Tourist publicity in the beginning developed in an empirical way under the pressure of the growth of international travel, and to the extent that information had to be supplied to an ever-increasing number of tourists. Thus, at its outset, it was simply informational publicity.
With the growth in volume of commercial tourist publicity, particularly in the sphere of transport, and great increase in the number of tourists, various countries realized the importance of tourism in the national life.
They recognised it especially in economic terms earning of foreign exchange. This necessitated the countries to organize their institutional tourist publicity with a new approach and employ experienced commercial publicity technicians to draw up a long-term publicity strategy.
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For successful tourist publicity, one important factor is to be placed at the top of all considerations. In the field of tourism, motive forces and effects lie on different planes.
The motive forces of tourism lie mainly on a plane which is outside the scope of economic factors, while the results of tourism are represented in a series of economic processes.
Methods of Tourist Publicity:
The methods of tourist publicity in their evolution have lagged behind in comparison with the developments of the publicity methods of other branches of economy which utilize applied psychology and sociology.
They are still mainly based on experience, instinct, routine and technique. Publicity still proceeds from the object with a more or less arbitrary combination of rational and emotional appeals perhaps in consideration of the results obtained by research in publicity media, but in utter disregard of the person to whom the publicity is addressed.
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It is not yet clear at all how tourism, whose fluctuating character was proverbial, has now grown into a phenomenon almost impervious to crises, why the tourist need has undergone a re-classification to other needs in order of importance, as also why, despite the fundamental, universality of the tourist need, different human groups have different conceptions about its composition and the urge for experience.
Professor Krapf was the first to undertake a close examination of the tourist consumption. It is of particular importance for tourist publicity when he states that all considerations of tourism must now free themselves from objective facts and institutions and cover the emotional world of man and the conduct of his life. This should be followed up by an examination of tourist behaviour.
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Coordination of Measures:
Rising demand and expanding supply characterize the present day situation of the travel market with its publicity con petition. In this competition, two methods stand out which are quite suitably designated as the methods of the advanced tourist countries and those of the developing tourist countries.
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The advanced tourist countries show a constantly increasing tendency towards a graded publicity beginning with the publicity of the individual travel trade firms, of resorts, areas, provinces and finally countries, while the developing tourist countries begin with the country’s publicity to which regional and travel trade publicity is added.
As yet the differentiation between tourist institutions is too limited for them to enter into competition with each other.
However, in the well-known tourist countries this competition takes place inside the country and finally between corresponding tourist resorts and enterprises.
This carries in itself the danger of a frittering away of the forces and since the percentage of the ineffective residual part of local publicity is relatively large, it is necessary to undertake campaigns in a manner which is more than proportionate.
This has special relevance to publicity abroad, where the desire for the most extensive possible coverage of the demand is somewhat restricted by the available financial means. This reason alone points to the necessity of concentration and coordination of all tourist publicity measures.
The Brand Concepts:
Each country is a travel mosaic composed of a variety of distinctive features. These features however spread uniformly over the whole country but are very frequently regional or even characteristic of a place.
Thus every land has regions which through their distinctive climatic, physical, morphological, cultural or other kind of features constitute the tourist attractions or can be developed to
It is very rightly mentioned in the General Theory of Tourism of Hunziker-Krapf that “the organizational forms of publicity abroad may differ in.
Detail, but there must be single goal to put national tourism to the fore and the regional and local features on the second plane. A tourist publicity programme for a country may be conceived in the following way:
(i) The creation of concepts of satisfaction which, taken together, could form the tourist brand of the country;
(ii) A coordination of all publicity measures of the economic, cultural and tourist institutions of a country in conjunction with a coupling of the brands; and
(iii) Constant analysis of satisfactions, market observations and research, as well as publicity effectiveness.
Motivation Publicity:
The motivating factors of tourism originate in their preponderant majority from the emotional sphere. Consequently, tourism stands out prominently in the world of experience-seeking ideas and conceptions and it can be said that the holidaymaker lives between imagination and reality and the relationship between the two determines his judgment on the land visited.
This will be positive in proportion to the extent that reality corresponds to the world of imagination.
It may be inferred from this how very important it is for publicity to steer the formation of imagination towards facts as they really exist.
This is easiest in the field of comparable satisfactions whereby guiding information on trends may be obtained through a planned investigation of judgments and criticism in other words, public opinion research.
This publicity based on motivation forces and influencing the imaginative world of the tourists can be referred to as motivation publicity or the irrational approach.
Within the framework of this method a relatively larger importance is conceded to landscape publicity for relaxation and pleasure travel.
In this connection the importance of this subject, insofar as it does not relate to a particularly beautiful landscape or one especially suited for the practice of certain sports, is too much exaggerated.
Each region of the global has a landscape to offer and every one of these landscapes has a particular charm, especially for those whom its special features make it seem strange and therefore worth the experience.
To the primary motivations of holiday and pleasure travel, the pressure of the rhythm of our life has added other factors like the escape from the everyday life, freedom from ties and commitments, the urge to adventure, etc.
The second method of tourist publicity is the “reason why” publicity or the rational approach. It extols in the first place the merits or the arguments in favour of visiting the country on behalf of which the publicity has been undertaken and acts in accordance with the principle of suggestion.
The form of expression it assumes is the slogan. It is appreciably more strongly competitive which makes it easily liable to fall into the blunder of superlative forms which we come across constantly in tourist publicity.
Tourist Publicity Media:
The publicity itself is carried out through media whose scope is that there are constantly new possibilities.
This is of particular relevance in respect of tourist publicity whose new forms and scientifically based planning in publicity media seem to be constructed as a result of the fact that in general their publicity effect is limited to the visual and auditive senses.
Illustration, copy and the spoken word are therefore the primary publicity media for tourism. They are multiplied through the media compounded out of them.
The greatest importance appertains to illustration, for it can achieve emotional effects in the reproduction of a landscape and its atmosphere and is also universally understood.
Even if one is inclined to accept the psychological argument that every human being only projects his own personality in every consideration, the illustration retains from this standpoint also considerable publicity effectiveness because it is viewed and perceived differently by different persons.
Given the differences of individual tastes, the illustration motivation plays a decisive role, for the illustration should be bearer of the emotional contents which it should radiate on the viewer. Consequently the best illustration is just good enough for tourist publicity.
With copy as a publicity factor, the urgent necessity for originality with the object of giving expression to the publicity idea also arises. The purpose of every publicity media is to arouse and sustain attention.
Illustration and copy must therefore create desires. In tourist publicity the tendency towards schematisation is extremely strong and counteracts the necessity for publicity originality the similarity of the printed publicity material of hotels, travel agencies, tourist resorts, areas and even countries furnishes proof of this.
The spoken word is of decisive importance in the case of personal publicity. The proper use of the spoken word is difficult but effective. “Words are not only conveyors of thoughts and ideas, but also of emotional contents and consequently they reach not only the intellect but also the psychism of the recipient and are expressed to this end.”