Table of Contents
Components of Tourism Product
The main components of the total product are as follows,
Attractions
These elements within the destination’s (tourist product) environment, independently and/or integrated form, succor as, the principal motivation for tourists. Attractions comprise natural attractions (landscape, seascape, beaches, climate and ecology), built attractions (historic and/or new townscape as in newly built resorts and purpose-built attractions such as theme parks), cultural attraction (presentation of history and folklore organized as festivals and pageants, museums, theatre), and social attractions (opportunities to meet with, or interact with the residents or destinations, and experience their lifestyle, to the possible extent). However, for business and other non-leisure visitors, such as visits to friends and relatives, the primary motivation is provided by their affinity and alliance with the destination, while the leisure attractions may still be an influence.
Accessibility
Access is a subject of transport infrastructure and transport technology. While transport infrastructure includes airports, seaport’s, motorways and rail networks, transport technology becomes important in the form of costs of travel and the time consumed in reaching the destination. Therefore, accessibility can be specified in terms of the extent of comfort or hassle with which visitors can reach the destinations of the liking. The three critical factors in transportationcost, convenience and speed effect the success of every destination or tourist product, even if it is intended to be highly exclusive.
For most tourists, the choice of travel mode is guided by the choice of destination and vice versa. Again, these are ‘attractions ‘of particular modes including convenience, comfort and perhaps speed, as well as ‘distractions’ such as safety, and same constraints of time and cost.
The two aspects of transportation facilities and services to the planned and provided for are access to the nodal points of the country or region of destination from the major market areas, country or region of tourist origin, and the internal transportation network that connects the access/nodal points to the tourism development and attraction areas, along with consideration of the various possible modes of transportation. Technological advancements in the field of transport like Jet propulsion aircraft in the sixties and Jumbo Jets in the seventies have been in two major technological developments which contributed in the last three decades to the expansion of world tourism.
Amenities / Destination Facilities
Destination facilities imply the elements within the destination or lined to it, and facilitate the tourists’ stay at the destinations and their participation in the tourist activities. Facilities are purpose-built around the wants and needs of the potential visitors from the targeted segments in quantities identified by market feasibility studies. These facilities subsume accommodation (all types) restaurants, cafes and bars, transport at the destination (car rentals and taxis) and other ancillary services such as retailing, visitor information etc. Nevertheless, there is surely some overlapping between attractions and facilities. For instance, a resort develops into and attraction in its own right, nonetheless its capital business is to cater facilities and should be categorized as such.
An image typically reflects the intrinsic qualities of the tourist product, its design, quality, style of attractions, and its built and social environment. For conceiving the total tourist product from consumers’ viewpoint, the natural focus moves to images of products. Images are a characteristic of all forms of tourist product meaning the perceptions, i.e., ideas and beliefs tourists (actual and potential) hold about the products they invest in. Images are in fact significant in the sense that they affect the buyer’s behaviors. Tourist product images are not given to be based on personal experience but on the information gathered from
Image
The tourist organizations and the tourists who have experienced it earlier. Images are indeed very potent and telling motivators in holiday-choice. These are the logical focus for tourist product marketing to uphold, adapt or create fitting images to influence potential tourists’ expectations.
Price
Price is a function of the attractions and facilities provided, with a range of prices according to the needs of target visitor segments. Price is the sum totals of the costs on product elements such as travel, accommodation and involvement in a range of selected services at the destination. Price of the tourist products is not static but changes by the physical distance traveled, nature of accommodation (deluxe or economy), seasons of the year (peak-time and/or lean/off-peak time), and the types of activity opted for. There is no automatic compatibility between the components of the total product which are hardly even tinder the same title.
Even within the same sector there will usually be many different organizations, each with different and at times conflicting objectives and interest. And it is mainly this fragmented nature of the tourism industry in terms of control and ownership that makes it quite formidable/demanding for the tourist organizations at various levels to coordinate influence in marketing and/or planning. Moreover, the degree of interdependence of the components within the framework of total product highlights the marked makings for collaboration called ‘complementarity’ in marketing by the component enterprises in different sectors. And this view of complementarity has relatively much larger weight for small businesses, which are part of total products.
Medilik and middleton (1973) suggest, “in terms of demand for products, product formulation involves analyzing and assessing consumer requirements (existing and potential) and identifying homogeneous groups of potential purchasers (segments). In terms of supply, product formulation involves analyzing and assessing the product elements, and identifying (total tourist products) from the range of possibilities available at any destination”.
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