Report

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