engleski

The last minute arrangement as a price strategy of the Croatian tourism at the time of recession

Negative tourist movements are a global trend which has begun in the last quarter of 2008. Observing quantity indicators Croatian tourism accomplishes less "minuses" in comparison with the most European countries. Gallup's "research of European attitudes towards tourism" issued in 2010 gives alarming indicators. In fact, 28% of 30, 000 examinees have indicated they have not yet decided if they will travel this year, and the main reason of their hesitation are finances. Considering the fact that the strategic aims of the tourism marketing are the increase of the number of overnight stays, expend to new tourism market segments through the diversity of tourist products, it seems that development has to hold up with quality strategy and its realization. Marketing in tourism means managing demands, and at a period of recession the focus is on the price strategy. According to Kotler (2006), one of the key „winning“ business practices is lower price strategy, especially on prices sensitive market, which alienate a competition. However, this strategy creates a negative consumer perception of new lower price as optimal which could extend this price level into a post- recession period. Finally, in the long term it would mean a decreased inflow from tourism. Instead of that, from the customer's perspective, a last-minute strategy implementation offers higher quality service at a 30% lower price. Therefore, the key hypothesis of this research work is that Croatian tourism should be based on lower prices (Last minute) strategy. The aim of this paper is to show the role of last- minute in the overall Croatian tourism strategy realization. The research conducted on a random sample from 24 city Tourism associations on the seashore part of the Republic of Croatia and 25 tourist agencies, provided data regarding Croatia tourism in the recession period.

last-minute arrangments ; price strategy ; recession ; tourism in the Republic of Croatia

nije evidentirano