Social Marketing: Tourist use of Public Transport

Social Marketing: Tourist use of Public Transport

The social marketing and behavioral intervention methods are curial for tourist when using public transport systems. Various social marketing strategies have a strong correlation with behavioral patterns among tourists. This approach informs the work based on the case study of Munich, a capital city in Germany. Such social marketing methods subject to discussion include the destination market intervention, travel model market intervention, and targeting the appropriate segment. While looking at these intervention methods, the wider scope of the public transport system in Munich is brought to focus and its problems identified on the basis of lack of proper strategies (both past and current) leading to a few recommendations on how policy makers, modern technology can contribute to finding the desired solutions.

Social Marketing: Tourist use of Public Transport

Social marketing is the use of marketing design that allows the implementation of programs which promote the social benefits regarding the behavioral change. This form of social marketing has grown spontaneously within the tourism sector in Germany and has helped in shaping the tourist use of public transport. Since the first coining of social marketing, it has been applied in various fields such as medicine, smoking prevention, environmental protection, and waste recycling. Nevertheless, less research attention has been paid to the different potential of social marketing in the field of tourism and its related transport systems. Such attention is lacking despite the changes witnessed in the behaviors of both tourists and tourism business concerning the development of sustainable tourism. Although in some cases, marketing has been on the spotlight for fueling irresponsible consumption, it is crucial to contextualize marketing as a function of decision-making and corporate strategy. These regard the extent to which sustainability is commensurable with corporate strategy and influence marketing has on corporate decisions in various cities in Germany. Social marketing strategies have a potential role in understanding consumer behaviors. Social marketing and behavioral intervention measures are effective in influencing a visitor’s behavior in the context of tourist use of public transport in Munich, Germany.

Social Marketing and Behavioral Intervention Measures in Public Transport

The market development approach for the tourism industry in Munich is widely approached using different intervention and social marketing practices. Such interventions seek to use the segmentation techniques that aim at providing the targeted behavior change in tourists, and to the specific elements of Munich’s population. One of such intervention measures is the destination marketing methodology.

The Destination Marketing Interventions

The destination marketing organizations in Munich use destination marketing interventions for advertising the various tourism destinations for both local and foreign tourists. The first approach to this intervention is to have a working website. The websites purely judge the destinations of the marketing organizations (Le-Klähn, 2014). The sites are also mobile to earn the destinations high bookings. The online revenues for booking in Munich grew from 1 percent to 8 percent between 2011 and 2015. Once this intervention is put in use, the visitor can easily track the results of the mobile-optimization by timing the average time spent on the site, conversation rates, and the bounce rates.

Build a collaborative network of suppliers for the locals and foreigners. Almost 50 percent of the tourism industries in Germany still use traditional methods for managing the transport system for tourists. This implies that digital customers are heavily disadvantaged in terms of accessing online products through various channels (Hankinson, 2014). Most transport companies in Munich have built a collaborative network of suppliers that has helped them to realize that their business needs to get online to satisfy the wider travel industry within the tourism sector. These travel industries in Munich identified their role to be that of unifying many assets within that city into one market by encouraging the use of standardized booking system. This system of booking allows the travel industries to share the experiences of their best practices.

The use of Instagram has become one of the most useful behavioral intervention measures in tourism. Instagram promotes destination marketing by allowing the industries to share the images of the tourist sites. Besides, most of the travel industries in Munich use Instagram as the social networking site due to its latest steady adoption. Many travelers like to find out the various hashtags set by the tourism board to get their images shared. Double downing on Instagram enables the various travel industries in Munich to set a hashtag for the destination, market the destination, and monitor it as well. They are thus able to share the high-quality visuals that sell their destinations at no costs.

Travel Model Marketing Interventions

Most of the travel industries in Munich are trying to live up to the standards required for tourists in terms of traveling (Le-Klähn, 2014). Many travel models are thus usable in Munich for both international and local tourists as per the definitions of the World Tourism Organization (WTO). This definition says that a tourist is someone who travels at least 50 miles from the area of residence. These people use travel models such as buses, airlines, electric trains. The Munich Transport and Tariff Association (MVV) is also a fundamental model within the public transport sector. The MVV consists of a tram, city buses, regional buses, S-Bahn, and U-Bahn (Le-Klähn, 2014). Through the various travel models, the tourists can book their spaces through ticketing. The tourist can also plan the journey from the start point to the end point using the different street addresses.

Table 1: Types of Day Tickets

A single and Gruppen Day ticket only caters for areas outside Munich. If a tourist purchases three days tickets inner zone and would want to visit points of interests outside on one of the visiting days, the additional purchase can be made based on personal interests (Fuggle, 2016). A single day ticket is ideal for a person. Gruppen day tickets is a family and group ticket of up to 5 adults. The travel companies further appeal to the desires and behaviors of the travelers to use ticketing by offering lucrative deals. For families, children between 6 and 14 years count as one person when choosing ticketing options. The Day tickets inner zone allow travels within the neighboring districts to Munich in the network plan and Munich. The Extra-large option covers for places in the inner zone and the outskirts (Fuggle, 2016). The various ticketing options will help in shaping the visitors’ behavior.

Targeting the Appropriate Segment

The international tourism arena requires the targeting of the appropriate segment by looking into the variables of segmenting as a social marketing and behavioral intervention (Hankinson, 2014). If you look into the variables of segmentation, the relevant variables seem to be spending. The top five tourism spenders in the world such as Germany, UK, US, France, and Japan represents 41% of the world’s tourist expenditure. This implies that these five countries have done more tailor-made marketing communication interventions. For such growth, the generic behavior sequence model is crucial for determining the extent of behavioral intervention and social marketing.

Table 2: The Generic Behavior Sequence Model

It is necessary to gauge how the need for tourism arousal is taking place. Therefore, it is important to look into the roles of various individuals, organizations and media play to influence such arousals in human being or the traveler. Again, it is important to know the arousal or the urge to tour takes place and getting into the specifications of the stimulants (what stimulates the urge to visit a place or a foreign country). Consequently, the model extends into the information search, which led to the selection of the tourism destination. Studying all these aspects enables the strategy makers useful insights into the behavioral pattern of the tourist. Thus, an accurate message for the target audience will be delivered. This model will influence the behavior of some visitors to visit certain places and avoid some places. The model is a form of a strategic plan for decision making before taking a tour.

The Problem

Public Transport Issues in Munich

Munich is the third largest city in Germany and the capital of the state of Bavaria. The city hosts several commerce hubs, industries, and it’s also a cultural center making it the second most visited German city after Berlin. According to the German National Tourism Board, the city received about 5 million foreign visitors in 2010 (Batty et al, 2012). Millions of tourists across the world visit the city due to its rich culture, historical sites, museums, and festivals. Due to the high number of tourists, the city has developed a well-interconnected public transport system. Much of its future developments will be discussed in the sections for future initiatives.

Munich has a well-developed public transport system. Extensive traffic and public transport networks intertwine the city to the suburbs. The public transport includes 59 miles of underground trains (U-Bahn), 275 miles of Suburban trains (S-Bahn), 50 miles tram, 283 miles of a local bus route. Different organizations operate these routes under the supervision of the Munich Transport and Tariff Association.

List of passengers transported by the public transport system in Munich since 2010 (including visitors).

Being a city of 1.3 million inhabitants, daily commuters of around 300,000, and about 5 million visitors every year, Munich is facing increasing problems in managing its traffic. This problem pronounces when among the daily commuters, only about 49 percent are public transport users. More than half a million cars navigate the city daily. In the next decade, this number is expected to increase further. Without appropriate integrated policy interventions in Munich, issues such as noise pollution, air pollution, growing congestions will be inevitable in the city.

Tourist use of Public Transport

The major underlying problem regarding the tourist use of public transport is the diverse perceptions and attitudes towards transport. Many factors influence the satisfaction of tourists with transport. Visitors differ significantly from the local users regarding their needs and use of public transport (O’Sullivan, 2018). The newcomers in the city of Munich are more concerned with the information provision and the reliability of the services rendered by the public transport sector. Service quality and safety are the top key factors hindering such services. On the contrary, the locals in the city of Munich considered punctuality, wait times, and frequency as most important. Tourist also differs from the locals in terms of their information search behavior (Batty et al, 2012). They use various sources and require more information. Common sources of information for such include the internet, attraction leaflets, information centers, hotel reception, and word-of-mouth. The German tourists are generally less satisfied with the local transport services, thus presenting the central problem.

In the UK, the public transport system generally received high levels of satisfaction in the service dimensions such as cleanliness, information, comfort, and driver helpfulness (O’Sullivan, 2018). Complaints about poor services, inadequate information, unreliability, inferior vehicles, and reckless driving form a bunch of other problems when tourist use public transport. Public transport is an additional tourism product that adds to the total experiences of tourists. In a study to examine the relationship between public transport performance and destination satisfaction, the methods by which tourists evaluate public transport influences their satisfaction with the destination. The easier the use of public transport, the higher the destination satisfaction.

Past and Current Strategies

Becoming a local market place

Most public transport systems in Munich have developed the tendency to become a local market place. They go beyond destination marketing by accrediting online bookings for the local tours. The visitors in Germany can thus get the activities and the attractions on their websites. The tour and activity companies in Germany generate up to 46% of more bookings when the visitors feel their online presence (Fuggle, 2016). Many advantages connect to online booking. In the digital world, many stuff is done online. Visitors would be happy to get the travel bookings at the comfort of their homes. Besides, the online platform avail variety of booking options for selection based on the extent to which the information was sought, perception and attitude.

Building a compelling and memorable visual brand

The other strategy used by the travel industries is creating a compelling and famous visual brand. Every travel industry in the tourism sector strives to be the best regarding customer satisfaction. The satisfaction of the tourist during the travel regards personal safety and security. Any company with such reputations are subject to attracting many visitors. Nevertheless, the bar is quite the same in many travel industries (Le-Klähn, 2014). Therefore, for the maintenance of international competition, such industries must go an extra mile in dominating their online presence by developing compelling and memorable visual brands. Achieving this type of brand encompasses developing a lucrative web page. A lucrative web page meant for marketing should entail the team’s information, contacts, good fonts, and photos on the homepage. The first impression of a website is developed within seconds. The visual contents for marketing must also reflect the destination’s aesthetics and cultural importance (Le-Klähn, 2014). Making such a web page worth remembering to infuse everything done on the page. Most of the travel industries in Munich use this strategy.

Table 3: List of some travel Industries in Germany and Response rates

Proposals for Future Initiatives

Munich has an outgrowing number of tourists. Having a well-developed transport system is part of the city’s core mandate, and the authorities are looking forward to having amicable transport policies, which will emphasize on the efficiency of the transport system. One of such policies is the implementation of the gondola’s proposal.

The implementation of the gondola’s proposal 

The future of public transport in Munich lies on the hands of the gondola’s project. The city is discussing the creation of 4.5-kilometer gondola link in the northern part linking two districts on the internal beltway (O’Sullivan, 2018). This proposal is supported by the mayor and the regional transit minister and the opposition parties. Gondolas have transformed mobility in some hilly cities, and it’s believed that its implementation will open up the town and reduce conversion (O’Sullivan, 2018). Besides, the use of autonomous vehicles is gaining momentum in some of the top world’s cities. Munich should consider the use of more autonomous vehicles in the tourism sector. Autonomous cars will ensure online platforms are kept to the required standards since they will purely transport passengers on online bookings.

Conclusion

Tourist use of public transport system relies heavily on social marketing and behavior changes. The behavioral changes attributed to social marketing are effective in influencing a visitor’s behavior in the context of the use of the public transport system. The assignment takes the case study of Munich, the capital of Bavaria, and the second largest city in Germany. The social and behavioral intervention measures used in the public transport system are the destination marketing intervention, travel model marketing approach, and targeting the appropriate segment. These approaches are crucial and effective in shaping the behavioral patterns of the tourist when they want to use public transport in touring the city and its environs. The measures ensure the safety and security of the tourists are upheld above any economic benefits. The strategies used in the public transport system are pertinent to online platforms where bookings can be made easy at the comfort of the customers. All the travel industries in Munich are anchored on that advantage for effective competition in the market. Social marketing is, therefore, a key component in ensuring sustainable tourism that meets the expectations of the consumers.

References

Batty, M., Axhausen, K. W., Giannotti, F., Pozdnoukhov, A., Bazzani, A., Wachowicz, M., & Portugali, Y. (2012). Smart cities of the future. The European Physical Journal Special Topics, 214(1), 481-518.

Fuggle, L. (2016, June 22). Trekk Soft. Retrieved from The 8 destination marketing strategies with the highest ROI: www.trekksoft.com.

Hankinson, G. (2014). The brand images of tourism destinations: a study of the saliency of organic images. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 13(1), 6-14

Le-Klähn, D. T., Hall, C. M., & Gerike, R. (2014). Analysis of visitor satisfaction with public transport in Munich. Journal of Public Transportation, 17(3), 5.

O’Sullivan, F. (2018, July 2018). Transportaion . Retrieved from Citylab: www.citylab.com.