Innovations can be entertaining, creating a new demand

from Destination India June issue 2020

and How, say industry insiders Travel suffers early and

Think which tourism products support social distancing. In case we don’t have such products, it is time for us to create them. Some examples of such products (solo by nature is the key) are yoga, trek king, cycling, cuisine, water sports, parasailing, kayaking, adventure sports, etc. Niche tourism areas like bird watching (create circuits), golfing, fishing, etc. also can be thought about. In short, any tourism activity which is solo by nature. This will also go a long way in broadening our bas ket of tourism products.

What about Lockdown circuits which offer tourists the chance to be lock downed on an island, nature park, wildlife sanctu ary, etc. anywhere away from the crowd?

Anything popular and crowd-sourcing (activity) will have to take a backseat till the scientific community gives us a green signal in the form of a vaccine or a drug.

Earlier, it was to offer a product with great value, but now the product has to be coupled with greater health safety assur ance. It is going to be back to the drawing boards with your marketing heads/creative/ branding agency and re-brand in terms of: health, nature, oxygen, discovery, rejuvena tion, peace, solace, hidden skills, etc.

Restricted international mobility means scope for domestic tourism for many economies. Short-haul journeys or itinerar ies or circuits can be evolved. The confidence interval for tourism economies is going to be shorter and Tourism Marketers will now have to develop data mining skills

as it will have to delve deep into its vast databases to churn out products taking into consideration the value proposition for domestic travellers.

Price

It is a no-brainer that in the post-covid-19 economy, competitive pricing will be the new norm at least in the short and the me dium run. Maybe, Tourism marketers need to take cues from the Telecom industry and conceptualize a variety of pricing offers on the lines being offered to the various catego ries of mobile users. As many of the products will be outdoor in nature, pricing packages like monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, etc. needs to be explored.

Promotion

The promotion will be predominantly online - email marketing, social media marketing, SEO, video marketing, mobile marketing, etc. Post-covid-19, hypermarkets, food mar kets, etc. selling day to day essentials, groceries, etc. will be the first set of marketers to be in the public domain and hence herein lies an opportunity for tourism marketers to tie-up for joint or cross-promotions through these outlets. Since international borders will not open in the very near future, domes tic tourism is going to be the immediate low-lying fruit, which the tourism marketers can latch upon. So, mediums like FM radio, cable tv, etc. will also be useful mediums, apart from the online medium.

Place

The internet is going to be the place to put your products for distribution. Remember

Summing up the way forward for tourism re-branding can involve:

1. Evolve Tourism products which promote social distancing. 2. Domestic Tourism will be the first of the racing block. 3. Hence time to adopt data analytics as innovative products is the need of the hour in a reduced market. 4. Competitive pricing in short and medium-term. 5. Promotion to be predominantly online and on mobile platforms. 6. Some re-branding themes can be on the lines of - health, nature, oxygen, discovery, rejuvenation, peace, hidden skills, etc.

The world awaits innovations from the Tourism Marketers.

with the shadow of ‘social distancing’ looming, the consumer is going to think twice before stepping inside a tourism board or a tour operator’s office.

Kingshuk Biswas is Manager, Marketing and Investment, Tourism Corporation of Gujarat. Opinions expressed in this article are personal.