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The good, the bad and the totally useless: An analysis of adventure marketing in Ireland Antonie Bauer
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Antonie Bauer, The good, the bad and the totally useless 2012 Adventure Conference 17 February 2012 2 Research questions How do adventure providers market their activities? Which marketing strategies work best for the soft adventure industry? How rational are the companies’ and the tourist boards’ marketing strategies?
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Antonie Bauer, The good, the bad and the totally useless 2012 Adventure Conference 17 February 2012 3 What the literature has to say Very little research on marketing of adventure providers, somewhat more on adventure tour operators, destinations and the adventure tourist Schott: distribution mainly at destination; Swarbrooke et al.: brochure main instrument Ateljevic: marketing of small tourism firms rather inconsistent
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Antonie Bauer, The good, the bad and the totally useless 2012 Adventure Conference 17 February 2012 4 Data collection Based on audits conducted for Fáilte Ireland 70 members of Fáilte Ireland’s adventure hubs in Cork and Kerry Almost all of the market leaders In-depth interviews with senior management or owners Structured questionnaire
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Antonie Bauer, The good, the bad and the totally useless 2012 Adventure Conference 17 February 2012 5 Data collected Time and money spent on marketing Details on all marketing activities Evaluation of marketing activities Main sources of new business Profit and year-over-year growth
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Antonie Bauer, The good, the bad and the totally useless 2012 Adventure Conference 17 February 2012 6 The companies Providers of soft adventure – usually low risk, suitable for families hill walking, horse-riding, diving, surfing, fishing etc. Mostly owner-run micro-businesses median revenue € 90 000
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Antonie Bauer, The good, the bad and the totally useless 2012 Adventure Conference 17 February 2012 7 The companies Grouped into clusters for analysis: growing (17) vs. shrinking (32) profitable (38) / breaking even (17) / loss-making (15)
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Antonie Bauer, The good, the bad and the totally useless 2012 Adventure Conference 17 February 2012 8 Results Marketing budgets: On average 6.85% of revenue Time spent on marketing: On average 7.4 hours/week Strong correlation with company size
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Antonie Bauer, The good, the bad and the totally useless 2012 Adventure Conference 17 February 2012 9 Who does what? Growing firms tend to spend more money and less time on marketing than shrinking ones and to use more marketing instruments Profitable firms tend to spend less time on marketing and to use more instruments than loss- makers. Strongest difference between marketing strategies of managers with and without marketing training
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Antonie Bauer, The good, the bad and the totally useless 2012 Adventure Conference 17 February 2012 10 Professionality of marketing
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Antonie Bauer, The good, the bad and the totally useless 2012 Adventure Conference 17 February 2012 11 What the professionals do No marketing trainingAt least some training Marketing budget as % of revenue 6.37 Short-term planning64%88% Hours spent per week (median) 1.56 Long-term planning41%73% No of marketing activities (median) 712 Median revenue47,500122,500 % profitable5558
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Antonie Bauer, The good, the bad and the totally useless 2012 Adventure Conference 17 February 2012 12 Size matters (sometimes): communication tools by company size
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Antonie Bauer, The good, the bad and the totally useless 2012 Adventure Conference 17 February 2012 13 Frequency (red) and average rating of activities (blue)
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Antonie Bauer, The good, the bad and the totally useless 2012 Adventure Conference 17 February 2012 14 Business generated and perceived effectiveness
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Antonie Bauer, The good, the bad and the totally useless 2012 Adventure Conference 17 February 2012 15 Comparison to ratings Negative evaluation of activities is confirmed; some of those with positive evaluations may be overrated (posters, brochures)
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Antonie Bauer, The good, the bad and the totally useless 2012 Adventure Conference 17 February 2012 16 Is the marketing mix right? High rating + performance Low rating + performance High usageFlyersRadio and print ads Trade shows Low usageInternet / Website optimisation TI campaigns Match funding campaigns
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Antonie Bauer, The good, the bad and the totally useless 2012 Adventure Conference 17 February 2012 17 Marketing mix still contains too many high-cost, low-impact activities like newspaper advertising and trade shows Too few low-cost, high-impact measures like website optimisation and viral marketing. The campaigns of the Irish tourist boards do not meet the needs of the providers at all.
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Antonie Bauer, The good, the bad and the totally useless 2012 Adventure Conference 17 February 2012 18 So do the professionals know better? % using instrument
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Antonie Bauer, The good, the bad and the totally useless 2012 Adventure Conference 17 February 2012 19
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Antonie Bauer, The good, the bad and the totally useless 2012 Adventure Conference 17 February 2012 20 Conclusions The marketing activities chosen by adventure providers in the Irish Southwest depend on company size and marketing training vary widely in effectiveness and tend to be rather inconsistent => Clear upside potential for individual providers and the tourism boards’ activities.
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Antonie Bauer, The good, the bad and the totally useless 2012 Adventure Conference 17 February 2012 21 Thank you for your attention
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Antonie Bauer, The good, the bad and the totally useless 2012 Adventure Conference 17 February 2012 22 Key references Ateljevic, J. (2007) Small tourism firms and management practices in New Zealand: The Centre Stage Macro Region. Tourism Management, 28, p. 307-316 Buckley, R. (2010) Adventure tourism management. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann Schott, C. (2007) Selling adventure tourism: A distribution channels perspective. International Journal of Tourism Research, 9, p. 257-274 Swarbrooke, J., Beard, C., Leckie, S. and Pomfret, G. (2003) Adventure Tourism: The new frontier. Oxford: Butterworth- Heinemann
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Antonie Bauer, The good, the bad and the totally useless 2012 Adventure Conference 17 February 2012 23
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Antonie Bauer, The good, the bad and the totally useless 2012 Adventure Conference 17 February 2012 24 Median rating = 4Median r. = 3Median r. = 2Median r. = 1
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