Marketing Heritage
Introduction
Businesses like service industries are now being concerned on how they will be able to promote their service to the market environment. For instance, tourism industry is able to implement marketing strategy to position the industry in the marketplace. One of the most important aspects in tourism industry is those cultural heritage and local heritage. These heritages are now being considered as one of the contributors of a nations’ economy is the country’s heritage. In this report, the traditional heritage that would be given emphasis is the Tai Ping Ching JI and Bak Dai Temple. Primarily, the main goal of this paper is to analyse how the Tai Ping Ching JI and Bak Dai Temple has been marketed and promoted to the business environment to gain public attention. In addition, the paper would also discuss the funding strategy of these two heritages and to determine the issues facing Tai Ping Ching Chiu and Bak Dai Temple.
Task 2: Target Market and Market Segmentation
In Hong Kong there are many events and cultural heritage that have been celebrated in various regions. As mentioned this paper will focus on Tai Ping Ching Jiu (Chiu) and Bak Dai Temple. The “Tai Ping Ching Chiu” is normally conducted every ten years. Herein, frequency of doing such conventional even and festivals differ from an area to another. While this festival is done every ten years, some communities celebrate “Tai Ping Ching Chiu” every five years and every year in a particular Hong Kong area, i.e. Cheung Chau Island. The main goal of this even is to ask from the blessings of god and confidence of HK families. Such festival is a Taoist-related event of renewal and peace. Herein, the participants summon the ghosts and gods so that the collective power of the gods will be able to renew their lives. This festival means “the Purest Sacrifice Celebrated for Great Peace” festival. The festival is a five-way event wherein the residents as well as tourists are being encouraged to eat vegetarian foods and eating and carrying meat into the village is forbidden to ensure that bad luck re eliminated. There are times that this festival is divided into two parts: these include the Taoist rites and the puppet theatre stage performances given and then followed by a separate period in which the opera performances were conducted. The Tai Ping Ching Chiu is considered as the most essential community-wide event. Another festival held in Hong Kong is Bak Dai Festival. This festival is one of the colourful and noisy affairs in which various people turn out to join such celebrations. The festivals include fireworks display, lion and dragon dancers, festive feasting, Chinese opera, carnivals and parades, mah-jong and fortune telling which come together to establish a different and unique festive environment that may not be seen in other parts of the world.
One of the most important aspects of marketing strategies is to have an effective marketing segmentation. Accordingly, the segmentation approach is unique from targeting and positioning. Targeting refers to the selection of which segments or audience to address and the other is the process of designing an accurate marketing mix for each segment (Steenkamp & Hofstede, 2002). The entire intent is to determine the groups of similar market and potential market, to give priority to the groups to address, to give value to customer behaviour and to respond with effective marketing approach which satisfy different needs and demands of each chosen segment.
These festivals are being marketed through the use of the internet, magazines, newspapers, and tourism brochures which are given to the target market. For this heritage, the market segment includes people who are adventure seeker and individuals who want to experience different cultures and see the beauty of Hong Kong. These tourists are considered to be highly educated socio-cultural perspective wise, hence they can afford to travel in the city and see what Hong Kong, and its destinations can offer to them. In addition, this people are those individuals who try to seek other interest like the traditions, arts, and culture of the city as well as its heritage. These individuals are also tourist who is interested to attend in various rituals and festivals. Local tourist includes those people who are devotees of the festival.
Group 2: Families with only 1-2 children
Accordingly, families with more children are unlikely to travel abroad for relaxation and to enjoy the heritage and festivals in HK; hence, the Hong Kong Tourism Industry, most likely the committees for various festivals like Tai Ping Ching Chiu and Bak Dai Festival only attracts people with 1-2 children. These target market has a high income and attempt to experience, relaxing, culturally-centred entertainment through Chinese opera, cultural heritage, and educational aspects as well as festival experiences. The payment for this is considered to be relatively high.
The next group of target market include Cultural lovers/tourists. Since Hong Kong traditions like festivals have much to offer in terms of traditions and culture as well as theatre performances, the next group are those people who are cultural lovers and festival lovers as well. In this regard, this target market is highly interested in traditions, beliefs, norms, history, heritage, and culture and most of all the festival experiences. The income of this group ranges from middle to high and is aged 30-50. The main interest of these groups of individual is on cultural traditions and architecture and festival experience that Hong Kong can offer.
In terms of buying behaviour, these target market has a set plan for its stays and is not considered as spontaneous. These groups are usually booked at least 2 to 3 weeks in advance. This target market is growing which goes in line with the significant increase in the travel intensity of Hong Kong residents.
The table below describes each target market with regards to demographics, socio-economics, socio-cultural criteria as well as their buying behaviour and the psychographics.
Table 1
Description of Target Markets
Target Market
Description
Demographics
Socio-Economics
Socio-Cultural
Buying Behaviour
Psychogra-phics
Individual Customers
Seeking for leisure and adventure
25-40 years
Prefer to travel alone
Come from various countries and love to shop
High-Income
Highly educated individual.
Interested in culture, history, heritage and festivals
Normally for shorter to longer vacation and leisure including festival experiences
Feel to have an adventure and experience different things alone
Families with only 1-2 children
Family holidays
Couples with 1-2 children
Come from various countries
High Income families
Seeking for entertainment, children education and cultural heritage
Planned vacation at least 2—3 weeks in advance.
Compared various offerings
Seeking for family events, culture, and children entertainment.
Cultural and Heritage Lovers/Tourists
Individual/s couples who are interested in culture and other heritage
41-65 years old
Travelling alone or in couples
From various countries to Hong Kong
High Income
Highly interested in culture, tradition, heritage and festivals
Vacation is planned at least 2-3 weeks in advance and usually stays for a week or two
Seeking inspiring and remarkable cultural heritage and festival centres
Accordingly, the best service providers like tourism and heritage industry in Hong Kong continuously update and upgrade their service deliveries in order to answer the demands of their target market. Consequently, these target market have the ever-increasing demand on getting their hands into the services which can lead to change in business establishment if expectations are not met. Industries t on researches that will define their target customer groups that they believed they could serve best. Every business person is determined to know what kind of work they would and would not do for their customers and, in turn, they carefully learn how to fulfil the needs of each kind of customer in their target markets. Hessan and Whitely (1996) emphasized the idea to take advantage of the competitive situation not just by being better in how that tourism related services gets sold, serviced, and marketed at the customer interface. It requires that companies create breakthroughs in how they interact with customers, and design a way of interacting that makes an indelible impression on customers, one that so utterly distinguishes them from others that it becomes a brand in itself (p. 14).
All in all it can be said that festivals in Hong Kong like the Tai Ping Ching Chiu and Bak Dai festivals has been able to market their services and their cultural heritage and entertaining theatre performances as well as the rituals which attracts the needs of their target market.
Task 3: Promotional Strategy
It has been noted that every industry like the tourism and hospitality industry must be able to consider a strategic marketing approach in order to ensure that they are positioned in the market environment (Moschis, 1994). One of the major elements of marketing is the promotion strategy through the use of effective marketing communications. This is essential since it enables the industry (in this case Tai Ping Ching Chiu and Bak Dai Festivals) to effectively communicate with their target market mentioned above. The promotional strategy is the term generally preferred to promotional activities and functions to market a certain product or services. Promotional strategy is a vital contributor to satisfy the needs of the target market. As such, it is important that tourism management have an understanding of the aspects which are involved in the development of strategies which will enable industries to communicate with their target market (Shimp, 2003), their channel participants as well as their other stakeholders, like those relationships may be developed over the long term.
Every company is inevitably cast into the role of the promotional managers. For most industries, the question is not whether to communicate but rather what to say, to whom, and how often the communication or promotional strategy should be conducted. It has been noted that promotional activities is like a coin which has two sides. The first side of the promotional activities is concerned with efficiently and effectively giving information and details about the company and the products or services to a chose market segments. The second face of promotional activities and operations is the inquiry. This side of the promotional activity task gives emphasis with learning from other people regarding the values and interests, and eventually relating this to the interests of the personnel working in the organisation. Such process should logically precede the promotion of a specific standpoint in terms of product desirability and relevant consumer satisfaction (Fill, 2002). To promote HK especially the Tai Ping Ching Chiu and Bak Dai Festivals and cultural heritage, the country’s tourism industry has been able to use print and video advertisements, and the concept of e-marketing. These promotion and communication strategy has been able to meet the tourists from different places everywhere; especially those target markets or the consumers in other countries (See Appendix 1). These festivals in Hong Kong has been promoted through the help of HK Tourism Board, Travel Industry Hong Kong, Ferry Company in which the industry attempt to design packages which include ferry tickets, lunch, admission for those tourist who will attend to the festivals.
Moreover, since the trend in the market place today is the usage of e-marketing, the website of the Hong Kong Tourism Industry is also helpful in communicating with people in different nations. The Hong Kong Tourism Industry organisation also used the context of integrated marketing communication. Hong Kong Tourism Industry agency use different media to communicate and promote the festivals with their present and potential target market in various countries. As noted above, the context of marketing communication and promotional strategy performs three significant functions: to provide information, to serve as a reminder and to convince their target market (Anderson & Rubin, 1986). The traditional promotional strategy is the concept of one-to-many (mass) communication.
In this conventional approach, industries and agencies like Tourism Board in HK give content through a channel to a mass market of target market. The information and reminder functions of this promotional activity have been conducted via the conventional one-to-many (mass) communication. Because of this, a new promotion strategy model has emerged which Hong Kong Tourism Industry organisation has used and this is the concept of narrowcasting. Because of the internet revolution the narrowcasting also known as interactive multimedia many-to-many marketing communication model or integrated marketing communications have dramatically altered the conventional one-to-many (mass) communication. The narrowcasting model indicated that the contemporary marketing communications approach basically evolved through the internet and that the World Wide Web offers a fundamental departure from conventional marketing conditions (Neumann & Sumser, 2003). The narrowcasting model suggests that because of the existence of internet, many alternatives emerge to outgrow mass media communication. Being advertising or promotional tools, the Web has strong potentialities to completely the way companies do business with their target markets by blending together the approach of real-time communication narrowcast and publishing.
The two festivals have been also promoted through the use of banner ads, and TV ads as well as brochures and post cards with information regarding the festivals in HK. In the given case, the strategy of the tourism industry in promoting the festivals might be able to attract the attention of the target market like their strategy in providing tourism packages with a lower price than other competitors. Because of the strategic pricing of the used by the tourism board in HK, many tourists have become more interested in going and attending HK festivals decide in availing the product rather than buying other products. And because of the commercial advertisements seen in the television, the target market has been able to have in mind the enjoyment that they will experience in the festival.
Basically, all promotional activities for promoting Tai Ping Ching Chiu and Bak Dai Festival lead down to marketing communication. And the key to effective communication is to understand how consumers process the vast amount of information that comes their way each and every day (Fill, 2002). To cope, the marketer or the tourism industry has been able to t select only the information that manager perceives to be important and ignore the rest. If the marketing message is to be selected and processed, it must consist of sensory and life experiences that can easily be identified and transformed into a unified concept, have mental relationships to other categorized ideas, and fit into the categories and mental linkages that people have already created for themselves. Communication only occurs when the consumer accepts, transforms, and categorizes the message. Accordingly, these channel communications of promotional activities works in a two-way system wherein information transfers to the user and bounces all the way back to the producer. In other words, marketing communications works like a feedback system, which allows company producers to relay information to the customers. In this analysis, it can be said that the tourism industry and agencies in HK tourism board has been able to use promotional and marketing approach to market the festivals not only in the HK market but also in the international level.
Task 4: Revenue and Funding
Tourism is among the most important business sector in Hong Kong. With its multitude of shopping malls, theme parks and tourist sites and also the cultural heritage and festivals, the tourism sector is indeed considered by the local government as a major economic contributor; for this reason, efforts have been continuously done in order to enhance its main tourist spots and tourism offerings. In order for an organisation or an event to successfully execute their programs and marketing strategies, the management should be able to consider the financial needs and further, the management should be able to find means to make funds to support the festival. Since Tai Ping Ching Chiu and Bak Dai Festivals are Hong Kong traditions, the Hong Kong government are trying to provide some funds to pursue the said event or festivals. Accordingly, Tai Ping Ching Chiu festival is very costly and it can have a total cost of more than HK$ 1,000,000. For instance, in 1985, the event has spent a total of HK$ 357, 000 for opera costs, HK0,000 for paper images, HK0,000 for temporary structures and HK0,000 for the puppet show. Some of the funds used to pursue the event, especially the opera cost came from the funds of lineage of trust. Furthermore, the event is also funded by the villagers who pay a ritual representative and subscription pay. Likewise, Bak Dai festival or event is also funded by its partner in Hong Kong Tourism Board. The government of HK tries to allocate funds for these events to showcase the cultural heritage and to relive the tradition of HK not only for the HK people but on international level.
Aside from these, the two festivals also have some funds through the sponsorship of local and international organisation. During sponsorship of huge events such as Tai Ping Ching Chiu and Bak Dai Festival, the company will be associated with these festivals via the HK tourism board to make their products and services popular and widespread. In addition, the Hong Kong governments also seek financial assistance from government and non-government organisation to pursue the tradition of the festivals, especially the Tai Ping Ching Chiu. These festivals also seek the help of organisation providers thru its fund raising programs and activities and, community agencies and other group to provide ensure that the main goal of the festival is attained.
On the other hand, the company gains some revenue through the tourists who came to see the festivals and its offerings as well as the payment made by the people for subscription and representatives. The Hong Kong tourism board and other tourism agencies and department can be considered as a very supportive agency for the country’s tourist sector; most festivals in Hong Kong in fact have some form of affiliation to the government. These then indicate the significant role of the political sector in the operations of these tourism offerings such as festivals. Aside from taking part of the management of these tradition and cultural hetitage also realizes the contribution of the sector to the economy; thus, it has been active in identifying various possibilities that would facilitate the festivals in a yearly basis and support its needs for financial assistance.
All in all, it can be said that HK tourism authorities is the agency which is responsible and accountable for providing financial assistance to the festivals in the country as part of their campaign of being the tourist hubs in the world. It can also be said that through the help of various industries as well as people who are advocates of cultural heritage and traditions in HK, festivals like Tai Ping Ching Chiu and Bak Dai Festival are able to be a successful event in HK calendar. To continuously pursue the event effectively, the HK tourism board should also find other means of funds like having a fund raising project to ensure a peaceful, orderly, well- organized and fully budgeted festival for the coming seasons.
Task 5: Issues that Challenge the Festivals
It can be said that the events like Tai Ping Ching Chiu and Bak Dai Festivals enables he region to attract more tourists to achieve its goal of promoting and propagating its local culture and heritage. Although, HK tourism board is becoming more popular in the international level, there are still problems or issues that affects on how to increase the festival and tourism competitiveness. One of the main issues concerning these festivals is in need of enforcing quality standards that tourists look for in events, specifically in terms of their safety. Because of some internal reasons, Tai Ping Ching Chiu at some point lacks the ability to deliver a safe place for tourists as the festival continuous. Due to overcrowding of the people who wants to experience the events, the tourism agency and other involved people are not able to manage the crowds which endanger the safety of the people/tourists. There are some points in which customers are hesitant to be part of the festive because of the problems encountered by some tourists which puts them on dangerous situations.
Consumer complaints are also considered as one of the most important issues for the festivals. Because of the problems encountered by these festivals, the end result is increase consumer complaints which have a negative effect for the company. In this issue, the company must also find ways on ensuring that tourists are always satisfied with the experience provided by Tourism Departnment. In addition, part of the safety is also the assurance of having a healthy environment for the people who will attend the festival. One of the issues that challenge these festivals of gaining interests of tourists is in terms of health safety. Because of the SARS issue in HK, there are some tourists who are hesitant to visit and experience HK festivals. Hence, in order to solve the issue, the tourism department must assure the people that HK is SARS-free. Accordingly, the tourism sector of Hong Kong has been down in 1997 mainly due to the SARS outbreak. However, the latter part of 1998 had shown signs of tourism revival and has continued up to the present. This progress has been emphasized by the growing occupancy rates in local hotels, the increasing number of mainland Chinese visitors as well as the rising activeness of the Hong Kong Tourism Authority which has effectively organized various overseas tourism campaigns.
The tourist sector has also been revived through the increased number of business travellers entering the country; moreover, leisure travel has also recovered through the increased availability of inexpensive tour packages. These outcomes then stress the continuing growth of the country’s tourist sector. Companies and festivals then have the opportunity to invest on major developments and strategies that would optimize the influx of foreign visitors. In addition, these festivals have the opportunity to use its ability to acquire pertinent consumer data, which allows it to develop products/services that are based on consumer needs and preferences. By developing organisational development plans with its skilled staff, the company can make the most of the opportunity to create saleable services.
With the management system of the company and the strengths that it has, the company has bigger opportunities to still reach its maximum potential of meeting the tourist’s demands for new travel experiences. With the aim of the company to provide different experiences among tourists and the continuous initiatives of the festivals in diversification of its revenue resources also open new opportunities to make the business become stronger to outgrow all its competitors. The company is also having greater opportunities to attract more tourists because of being spiritually and culturally centred amusement park.
Another problem or issue that should be given emphasis by the management of tourism partner of the festivals is how to have a new marketing communication approach to increase the awareness of local and international tourists regarding the existence of the festival, especially for Bak Dai Festival. Further, the issue of social responsibility should also been given emphasis by the HK Tourism board and the committee who are involved in both festivals. In this regard, HK tourism industry must be aware of the positive and negative effect of the festivals among the local and tourist people. Social responsibility can be defined as the duty of organizations to conduct their business in a manner that respects the rights of individuals and promotes human welfare (Karaka-Shalhoub, 1999). While the level of social responsibility exhibited by tourism corporations is said to be improving, perfection has hardly been attained. Governments and people in HK seem to have an increasing interest in scrutinizing the actions of the tourism department, in effect forcing international tourism to be good corporate citizens. A study has been conducted with regards to the significance of corporate social responsibility to profitability (Mohr & Webb, 2001). Although, further studies are still necessary in order to analyze the correlation of these factors, the findings of Mohr and Webb showed that social responsibility plays a significant role in consumer appeal. The perceptions of consumers however, tends to vary with regards to this aspect. Nonetheless, this stresses the importance of corporate responsibility not only on benefiting the stakeholders but also in achieving the goals of the companies towards growth and profitability.
Hong Kong has been recognized as one of the major tourist hubs in the world. With the presence of several nationalities in the country, it can be said that the country’s socio-cultural aspect is rich and diverse. With socio-cultural diversity, cultural problems can also exist hence, Tai Ping Ching Chiu and Bak Dai Festival committee and operators can then expect the influx of foreign visitors who are also interest or accustomed to leisure and recreational activities. The presence of foreigners in the country also increases the awareness of the locals to new and different forms of festival entertainment aside from the traditional dragon dancing and Chinese opera.
Conclusion
The main priority of the marketing strategy is to let Tai Ping Ching Chiu and Bak Dai Festivals be known in the HK and international market to be able to enhance HK tourism competitiveness. In order to do so, the use of integrated marketing campaign through integrated marketing communication will be prioritised. This integrated marketing campaign was initiated through the use of advertising and promotional tools. In this particular strategy, the critical area that must be given attention is the advertising and promotional campaign the new oil and gas industry. Generally, advertising or promotional campaigns are regarded as an open sponsorship of offering products, services and any ideas through the use of any mediums of communication.
In this regard, there are different kinds of media which are use for advertising and promotional campaign purposes. Basically, in this IMC theme, the focus will be heavily on advertising and sales promotion of the festivals, to ensure that the HK tourism board will be able to gain back what they have spent for the festivals and to use this to enhance the festival in the coming year. Furthermore, analysis shows that although the HK tourism board has been able to implement marketing strategy to promote the festivals in HK, the HK tourism board is recommended to implement ways on how to provide quality services among its customers to prevent tourist complaints. Quality service should ensure that the people behind the festivals will be able to assure the protection of tourist’s health and safety to avoid further atrocities. In addition, the continuous development and improvement made by the HK tourism agencies to adhere to the changing needs of its target market can also be considered as one of the requirements to provide quality services among the tourists. With this, the tourism industry behind the festivals along with the local and national tourism authorities should be able to top the itinerary of many tourist of Hong Kong, especially those with children. Furthermore, the effective and efficient marketing used within the company can also be considered as one of the core competencies that the HK tourism board and authorities should have in order to make the festival not only a significant and essential festival for HK people but to tourists as well.
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