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Low cost microcomputers and tourism marketing
A great denl of material appears in the
media about the technological revolu-
tion and its tremendous impact on ail
parts of society. The greatest difficult!
though. for any business. is to trans-
late the jargon and the padgetry into a
straightforward way of increasing the
profit margin. However. with a little
knowledge and simple commonsense
measures it is a relatively painless
process to develop an easy to use
marketing system which can success-
fully generate revenue for any tourism
operator.
The major relevant technological
advances over the last three vears
have been in the field of low- COSI
business computers and personal com-
puters. In the UK. personal compu-
ters is a somewhat confusing term
since they are mainly for business use
and should not be mixed up with the
cheap home computer. There are
literally scores of PCs on sale in
Western Europe and the USA but
when choosing a machine it is always
wisest to purchase the top selling
machine in the mainstream of the
computer market. At present, the top
two in the UK are the IBM PC and the
ACT Apricot, with the most promis-
ing newcomer being the Tandy ZOOO.
These machines with a five-year
write off period, would cost a business
the equivalent of between BOO and
f650 a year (before allowances against
tax). Even with printers and computer
software annual write off cost over
five years will only be between f700
and ff SO0 (before allowances). So
having a microcomputer is far less of a
luxury than a company car.
,+fotte_~ front comprcters
If a business decides to buy a compu-
ter - how can it be used to make
some money? This article does not
236
look at computerized ledger systrms.
whose introduction can save enor-
mous amounts of time and effort. but
simply examines the computer as a
marketing tool for the tourism busi-
ness and to see how in this one area
alone considerable income can bc
generated.
A number of actual computerized
marketing case studies can iflustrate
the potential benefits. The basic sys-
tern used in both the UK-based case
studies examined below was an ACT
Apricot costing f I795 (which as well
as being cheap, UK-built and power-
ful. is also portable) plus a good
quality dot matrix printer costing
fJOD. In addition, three software
packages were used and these were
packages offered by one of the world’s
top selling business software house -
Micro Pro.
the user to bet up data in ;I chosen
format and input it quicklv and clear-
ly. All the sorting of the files is done
via Llailnrer~r. Sonr of the three
packages is difficult to kiwn. q3eci;tL
Iy ai; sOme excellent common sense
guides are available to the non-expert.
Using the system as specified. a
simple marketing idra was tried out
kvhich aimed to fully utilize the most
important long term resource ani
business has - satisfied customers.
%&fird customers come back for
rcpcat buying and also tell their
friends. This is sbpecialtv so in tour-
ism. Crotxh~ilf is, there&e, a vital
asset. nncf is charged for whenever a
thriving business is sold. However.
relntisel) fC\{ tourism operators
attempt to directly utilize and masi-
mizr the potential of satisfied custom-
ers. lllost of their marketing is passive
- hoping people will return and at
hest encoura+ng and promoting this
with advertisemctnts in the media.
Study l-hotels
The three Micro Pro packages used
were WordStar, Mailmerge and Data-
star - costing in total about f350. The
packages compliment each other very
well. The first one, WordStar, is the
worlds top selling word processing
package. WordStar turns an ordinar!
personal computer into an advanced
word processor which allows anyone
who can punch a keyboard to become
a perfect typist. If you make any
mistakes they can be corrected elec-
tronically and any number of perfect
copies produced.
Using low cost computers. however. it
becomes a simple and automated task
to run a tighti? targeted marketing
campaign to persuade satisfied cus-
tomers to return for a further visit or
to encourage their friends to visit. The
first case study xvhere this markering
concept was adopted was a hotel
which offered a \vide variety of holi-
day packages throuphout the year.
kfailmerpe is a sister package to
Wordstnr which allows personalized
names and addresses to be merged
with standard letters. Mailmerge also
has the capacity of selecting specific
short lists from a master list which may
contain hundreds of files. each file
containing a wide variety of informa-
tion on an individual person or group.
Finally. Da&star is a low cost. eas>
to use database system which allo\vs
Besides normal off-peak weekends,
specialist tverkends for gourmets.
classical music lovers. birdwatchers,
walkers etc. were offered to widen the
customer base. However. there was an
overlap between rhe different custom-
er segments. For example. business
people who enjoyed a mid-week stay
could be encouraged to return for the
weekend with their families. and busi-
ness people \+ho had stayed at
weekends couid be encouraped to
hold conferences during the week.
In order to masimize the potential
spin off from satisfied customers, a
TCXJRISM MANAGEMENT September 1984
complete database of all past custom-
ers was built up recording the details
of address. telephone number etc.
together with details of the type of
stay. duration of stay. number of times
they visited the hotel. date of last visit
and an interest profile of the visitor.
This customer database was then
used to generate a mailing list and all
the past customers were written perso-
nalized letters on a reguar basis with
details of new developments at the
hotel, the new season‘s programme
and details of any special deals for old
customers or the friends of old cus-
tomers. The use of vouchers was
important. giving a discount for furth-
er visits or the first visit by friends of
old customers. A selective follow-up
by telephone was made, and the re-
sults monitored on the computer. so
that immediate feedback on the
awareness and response to the postal
marketing campaign could be gained.
The results were a significant increase
in return visits, higher occupancy and
a rate of return on the costs of the
marketing campaign that ran in to
1000s of the percent per annum. The
computer effectively paid for itself out
of the increase in bookings over a two
month period.
Z-cooperative venture
Exactly the same principles can be
applied with a similar rate of success
to similar types of tourist operation -
caravan parks, large hotels, theme
parks, entertainment and leisure cen-
tres or even in the marketing of large
resorts.
Indeed. the second case study was a
cooperative venture between a large
number of tourism site operators.
rather than providers of tourist accom-
modation. To a large extent. coopera-
tion rather than competition should be
the keynote of many tourism site
operators since frequent return visits
to a particular site cannot be expected.
People visit a site if they enjoy them-
selves but will tend to go on other
visits before they return again.
This is a generalization. but it does
underline the basic principle of this
case study that tourism site operators
can mutually benefit each other by
sharing information. In this case. a
group of tourist site operators and
coach operators came together to pro-
vide details for a computerized data-
base of all the groups who undertook
visits. Details of the organizer, type of
group. day and date of visit. number
in group and tourism site visited were
collected from all the participating
tourism organizations.
Records of hundreds of groups were
built up and provided for the subscri-
bers. The information was either pro-
duced in sticky label form or to
provide high quality personalized let-
ters. Using the database this valuable
information on the types of groups
who undertook visits and the people
who did this booking enabled the
tourism site operators to market them-
selves very effectively.
This information. combined with an
attractive marketing brochure and
special offers ranging from money off
the entrance fee to a free pot of tea for
evervone in a group, ensured that a
high proportion of the next seasons
visits by the groups was kspt ‘in ths
family’ of the operators who had
cooperated in the scheme. Selective
telephone marketing follovv-up also
helped increase the conversion rate
and nearly all the targeted groups
were happy to receive the promotional
material since it obviously made their
process of deciding where to visit
much simpler (the free pot of tea was a
great attraction for women’s and pen-
sioner’s groups). Again. the rate of
return on the investment was very
high. expecialiy since the computer
costs, which were not great anyway.
were shared between a number of
operators.
In today’s highly competitive condi-
tions the microcomputer provides a
simple, low cost marketing tool which
almost every tourism business can
afford to use either in conjunction
with other operators or to just under-
take their own marketing. The poten-
tial is just beginning to be exploited.
Those tourist and leisure operators
who are first into this new area will
reap the maximum rewards.
Eric Willis Welsh Regional Management
Centre The Polytechnic of Wales
Pontypridd, Wales CF37 1 DL
Conference reports Hospitality congress - US-style Victor Middleton of the University of Surrey, UK, reports on the second World Hospitality Congress, Boston, USA, 25-28 March 1984: ‘Profitability in a Changing Environment’.
Around 325 academics, students and pants were drawn from the USA with
practitioners attended the second less than 20 from other countries.
World Hospitality Congress in Boston mainly Canada and the UK. The great
in March 1983, of whom just over 100 majority had interests in hotels and to
were also involved as speakers, chair- a much lesser extent in restaurants.
men or panelists. The bulk of partici- but other sectors of the tourist indus-
try were scarcely represented. It was
interesting to note the range of the
audience, which ran from Presidents
of major hotel corporations to stu-
dents of hospitality programmes.
The programme
Within an overall, if rather loose.
theme of ‘profitability in a changing
environment’. the programme was
organized in 17 sessions covering va-
rious aspects of quality evaluation,
personnel development. productivity.
motivation and training. computer ap-
TOURISM MANAGEMENT September 1984 237