The concept of communication has two initial approaches. Communication can be internal (between different members or groups forming part of an organization), or external (between the own organization and members or groups external to it).
This last section is known as commercial communication, and the content comes from a tourist perspective.
It is necessary to explain the features, advantages and differences of a product over other goods and services offered in the market.
Being an intangible product and purchased far from the place of purchase, wealth of information is needed, giving consumers greater confidence in their purchasing decisions.
Tourist communication includes information activities about products and company actions that are directed to the market persuasively. Try to inform about the products and persuade, at the same time.
The communication process is defined as the set of signals from the organization to send messages to its different publics to obtain an answer. This process is composed of various elements:
- Source: person or organization that sends a message.
- Code: a set of signals or rules used to créate the message.
- Message: information sent by the source to the receiver.
- Channel: way in which the communication is sent.
- Receiver: receive the message.
- Noises: obstruct the understanding of the message.
- Feedback: response of the receiver coming back to source
TOURIST COMMUNICATION TOOLS: HOW CHOOSE THEM?
Tools change depending on consumer markets or organizational markets. For the first, the most important tool is advertising, followed by sales promotion. For the second, the most important tool is sales force, followed by sales promotion and tradeshows.
The type of product affect to the use of each tool. Also influences the product lifecycle.
Tourism companies follow two types of strategies:
- Push strategy: directed to comercial distributors. They use sales force and promotion.
- Pull strategy: directed to final consumers. They use advertising and promotion.
