Customer empowerment in tourism through Consumer Centric Marketing (CCM)

We explain Consumer Centric Marketing (CCM) and adopt this new technique to travel context. Benefits and disadvantages of the CCM are outlined together with warnings of typical caveats Value: CCM will be expected as the norm in the travel industry by customers of the future, yet it is only the innovators who gain real tangible benefits from this development. We outline current and future opportunities to truly place your customer at the centre and provide the organisation with some real savings/gains through the use of ICT Practical Implications: We offer tangible examples for travel industry on how to utilise this new technology. The technology is already available and the ICT companies are keen to establish ways how consumers can utilise it, i.e. by providing ‘content’ for these ICT products the travel industry can fully gain from these developments and also enhance consumers’ gains from it. This can result in more satisfied customers for the travel (as well as ICT) companies thus truly adopting the basic philosophy of marketin

Spiritual well-being through vacations: Exploring the travel motives of the young Christian travellers

This study focuses on UK based young Christian tourists and their religious travel behaviour. Through focus group research it was established that religious travel motives are changing from a religious perspective to a holistic spiritual one. The key motivations for these journeys could be featured around Self, the Other (i.e. interaction with local community, people and the nature) and God. Moreover, demand for more complex religious travel opportunities was evident and future religious holiday packages should be packaged to involve educational improvement (i.e. learning something new through contact with other cultures and people), relationship development (i.e. communication with other travel party members, local people or tour guides) or spiritual renewal (through the beauty of nature, people and new cultures)

Spiritual well-being through vacations: Exploring the travel motives of the young Christian travellers

This study focuses on UK based young Christian tourists and their religious travel behaviour. Through focus group research it was established that religious travel motives are changing from a religious perspective to a holistic spiritual one. The key motivations for these journeys could be featured around Self, the Other (i.e. interaction with local community, people and the nature) and God. Moreover, demand for more complex religious travel opportunities was evident and future religious holiday packages should be packaged to involve educational improvement (i.e. learning something new through contact with other cultures and people), relationship development (i.e. communication with other travel party members, local people or tour guides) or spiritual renewal (through the beauty of nature, people and new cultures)

Conclusions

The five sections of this book covered some key trends evident in the Digital Marketing (DM) and Communication field: Data analytics and measurement, Digital transformation and innovations in marketing, Customer experience and (the merging of digital and physical) servicescapes, Ethics and privacy in digital marketing, and Future for digital marketing communications and Conclusions relevant to DM.nonPeerReviewe

Introduction

Digital Marketing (DM) and Communication is a quickly advancing field, where changes are fuelled by technological development or disruptions and consumer demand. This book highlights the latest trends in DM to complement current learning materials and emphasises that the best marketing results occur when DM is integrated into the overall marketing activities of a firm, given that consumers do not necessarily view a brand’s presence online as separate from their brick-and-mortar operations.nonPeerReviewe

A study of the propensity for loyalty in tourism.

Consumer loyalty has been under investigation for over 40 years, most commonly the research has been conducted in the retail or banking environment. Most researchers agree that 'true' loyalty is a multidimensional construct and ideally the measurement of loyalty should incorporate both behavioural as well as psychological components. However, the psychological measurement has proven elusive and what can be concluded from consumer loyalty research is that there are a large number of operational measures used and there is limited comparability between studies. With regard to consumer loyalty towards holiday destinations, there have been few attempts to measure it. The key problem for destination loyalty research is the infrequent holiday buying behaviour and lack of destination loyalty conceptualisation. This study focuses on loyalty as a behaviour and part of personality. Psychology is used to explain why some individuals have a higher propensity to become loyal towards destinations. The research process evolved through two separate pilot studies and the final study used a triangulation of optimum stimulation level instrument called arousal seeking tendency (AST-I), a revised tourist's inherent loyalty tendency scale (rTILTS) and primary behavioural measure (based on the subject's five-year travel career). In so doing, the inherently loyal tourists could be separated from variety seeking tourists. This also opens direct marketing opportunities for the independent businesses within a destination. This study identified a positive correlation between AST-I and rTILTS. Furthermore, these psychological measures were also predictive of behavioural outcome. The findings lead to the conceptualisation of inherent destination loyalty. The key finding of this study is that the loyal segment for holiday destination is substantial; 60% of the respondents spent three or more holidays in the same destination over the five-year survey period. Furthermore, the positive attitude towards destination results in expressions of self-confidence, suggesting that this attitude is strong (outcome of repeater personal behaviour) and centrally held