Is the life cycle of tourism products scientific? Does it have guiding significance for tourism products?

It is scientific and has important guiding significance for effectively utilizing tourism resources, developing distinctive tourism products, and formulating marketing strategies.

The so-called tourism product life cycle refers to the entire process of a tourism product from being developed and put on the market to being eliminated from the market. Most of the development of a tourism route, a tourism activity project, a tourist attraction, and a tourist destination They will all follow a time process of starting from scratch, from weak to strong, then declining and disappearing. Each stage of the tourism product life cycle is usually measured by the changes in sales and profits of the tourism product. The life cycle of tourism products can be divided into introduction period, growth period, maturity period, decline period, etc.

Main factors affecting the life cycle of tourism products

The reasons for the life cycle of tourism products are very complex, and they mainly include the following factors.

1. The attractiveness of tourism products. The core of tourism products is tourism attractions, and the attractiveness of tourism attractions themselves is the most important factor affecting the life cycle of tourism products. It has a relationship with other individual products in tourism products of "both prosper and lose". Generally speaking, the more unique a tourist attraction is, the more irreplaceable it will be, the more tourists it will attract, the higher the value of repeat tourism, and the longer the life cycle of the tourism product that is its core. If the tourism purpose If the reception capacity of the land is small, the life cycle will be longer. For example, some tourist destinations listed in the world cultural heritage and natural heritage in my country have great appeal to domestic and foreign tourists, and even have long-lasting prosperity. For example, scenic spots such as Jiuzhaigou are restricted by their reception capacity, which often restricts the number of people entering the scenic spots during the peak tourist season. Visitors are restricted. On the contrary, some new man-made attractions, such as repetitively constructed miniature landscapes, wildlife parks, man-made monuments, etc., distributed in relatively close geographical areas in some places, were once popular. However, due to too many substitute products, some entered the market in less than 10 years. In the market recession period, the prime minister is dying, while some people have never experienced the growth period and die at an early age.

2. The natural and social environment of the tourist destination. Tourism products are always in the specific environment of the tourist destination. Therefore, the natural environment and social environment of the tourist destination are also important factors affecting tourism products. For example, the attitude of the residents of the destination towards tourists, whether the natural environment of the destination is beautiful and pleasant, the security and sanitation status of the living environment, and whether transportation is convenient will all affect the life cycle of tourism products. For example, although Iraq is located on the Euphrates River, an important birthplace of human civilization, and has many cultural tourism resources that are unique in the world and are objectively very attractive to tourists, the safety of human lives in this area cannot be guaranteed due to years of war. , but tourists dare not go there rashly. Therefore, in this sense, tourist destination governments must establish the concept of grand tourism and use systematic engineering methods to uniformly plan local tourism products. They must not only pay attention to the facility construction of tourist attractions, but also pay attention to local infrastructure and society. In addition to environmental construction, we must pay more attention to the construction of local spiritual civilization. Only in this way can the tourism industry in this region develop sustainably and rapidly.

3. Changes in consumer demand. Tourists' travel needs may shift their interests due to changes in fashion trends, which may cause changes in the source market and lead to a decline in the attractiveness of a certain place's tourist attractions. Changes in tourism consumption concepts, increases in income, the emergence of new tourist attractions, environmental pollution at destinations or decline in service quality will all affect changes in consumer demand, thus causing changes in the tourism product life cycle.

4. Market competition factors. In today's increasingly fierce competition in the tourism market, it is difficult to create a monopoly on tourism product operations. For tourism products, potential competitors take a wait-and-see attitude during the introduction period. However, once the market prospects of a tourism product become clear, competitors will inevitably flock to it. There will inevitably be many corresponding substitute products and competing products, and the market for this tourism product will soon be saturated. , the life cycle of the original tourism product is shortened accordingly. Therefore, tourism companies need to change their business concepts, continuously launch new tourism products, and adjust marketing strategies and market segmentation strategies. Only then can they maintain an scalable customer source market and extend the life cycle of tourism products.

Business strategies at each stage

The purpose of studying the life cycle of tourism products is to enable tourism companies to formulate corresponding marketing strategies based on the different characteristics of each stage.

Low market awareness of new tourism products is a constraint that restricts tourists from accepting the products. Therefore, the marketing focus of tourism companies in the introduction period is to improve the market awareness of tourism products. The main measures are: first, to improve new tourism products and make them matching; second, to use various promotional methods to vigorously promote new tourism products and increase their popularity in the target market as soon as possible; third, to establish a preliminary sales network in the market . At the same time, the price of new tourism products cannot be set too high, otherwise it will be difficult for tourists to accept it. However, if the new product is priced too low, it will also make it difficult to raise the price of the tourism product in the later period. A more reasonable solution is to set the price according to the target The target price is set based on cost plus reasonable profit, but according to the characteristics of the introduction stage, a larger discount is given based on the target price to encourage tourists to try the new product.

The marketing goal in the growth stage is to maintain the sales growth rate of tourism products and aim to increase the market share of tourism products.

Tourism products that have passed the introduction period have shown bright market prospects. Although the rapid growth of tourists can bring profits to enterprises, it is far from the time for enterprises to reap profits. Enterprises cannot kill the goose that lays the goose to lay the eggs for this tourism product. They should focus on opening up the market and improving efficiency to continue to increase the market share and competitiveness of tourism products.

The main marketing strategies in the growth stage are:

1. Product strategy: focusing on improving the quality of tourism products and improving functions, while improving the reception capacity of supporting services in tourist destinations, Started to create famous brands, and continued to add new derivative varieties with basic products as the main products.

2. Price strategy: restore prices to normal price levels, carry out appropriate price fluctuations in line with seasonal fluctuations in tourism demand, and consider implementing differential pricing of products based on the economic affordability of tourists in different target markets and regions. , promote wider market penetration of products and increase the company's market share.

3. Sales channel strategy: The increase in sales volume of tourism products and the expansion of the market require companies to establish a more intensive, extensive and efficient sales network. Companies are required to screen the early sales network and promote products. Sell ??into new distribution channels.

4. Promotion strategy: The focus of the new product stage is to increase product awareness, while in the long-term, the focus of promotion should be shifted to brand loyalty promotion. The advertising target of tourism products is to use the early tourists' Tourism experience can enhance the persuasiveness of tourists to accept tourism products.

5. Market development strategy: The early market strategy is relatively concentrated, both in terms of target market and geographical area. When the product enters the growth stage, the potential tourism market of the product should be segmented. and consider strategies for penetrating into new market segments.

In the entire tourism product life cycle, the maturity period is the longest, and companies most of the time are faced with formulating marketing strategies for the mature period. In the mature stage, the tourism product market begins to experience slow growth and gradually becomes saturated. As a result, market competition is extremely fierce, and the cost of tourism products has also reached its lowest point. Tourism companies should formulate marketing goals and strategies for tourism products based on the market characteristics in the mature stage. It is unrealistic to continue to increase the total market volume in the mature stage. Therefore, for enterprises, the more rational marketing goal of tourism products in the mature stage is to use offense as defense, maintain and increase the market share of tourism products, and obtain maximum profits.

The marketing strategy of tourism products in the mature stage can expand the sales volume of tourism products from three aspects: market development, product mix and other marketing factors, stabilize the market share of the company, and prolong the maturity of the product. period and compete effectively with competitors.

1. Market development strategy: Keep the content and quality of the original tourism products basically unchanged, and work hard on the market development of tourism products. Market development strategies can start from two points. First, explore potential tourists in the existing tourism market. Tourism companies can first analyze the existing market coverage of tourism products, then study the sales potential of each market segment, and strive to find blank areas. sexual market segments, as well as market segments with low coverage density, and then formulate corresponding marketing strategies based on the characteristics of tourists in these market segments; second, encourage old tourists to re-purchase tourism products, for example, you can adjust the combination of tourism products, appropriately Add some new tourism projects or new service projects to give more value to tourists and make tourists who have traveled before have the desire to revisit their hometown.

2. Reform of tourism products. The first is to continue to improve the quality of tourism products themselves; the second is to appropriately adjust the product mix and add tourism product items so that tourists can get new value from them; the third is to improve the quality and content of tourism products and services.

3. Adjust marketing strategy. This is a method for companies to promote the sales of tourism products by changing marketing strategies such as prices, distribution channels, and promotions outside of tourism products. First of all, the most effective marketing factor for tourists is the price factor. Tourism companies can attract tourists by appropriately lowering product prices, launching special offers for tourists for certain special market segments, and conducting price discounts and other preferential measures according to specific circumstances. consumption. The second is to adjust the sales channels and networks of tourism products to promote sales. First, actively explore and develop new sales methods to sell tourism products, such as establishing an online e-commerce platform for online sales; second, add new ones based on the original sales channels. sales outlets to increase the density of sales outlets; the third is to provide greater incentives to sales intermediaries, such as functional discounts and sales volume discounts, to mobilize their enthusiasm for promoting products.

4. Adjust the original promotion method. First, adjust the advertising, such as by appropriately changing the content of tourism product advertisements, or changing the advertising media used, or adjusting the frequency and time of advertising; second, strengthen personal selling, improve the sales staff's sales methods, and Management methods for sales personnel, strengthening the incentive and assessment methods for tourism sales personnel, etc.; appropriately increasing business promotion measures, such as participating in tourism product exhibitions and implementing prize sales of tourism products.

Once tourism products enter a period of decline, it means that the tourism substitute products launched by product competitors are becoming increasingly mature and can completely replace corporate products and are put on the market in large quantities, resulting in a shift in tourists' purchasing power. When corporate tourism Excess supply capacity of products will lead to increased product costs and reduced profits or even disappearance.

For enterprises, the main strategic goals should be: to stabilize late-stage tourists, moderately reduce marketing expenses, shrink the market, and actively develop new tourism products to replace those in recession.

The marketing strategy in the recession stage mainly has three aspects:

1. Take the initiative: adjust the combination of tourism products to give tourists new feelings and more value, while increasing tourism Product promotion expenses are used to attract more tourists and promote sales of tourism products to grow again, thereby extending the product life cycle.

2. Stick to the strategy: maintain the original marketing strategy and expenses of tourism products, keep the same in response to changes, and wait for competitors to withdraw from the market. In this way, the purchasing power of competitors will shift to purchasing the company's tourism products. products, thereby increasing the sales volume of corporate tourism products again and increasing market share. This is actually a passive defense.

3. Shrinking strategy: For tourism companies with a variety of tourism product portfolios, they can shrink the company’s tourism product line, market coverage, and Distribution channels to reduce expenses and focus funds and capabilities on cost-effective tourism products, target markets and sales channels. This will improve the financial situation of the company.

4. Abandonment strategy: Instead of continuing to operate the tourism products in the recession period, it is better to retreat and advance, simply abandon the tourism products in the recession period, and transfer the company's resources and capabilities to other products and other services. field.

Business strategies to extend the life cycle of tourism products

Due to the existence of the life cycle of tourism products, tourism companies can use various business strategies to extend the life cycle of tourism products by understanding its objective laws. The maturity period of products enables enterprises to obtain the best benefits. The strategies for extending the life cycle of tourism products can be summarized as follows:

The tourism product improvement strategy is to attract new and old tourists by further improving and improving the mature tourism products. The first product improvement strategy is to improve the quality, function, and form of tourism products; the second is to add some attractive projects on the basis of original products; the third is to improve service quality, improve tourism infrastructure and equipment, and increase transportation to tourist destinations. Transportation methods, etc. For example, Hong Kong tourism is mainly based on shopping. However, with the enrichment of mainland products, the attraction of shopping has been relatively reduced. The Hong Kong SAR government has actively developed new tourism projects, such as the "Disneyland" that was put into operation in 2005, which will inevitably increase its appeal to tourists. The attraction not only attracts new tourists, but also makes many old tourists who have visited Hong Kong return to their hometown. Similarly, while adding new attractions, Jiuzhaigou also built Jiuzhaigou Airport, which has reduced the difficulty for tourists to enter Jiuzhaigou and will certainly extend the life cycle of its tourism products.

The market development strategy is to find new tourists and develop new markets for mature tourism products. If the original customer source market of tourism products is mainly located in this region, then you can go to other regions to develop customer source markets, or even develop foreign customer source markets. When the customer source increases, the sales volume of tourism products will inevitably continue to grow. For example, Thailand's tourism industry was affected by the Asian financial crisis in the second half of 1997. Domestic tourists and tourists from Southeast Asia decreased significantly, making the tourism industry very depressed. However, our country was less affected by the financial crisis. Therefore, the Thai tourism department organized tourists The focus of the source market was placed on my country. Soon Chinese tourists became the main source of Thailand's tourism industry, and Thailand's tourism also regained its vitality. As far as the development of my country's domestic tourism market is concerned, based on my country's national conditions, the dual structure of urban and rural areas has made tourism almost an activity for urbanites. In recent years, my country's rural economy has developed rapidly, and the demand for tourism has increased significantly. New opportunities for product development.

The marketing mix strategy is a combination of the four factors of product, promotion, sales channel and pricing, which are reasonably improved and reorganized to stimulate the recovery of tourism product sales. Such as providing more services, changing distribution channels, increasing direct sales, increasing advertising, or adjusting prices, etc., to stimulate sales and attract more tourists.

The fundamental way to extend the life cycle of tourism products is to upgrade tourism products and develop new tourism products based on the new demand characteristics emerging in the tourism market. For example, for China's tourism products, the ideal situation is that when the first generation of tourism products, that is, the tourism products centered on the seven major tourist cities and scattered in some key tourist cities, enter the growth stage, there will be second generation products. Gradually enter the development and construction stage, such as the emergence of entertainment and tourism products including increasing participatory activities. In this way, after the first generation of tourism products enters the maturity stage, the second generation of tourism products enters the growth stage, and so on, extending the life cycle of tourism products.