Individual_and_Social_Marketing_in_Cultu.pdf - Individual...

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Individual and Social Marketing in
Cultural Routes Operation
Keywords
Cultural routes, cooperation, social marketing in tourism, stakeholder management
PISKÓTI, István
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& NAGY, Katalin
2
Abstract
According to modern trends, tourism offer becomes more and more diversified. The most
important feature of tourism products is complexity, and this, together with the experience-centric
demands, sets the tourism enterprises before new challenges, highlighting the necessity not only
for product, but process and organisational innovations, too. The aim of our research is to study
how different forms and models of cooperation, and the consequent joint marketing activities can
effectively contribute to successful tourism innovations, product development and management,
analysing the examples of a specific field of tourism.
Cultural routes have a special, determining role among tourism products. We have analysed
the possible problems and means of solutions arising from complexity – occurring in the course of
development and realization – and also the criteria of marketability and competitiveness. Our
starting hypothesis is that the more complex a tourism product is, the more broader and well-
planned co-operation, that is the so-called stakeholder-management is necessary between the
enterprises and community (non-profit) tourism organisations.
We have carried out our research within and after a Hungarian – Slovakian project aiming to
develop joint tourism packages along thematic routes. We have examined the co-operational
abilities and intensity of the tourism actors in both countries. Solutions mixing business and social
marketing techniques equally appeared in the development and management of cultural routes as
complex tourism products, but, at the same time, they have not formed an efficient co-operational
system.
Our tested, competence-marketing based co-operational model, introduces the determining
actors of heritage-based cultural routes, emphasizing the importance of the existence of an
adequate coordinating-managing marketing organization . According to our results, the absence of
such an organization hinders the successful operation of cultural routes, which was confirmed by
the comparison of an effectual Swiss example and a similar Hungarian tourism product initiation.
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Piskóti, István Ph.D. Head of Marketing Institute, University of Miskolc
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Nagy, Katalin Assistant Lecturer, Tourism Department of Marketing Institute, University of Miskolc

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“A cultural route is neither invented nor designed: it is discovered.”
(Martorell, 2003:1)
1. INTRODUCTION
Tourism is one of the leading and most dynamic fields in global economy, even in spite of the
protraction of the economical crisis. The number of international tourist arrivals grew by 4 % in
2012 (compared to 2011), and reached the magic 1 billion for the first time. A slower, about 3-4 %
growth is forecasted for 2013, in line with the UNWTO’s long-term outlook to 2030, which counts
with an average growth of 3,8 % per year between 2010 and 2020. Europe keeps its leading