Marketing Strategies of Travel Agencies: a quantitative Approach
Conclusions, Research Limitations, and Future Directions
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Conclusions, Research Limitations, and Future Directions Synthesizing all of our gathered data, these are the main points that emerged from this research study grouped sales represent an effective marketing technique that increases both occupancy and revenue early booking technique targets an already established market segment last minute type offers are preferred because of their advantageous prices and do not have a specific target market; associating accommodation services with all-inclusive eating type services is an important factor in the tourist decision breakfast is a constant that tourism services consumers no longer separate from the accommodation service itself free services included in the accommodation services is a technique utilized in order to increase consumer loyalty and away to differentiate a travel agency from their competitors the inclusion of recreation services in the tourism offer is preferred by consumers; the inclusion of transportation services in the tourism offer represents additional motivation in the buying decision spa treatment services are attractive only to consumers who are interested in this type of tourism free entrances to tourist attractions in circuits represent an advantage for the travel agency that includes them in their tourism packages promotional benefits granted in periods of low demand represent an effective sales increasing technique. Although this research study contributes to the application, in tourism practices, of theoretical principles in sales promotion, a number of limitations from the research can also be revealed. At the same time, they give us the opportunity to discover new directions for future research. Firstly, due to the dynamic and temporal character of the data obtained through the quantitative research, it would be desirable to verify the stability overtime of the discovered results by conducting similar research studies in the future. Secondly, another limitation concerns the extension of our results at a national level, considering the fact that the researched community was selected from the city of Bucharest. Although we have discovered significant differences between the way in which tour-operating agencies perceive the subject of our research in comparison with retailer ones, there is a possibility that these types of agencies Sustainability 2020, 12, 10660 18 of may have evaluations tending towards homogeneity, if we were to refer to specialists from other cities from Romania. In order to generalize the results, this research should be applied at a national level. Thirdly, another limitation is that the validity test for our hypotheses was made based on the majority of answers obtained through our questionnaire. Furthermore, the questionnaire was submitted prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, further testing can be made in order to compare our findings with similar data gathered when the global situation will return to normal. Finally, one last limitation is due to the fact that the terminology used was specialized. This aspect represents a limitation for the research carried out because there may have been differences in understanding the used terminology, thus generating distorted results. Although these research limits are relevant from a scientific point of view, they do not fundamentally alter the value of the obtained results and only represent aspects that are inherent in the conduct of any research activity. Additionally, their impact can be reduced by further expanding the presented scientific approach. This can be done by applying this research at a national level, in order to obtain data from a more diverse range of travel agencies in Romania. In this way, we would be able to verify thee ffectiveness of the sales promotion techniques used in the COVID-19 period and compare the results with data gathered before the pandemic. Furthermore, the results from this paper can be corroborated with results from our two previous qualitative research studies on this subject and compiled into a model that can be applied at a national level. We wanted a current situation analysis in the tourism sector, in which we would be able to determine relevant aspects regarding the way in which specialists perceive tourism consumer behavior, thus better understanding the way in which specialists organize and offer their products in the tourism market. By identifying the most useful and desired sales promotion techniques and structuring them in this article, tourism operators have the opportunity to utilize the gathered data to increase the use of the most effective techniques in order to persuade more customers to engage in tourism activities in the current global pandemic situation in which the demand for tourism activities has decreased. Given the continuous expansion and diversification of the tourism sector and the fact that this field is constantly evolving, the need to conduct research and identify solutions based on the obtained results is an essential one. Therefore, the scientific approach presented in this paper is an important contribution in clarifying some theoretical and practical aspects of the tourism sector, and also represents the basis for future research studies made in the field of tourism that are necessary for adapting marketing techniques to new tourism trends and to future consumers. We now know that unforeseen situations can disturb entire industries. We can assume that the future will hold many other challenges for the tourism sector as well. Therefore, the ability to identify and utilize the most effective marketing tools will bean important weapon in the arsenal of tourism operators. This paper can serve as a benchmark and, along with similar research studies developed in the future, function as a complementary resource that can be practically applied in the tourism sector in order to maintain and enhance the versatility and adaptability of the ever-growing tourism industry. Download 292.13 Kb. Share with your friends:
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