MARKETING MIX IN TOURISM

Abstract

In terms of globalization, turbulent and highly complex environment,
competition is stronger and more ruthless. Tourism companies are faced with the need
to find new ways, paths and methods for achieving sustainable competitive advantage.
Tourism market is determined primarily by tourism demand and tourism offers.
Tourism demand is determined by the motives as the driving force behind every
deliberated planed activity, the family as the basic cell of society which is in charge of
tourism demand, the image if it represents potential destinations, lifestyle of tourism
services potential consumers, which is connected to a life cycle of an individual or a
family. Tourism offer represents a temporal and spatial synchronization of attractive,
communicative and receptive factors. An important feature of the tourism offer is its
inflexibility, precisely due to the immutability of its basic offer elements. In the
realization of market needs of Tourism Company, the key role belongs to marketing,
which through its activities, primarily through marketing mix should identify and
differentiate tourism product (compared to competition) and thus implement its
strategic objectives. Marketing in the tourism has its own characteristics that derive
from the fact that the product in tourism is a service. Besides, the invisibility of a
product gives even more importance to the marketing. With the help of the marketing
mix elements: product, price, promotion and distribution, the tourism organization
adapts to environmental conditions, thus realizing its mission. This paper shows the
importance of marketing and marketing mix elements separately (product, price,
promotion and distribution) in the economic activities of tourism organizations.