi and Buhalis, 2010).
TASK 2
A. Analysing the media used in public relations and assessing the relationship between
media and PR
Online media: Online media is in the reach of almost all the people which is why the PR
and promotional strategies makes use of this channel for its public relations and promotional
activities. Like for example online media such as Facebook, Instagram can support the tourism
industries in Shanklin to connect with the wide range of travellers.
Newspapers: This medium is one of the most cost effective method of communication
used by the PR specialist. This medium has also wide reach which makes the information
reaches to large number of people. Many travellers can know about Shanklin through this
media.
Television: This is the most trusted medium because repetition of advertisement gets
stuck in the mind of the customers. It is a great promotional tool for the organisation as reaction
can be measured by the popularity of ad amongst the customers. These are the most reliable
and wide reaching mediums which are used by PR trainee and promotion of the Shanklin.
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Blogs: This channel is very effective in promoting Shanklin as there are people who
reads blogs on regular and telling stories, facts and other news would help in attracting more
visitors, and enhancing the brand awareness of destination(Kiráľová and Pavlíčeka, 2015).
Assessing the relationship between public relations and the media
Public relations and media are interrelated and completely dependent on each other. As
discussed public is the activity of maintaining and enhancing the relationship with the
stakeholders such as customers, suppliers, investor. This is done by using various media tools
such television, press releases, conferences, magazine, journals, social media, radio etc
( Lemmetyinen and Go, 2017).
Media wants the reliable and catchy news for their publications and PR wants to tell the
stories, facts and news about the destination for promoting and developing the place. This is
effectively done by utilising the power of each other by both parties for mutual benefits. This is
how media and PR are interrelated.B. Evaluating the appropriateness of media used in public
relations in tourism
Press release and getting mentioned in the big publication is helpful in sharing bigger
news and announcements. Blogs are efficient in spreading regular facts and stories of the
Shanklin creating positive publicity for the place. Television and online platforms are great for
inducing tourist through visual images of the destination and for covering the masses.
TASK 3
A Reviewing effectiveness of Public Relations Campaign and discussing the action plan
Reviewing of the action plan becomes necessary for evaluating the performances of the
each component connected with the plan. Strategy's effectiveness is known only when they the
elements which are attached in implementing the action plan gets evaluated (Cincotta, 2016).
The success of a PR campaign is evaluated through various factors such as frequency
of getting published in big publications, press releases, newspaper, magazines. The number of
times , news about the events, shows etc. hosted is mentioned in television, radio etc., keyword
rankings at the social platforms, increase in numbers of travellers and investors after the PR
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campaigns. While designing a PR plan it is also important to know the distinction between facts
of Shanklin and story telling which is done for building the awareness of the brand.
The plan was quite effective in achieving its objective and goals and helped in enhancing
the brand awareness of Shanklin which attracted travellers and investors to the place. There
were some issues while implementing the plan like lack of skilled people in the town due to low
eduction rate(Becker, 2016).
Appropriate use of PR and promotional skills has helped in making people aware of
Shanklin and its convenient hospitality. Good written and vocal communication skills helped the
in interacting efficiently with all of its stakeholders. Creativity in PR events has resulted into
more number of investors wanting to start up their business there and has increased curiosity
and excitement in the travellers about the place (Swarbrooke and Horner, 2012).
The PR campaign resulted into more number of jobs for the people of Shanklin by
hosting different PR and promotional shows, events which helped the place in increasing the
living standards of the people due to generation of more income n the economy by the way of
increased tourists (Khalilzadeh and Wang, 2017).
CONCLUSION
From the above project report, it has been summarised that public relation and
promotions play a crucial part in developing and enhancing the branding of Shanklin. The
project report covered importance and role of PR in making the destination popular amongst the
people. PR tools and techniques has helped in spreading positive word of mouth about the
place and the efforts of PR agent in promoting Shanklin resulted into increase in numbers of
travellers in the town. The report also showed a PR action plan in which different media such
as television, newspaper, press release radio, online media were used for improving public
relations and for achieving the goals and objectives of developing Shanklin into a top seaside
destination for the tourists and other stakeholders.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Camilleri, M. A., 2017. The promotion of responsible tourism management through
digital media. Tourism Planning & Development. pp.1-19.
De Moya, M. and Jain, R., 2013. When tourists are your “friends”: Exploring the brand
personality of Mexico and Brazil on Facebook. Public Relations Review. 39(1).
pp.23-29.
Hays, S., Page, S. J. and Buhalis, D., 2013. Social media as a destination marketing
tool: its use by national tourism organisations. Current issues in Tourism.
16(3).pp.211-239.
Khalilzadeh, J. and Wang, Y., 2017. The economics of attitudes: A different approach to
utility functions of players in tourism marketing coalitional networks. Tourism
Management. 65. pp.14-28.
Kunczik, M., 2016. Images of nations and international public relations. Routledge.
Law, R., Qi, S. and Buhalis, D., 2010. Progress in tourism management: A review of
website evaluation in tourism research. Tourism management. 31(3). pp.297-
313.
Becker, E., 2016. Overbooked: the exploding business of travel and tourism. Simon and
Schuster.
Míguez-González, M. I. and Huertas, A., 2015. The power of photographs in the
communication and public relations of tourist destinations and their brands
through Facebook and Flickr. Catalan Journal of Communication & Cultural
Studies.7(2). pp.197-215.
Kiráľová, A. and Pavlíčeka, A., 2015. Development of social media strategies in tourism
destination. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences. 175. pp.358-366.
Swarbrooke, J. and Horner, S., 2012. Business travel and tourism. Routledge.
Middleton, V.T. and et.al., 2009. Marketing in travel and tourism. Routledge.
Davidson, R. and Maitland, R., 2017. Tourism destinations. Hodder & Stoughton.
Lemmetyinen, A. and Go, F.M., 2017. The key capabilities required for managing tourism
business networks. Tourism Management.30(1).pp.31-40.
Online
Cincotta, C., 2016. 10 Principles for Creating an Effective Public Relations Plan.
[Online]. Available through <https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/280309>.
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White, W., 2018. Importance of Public Relations Explained. [Online]. Available through
<http://inevitablesteps.com/business/importance-of-public-relations/>.
Various Media Used in Public Relations. 2013. [Online]. Available through
<http://www.masscommunicationtalk.com/various-media-used-in-public-
relations.html>.
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