Electronic Internal Marketing for Tourism

A New Tourism Marketing Approach

Shohei Suzuki

and Shoichi Morimoto

Graduate School of Business Administration, Senshu University,

2-1-1 Higashi-mita, Tama-ku, 214-8580, Kanagawa, Japan

School of Business Administration, Senshu University,

2-1-1 Higashi-mita, Tama-ku, 214-8580, Kanagawa, Japan

Keywords: Service Marketing, Tourism Information System, Destination Management Organization, Localized SNS.

Abstract: The tourism industry has been becoming the main business in Japan. In tourism industry, public relations

from tourist areas is important to attract tourists, however, it has not been sufficiently performed in Japanese

tourism industry. It is also common knowledge that tourism information systems with ICT (Information and

Communication Technologies) are effective for such the activities. Therefore, we have proposed a tourism

marketing technique utilizing ICT based on the concepts of service marketing. In the service marketing field,

it is said that internal marketing to employees will be possible to provide high-quality services. Thus our

tourism marketing technique electronically approaches local residents and local firms, which are the

employees in the case of tourism.

1 INTRODUCTION

The whole Japan country has been trying to liven up

the tourism industry, because even though Japan has

17 World Heritage sites and attractive culture such

as Japanese animation, Japanese idol and Samurai, it

was ranked 39th in the world based on the number

of foreign tourists accepted (Japan Tourism Agency,

2013). Japanese government has regarded not only

the domestic tourism but the international tourism as

important for the economic revival of Japan. The

Tourism Nation Promotion Basic Plan, which

Japanese government announced in 2012, describes

specific measures such the objective (Table 1). The

majority of these measures have aimed at the

international tourism. Figure 1 shows the result of

the satisfaction survey to foreign visitors in Japan.

The ratio of “Very satisfied” has hardly increased

from 2011, and the ratio of respondents who answer

“Definitely want to visit again” has decreased

slightly after 2011 year by year. In a word, Japanese

tourism industry has never improved the satisfaction

of foreign visitors to Japan, has never achieved the

measures shown in Table 1. Against this problem,

tourism organizations must implement appropriate

public relations after understanding genuine

requirements of the foreign visitors. However, the

current marketing activities of

Table 1: The tourism nation promotion basic plan.

Targets Details

Domestic travel

consumption

30 trillion yen by 2016.

Number of foreign

visitors to Japan

Increase to 25 million by the begging

of 2020.

Satisfaction of

foreign visitors to

Japan

Seek to increase, by 2016, the ratio of

respondents who answer “Very

satisfied” to 45% and the ratio of

respondents who answer “Definitely

want to visit again” to 60%.

Number of

international

conferences held

Target a 50% or higher increase, by

2016.

Number of Japanese

travellers going over

sea

Increase to 20 million by 2016.

Number of nights

per person spent for

domestic travels by

Japanese people

Increase to 2.5 nights per year by

2016.

Traveller

satisfaction of

tourist areas

Increase, by 2016, the ratio of

respondents who select “Very

satisfied” to 25% and the ratio of

respondents who select “Strongly

agree” to 25%.

Japanese tourism organizations have centered only

on the external promotion, neglected the internal

promotion to service providers.

Meanwhile, ICT (Information and

Communication Technology) has been usually

Suzuki S. and Morimoto S..

Electronic Internal Marketing for Tourism - A New Tourism Marketing Approach.

DOI: 10.5220/0005100900630067

In Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on e-Business (ICE-B-2014), pages 63-67

ISBN: 978-989-758-043-7

 2014 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

Figure 1: Satisfaction of foreign visitors to Japan.

utilized in all scenes of tourism. Especially, the

spread of the Internet enable tourists to search

various kinds of tourism information and to simplify

reservation of the means of transportation and the

accommodations. Moreover, smart devices, such as

tablet computers or smartphones, enable tourists to

acquire the information which much further enjoys

and enhances their trip. Such the changes established

a new research area “Tourism Informatics.”

Although the majority of Tourism Informatics

studies have targeted the marketing activities

utilizing ICT for tourists, there are no studies which

target the marketing activities for tourism service

providers. Therefore, we have elucidated marketing

activities which tourism organizations should

implement for tourism service providers and have

proposed a technique for such the activities utilizing

ICT. The technique can help activities of tourism

organizations and contribute to development of the

tourism industry of Japan.

2 TOURISM MARKETING IN

JAPAN

There are two actors in the tourism marketing.

Service providers, e.g., accommodations, restaurants

or transportation companies in tourist areas, have

implemented marketing activities for their own

profits. The other actor, a tourism organization, has

implemented marketing activities to attract tourists

at the tourist area. Our research focuses on the

promotion of the whole tourist area, thus, we have

researched on the marketing technique for the latter.

Tourism has the characteristics of a service unlike

a product, which are inseparability, intangibility,

heterogeneity and perishability. They are basic or

generic characteristics common to all services. In

addition to them, the services in tourism have at

least three further characteristics as follows

(Middleton et al., 2009).

 Seasonality: peaks and troughs in demand.

 High fixed costs of service operations.

 Interdependence of tourism products.

In the service industry, it is essential that the three

marketing activities among Company, Employee

and Customer in Figure 2 should be implemented. In

order to implement effective tourism marketing, the

marketer should carefully consider the foregoing

characteristics.

However, Japanese tourism has serious problems in

the marketing. Generally, tourism marketing is

implemented by DMO (Destination Management

Organization). DMO also implement the following

activities (UNWTO, 2007).

 Planning and infrastructure;

 Human resources development;

 Product development;

 Technology and systems development;

 Related industries and procurement;

 Destination coordination and management for

visitor ‘quality of experience’, especially the

public realm;

 Product “start-ups”;

 Events development and management;

 Attractions development and management;

 Training and education;

 Business advice;

 Strategy, research and development.

Figure 2: The marketing triangle.

35,6%

43,5%

40,7%

43,8%

49,7%

58,2%

57,8%

56,8%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

2010 2011 2012 2013

Very satisfied

Definitery want to visit again

ICE-B2014-InternationalConferenceone-Business

Table 2: Sources that foreign visitors felt were helpful.

Sources Number of responses

Internet (smartphone) 7,385

Internet (PC) 7,120

Family/friends

in Japan

3,924

None in particular 3,733

Tourist info desk

(not in airport)

3,098

Accommodation

facilities

2,755

Airport information

desk

2,731

Travel guide books

(non-free)

1,704

Free papers 1,363

Other 892

In the case of Japan, national, regional or local

tourism organizations in the national or a local

government correspond to the DMO, however, they

have not sufficiently played the role. This problem is

caused by lack of funds, human resources, and

know-hows.

3 TOURISM INFORMATION

SYSTEMS IN JAPAN

In this chapter, we will describe crucial relevance

between ICT and tourism and the problem in this

field. Tourists need many kinds of tourism

information in tourism activities. Therefore, in order

to facilitate tourist behaviour, tourism information

systems can be helpful. Table 2 is the result of the

questionnaire survey by Japan Tourism Agency,

about information sources that foreign visitors felt

were helpful to acquire tourism information during

their stay in Japan. In the result, the most used

source is the Internet. This result supports the fact

that ICT and tourism are related closely. In fact,

various tourism information systems utilizing ICT

have been developed in Japan. In order to propose

marketing activities which tourism organizations

should implement with ICT, we have surveyed

problems of the existing systems. The follows are

the examples of the actual tourism information

systems in Japan.

Arukumachi KYOTO is an application of the

smartphone which provides the information about

means of transportation. In the Kyoto area, the bus is

the most popular means of transportation, but

tourists cannot make a tour round only by bus

caused of traffic congestion. Additionally, the traffic

network of Kyoto is very complex; hence the

tourists who are not the Kyoto residents have a hard

time to arrive at their destination. Thus, Arukumachi

KYOTO has been developed by the advanced

scientific technology and management research

institute of Kyoto (Figure 3). The users can search

the route, fare, and required time from their present

location to destination. Moreover, the application

provides various information; how to buy tickets of

the buses or railways, how to get on the vehicles,

information of the tourist facilities, and information

of the events.

Secondly, “TOTTRIP” in Figure 4 displays not

only the map and the traffic information but also

recommended model courses for a tour round the

Tottori area. In addition, TOTTRIP provides the

information of hospitals with English-speaking staff

on duty, foreign money exchange counters and

banks, essential phrases and conversation flashcards.

Figure 3: Arukumachi KYOTO.

Figure 4: TOTTRIP.

ElectronicInternalMarketingforTourism-ANewTourismMarketingApproach

Figure 5: Sapporo Info.

Figure 6: Enoshima kikitabi.

The third example is “Sapporo Info,” which

provides video contents in addition to the same

information of the other tourism information

systems (Figure 5). The users can view the

introduction videos of each tourist spot in the

Sapporo area. The users can also use discount

coupons and tickets via the application.

The fourth example “Enoshima kikitabi” is a

portable device with GPS (Global Positioning

System) only for sightseeing. When the users visit

tourist spots, they can hear the appropriate sound

guides automatically detecting the location

information by GPS. Thus, tourists can walk while

watching tourist spots with their hands free.

Moreover, all ages can be fair in using Enoshima

kikitabi without complex operations (cf. Figure 6).

As described above, various tourism information

systems utilizing ICT have been developed in Japan,

but the systems produce services only for tourists.

Tourism information systems for service providers,

the important role in tourism that is a local firm or a

local resident, have never been developed and

studied. For the public relations of tourism, internal

marketing toward the service providers that are local

firms or local residents is essential to liven up tourist

areas from the viewpoint of service marketing.

4 INTERNAL MARKETING IN

TOURISM

In the current situation, Japanese tourism industry

has implemented only the marketing activities

toward tourists, i.e., external marketing. Therefore,

we argue that a tourist area have to implement the

internal marketing toward local residents or firms as

service providers.

Internal marketing give motivation to employees

and achieve customer satisfaction by implementing

effective education to employees. Internal marketing

should be implemented before external marketing,

because internal marketing can produce employee

satisfaction, and consequently the employee

satisfaction can produce customer satisfaction.

Figure 7 shows the service profit chain, which is the

circulation of the satisfaction in a service.

Internal marketing is the activities which is

workplace design, training, reword and recognition

from company for employees (Kotler et al., 2002).

We have applied this concept to tourism. In the

marketing triangle in Figure 2, company corresponds

to tourism organization and employees correspond

to local firms and local residents, that is, service

providers. Therefore, we have instantiated internal

marketing from tourism organization to local firms

and local residents (Figure 8).

Kotler described the following steps for the

internal marketing (Kotler et al., 2002).

1. Establishment of service culture

2. Development of a marketing approach to

human resource management

3. Dissemination of marketing information to

employees

4. Implementation of a reward and recognition

system

In the steps, there are two essential activities to

success in the internal marketing. First, service

provider’s opinion collecting system for the

organization is required. Secondly, the system must

sufficiently communicate the information from the

organization to service providers, such as economic

ICE-B2014-InternationalConferenceone-Business

Figure 7: The Service Profit Chain.

Figure 8: The marketing triangle in tourism.

effect by tourism, aim as the destination and tourism

policies. That is, in the case of tourism, the system

must collect the opinions of the local firms and local

residents and communicate the information from the

tourism organization to them. Such the circulation of

the information can be lubricated by ICT. However,

conventional web sites can distribute information in

one direction only, from a tourism organization to

local firms and local residents. For instance, SNS

(Social Networking Service), which can transceive

such information easily, is one of the solutions

against the problem.

The service called “Local SNS” has already been

developed in some area of Japan, but its purpose is

promoting exchange or cooperation among local

residents. It cannot connect tourism organization,

local firms and local residents. Moreover, because it

is tricky and its functions are very poor; local SNS

can be easily replaced by the excellent substitute

services such as Facebook and Twitter. If the

problems are solved and usable local SNS is

developed, it will be a new means of the internal

marketing of tourism.

5 CONCLUDING REMARKS

In this paper, we have proposed introduction of the

internal marketing utilizing ICT from the viewpoint

of service marketing. First, we have surveyed the

problems in Japanese tourism industry. As a result,

we have found out the absence of DMO and the

indifference to the marketing toward the tourism

service providers.

Therefore, because a tourism industry is one of

the service industries, we have applied the concepts

of service marketing to tourism marketing. In

Japanese tourism industry, hitherto external

marketing has been valued and internal marketing

has been unvalued. Hence, we have discussed a

concrete measure of internal marketing for tourism.

This paper has shown an idea of electronic internal

marketing; utilizing local SNS which can facilitate

the information circulation among tourism

organization, local firms, and local residents.

We are now defining and developing processes

and activities of the electronic internal marketing.

We will elicit and discuss the requirements and the

user interface for all generations by interview.

Finally, we will evaluate effectiveness of the

electronic internal marketing system in cooperation

with the tourism organizations.

REFERENCES

Middleton, V.T.C., Fyall, A., Morgan, M., Ranchhod, A.,

2009. Marketing in travel and tourism, Routledge.

London, 4

edition.

Lovelock, C., Wirtz, J., 2010. SERVICE MARKETING,

Prentice Hall. United States, 7

edition.

World Tourism Organization, 2007. A Practical Guide to

Tourism Destination Management, World Tourism

Organization. Madrid.

Kotler, P., Boewn, J., Makens, J., 2002. Marketing for

Hospitality and Tourism, Prentice Hall. United States,

edition.

Japan Tourism Agency, 2013: Japan Tourism Agency

official web site. (http://www.mlit.go.jp/kankocho/en/

index.html)

Japan Tourism Agency, 2013: White paper on Tourism in

Japan. (http://www.mlit.go.jp/common/

001018364.pdf)

ElectronicInternalMarketingforTourism-ANewTourismMarketingApproach