Tourism Industry Stakeholders and Promotional Strategies

Participants in the Tourism Industry

• Visitors: Individuals with motivations for travel.
• The Destination: The host community.
• Government: Plays a crucial role in tourism development and promotion.
• Local People: View tourism as a factor for cultural exchange and employment.
• Travel Trade Intermediaries and Suppliers: Businesses providing tourist goods and services.
  • Travel Agents: Organize personal travel and accommodation for travelers. They offer services like hotels, cruise lines, railways, and package tour operators.
  • Wholesale Tour Operators: Develop and market package tours, often through travel agencies.
  • Tour Guides and Couriers: Travel with tourists and work to ensure travelers' needs are met.
  • Hotel Booking Agencies.
  • Destination Management Company (DMC): A tourism business based in a destination whose function is to provide groups with services to meet their travel and meeting interests and needs.
  • Professional Congress Organizer (PCO): A company specializing in the planning of conferences and congresses.

Tourism Marketing Workshops

Workshops are marketing and promotion events designed to facilitate business meetings between enterprises from a destination and origin intermediaries. They are among the most efficient marketing tools available to the tourism industry, providing a direct, personalized sales channel and an excellent opportunity to establish a large number of business links in a short space of time.

• Direct Workshops: Organized in countries of particular interest to the tourism industry. For example, Catalan businesses visit the country where the workshop is taking place and, aided and advised by the Catalan Tourist Board, hold meetings with local tour operators.
• Reverse Workshops: Take place in the destination country. For example, tour operators invited by the Catalan Tourist Board come to Catalonia to hold pre-arranged meetings with Catalan businesses. In most cases, such workshops are also accompanied by familiarization trips (fam trips).

Promotional Presentations

Presentations are organized to inform about a tourist destination. They are subdivided into two categories:

• Presentations Restricted to the Professional Sector:
  • Organized by industry professionals in the country of origin.
  • These are face-to-face events where participants learn about the attractions of a tourist destination so that they can promote or market their country.
• Presentations Aimed at End Consumers:
  • Tourism organizations also organize promotional actions to inform end consumers about the diversity of a country's tourist attractions.
  • These actions usually accompany activities, performances, and shows staged in the street to showcase the destination.