TOURISM P R

Thank you for reading my earlier blogs and sharing your views. I really feel encouraged after reading your feedback in the comments column. Friends, on the occasion of “World Tourism Day”, which is commemorated each year on September 27^th, presenting my 52nd blog titled “Tourism PR” to you.  

Tourism helps rural communities hold onto their unique natural and cultural heritage, supporting conservation projects, including those safeguarding endangered species, lost traditions or flavors. - Zurab Pololikashvili, UNWTO Secretary-General

Friends, you would agree that Tourism is among the hardest hit of all sectors by the COVID-19 pandemic. The tourism sector, which is slowly opening up now, had come to a sudden standstill due to the pandemic-forced lock down and most of the tourism related businesses suffered badly due to the covid pandemic.  Experts across the world are concerned about how to re-start tourism while safeguarding public health. The United Nations said - "On this World Tourism Day, the COVID-19 pandemic represents an opportunity to rethink the future of the tourism sector, including how it contributes to the sustainable development goals, through its social, cultural, political, and economic value."

Tourism consists of selling different services. Whether we run a tours & travel company, highway restaurant, cafeteria, B & B or manage a destination of interest or an entertainment park or an event, our business will always benefit from more people knowing about it. Hence, PR is an important promotional tool for Tourism. It has multiple purposes, such as promoting an event-destination or a destination of tourist interest, building reputation of an organisation as “environment friendly”, detracting attention of public from negative events.

PR is also used in shaping and managing the reputation and image of a business or an activity to meet its objectives effectively, efficiently and successfully. PR is closely related to marketing activities of a business also.  Objectives of PR and marketing are inter-related and often very much dependent on results of each other. The objective of marketing is to introduce the brand or product to its target consumer or customer at the right place and at the right time, to sell. The role of PR is to help achieve these objectives by making the target public aware of the brand or product, and creating its right image in the minds of the target publics by planning and implementing an effective PR strategy.

You would agree that key to success in any business is first-hand experience, and the tourism industry sells experience mostly. The business of tourism is based on air planes, trains, cruise ships, RVs & car rentals, tourist coaches, hotels, restaurants, motels, bed & breakfast (B&B), inn, travel & tour companies, places of tourist attractions, entertainment or destinations, which can be categorized into three key segments: travel, stay and destination.

PR succeeds better at brand and image building of these three key segments as it is mainly third-party endorsement. Most of the public prefers believing an article / blog rather than trusting the self-indulgent advertisements. And, when it comes to Tourism industry, a personal connection is always better, which only PR can provide effortlessly. The main goal of Public Relations is to create desire to travel, persuade to take action and provide a pleasant first-hand experience during the visit.

In tourism, PR focuses on the travel, tourist destinations, hotels and restaurants. Each sector has a specific target audience, globally / locally, and different tools are to be used to convey messages to those target audiences. The key PR tools for Tourism PR are articles in print media, tourism related stories in Travel TV channels, travel blogs, e-brochures and the social media mainly YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Quora and LinkedIn. Social media works mainly on word-of-mouth and sharing of experience which can benefit the tourism hugely. Through social media, PR can push a destination or event to new prominence. After all, the goal is to manage public perceptions and with smart positioning that can generate desired impact, PR can revolutionize a tourist destination’s relevance. PR has always been considered as a major part of the promotional mix to shape an organization’s reputation and in the Tourism industry, the need for PR is inevitable.

Travel and tourism is the largest service industry in India. It provides heritage, cultural, medical, business and sports tourism. The main objective of this sector is to develop and promote tourism, maintain competitiveness of India as tourist destination and improve and expand existing tourism products to ensure employment generation and economic growth.

As the lock down is being lifted in a graded manner in India, the tourism sector is also gradually opening up but with strict guidelines. Most of the state tourism departments are using social media platforms and websites to communicate with their target publics.  Very recently, on September 23^rd, Uttarakhand Tourism tweeted that "Uttarakhand lifts all travel restrictions and tourists will no longer need to produce “COVID –negative” certificates to travel to the state. They just need to register themselves on the web portal - http://smartcitydehradun.uk.gov.in - prior to their visit." Similarly, most states tourism departments have uploaded the revised norms for travel to their respective states with mandatory safety guidelines e.g. wearing of masks, maintaining social distance; thermal scanning and sanitization, on their respective web portals, for tourists intend to visit the state(s).

To sum up; PR is all about creating and managing the image of an organisation or the industry, its products and services and tourism industry is not an exception. In tourism, Importance of PR is hard to underestimate, as it helps tourism businesses grow and expand. Tourism industry thrives only when it has successfully created the desire to travel and Public Relations can help immensely by building a favorable image.

 

Thank you for reading the blog.

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