chapter vi- development of an effective...

Chapter VI- Development of an Effective Marketing…

Chapter-VIDevelopment of an Effective Marketing Mix to Enable the State to Maximize Its Tourism

Potentialities

6.1 Introduction to Marketing mix

6.2 Destination Marketing mix and Sikkim

6.3 Marketing Environment of Sikkim

6.4 Effective Marketing Mix Strategy for Sikkim

6.5 Conclusion

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6.1 Introduction to marketing mix The key to achieving organizational goals consists in determining the needs and

wants of target markets and delivering the desired satisfactions more effectively and

efficiently than competitors. It is an innovative managerial function which organizes

and directs all those business activities which are involved in assessing and

converting customer purchasing power into effective demand for specific product or

service and in moving the product or service to the final customer or user so as to

achieve the profit target or other objectives set by the company. By market, we

usually mean a group of actual or potential customers with similar needs or wants (the

demand side). We usually refer to the supply side as an industry. Marketing in

tourism means a systematic and coordinated execution of business policy by tourist

undertaking whether private or state at local, regional, national or international level

to achieve the optimal satisfaction of the needs of identifiable consumer groups, and

in doing so to achieve an appropriate return (Krippendorf, J, 1988). Based on this,

geographically the market areas of Sikkim can be divided into two parts viz. primary

and secondary. Primary market areas are the urban areas of West Bengal and other

adjacent States while secondary market areas are non-adjacent Indian States and

foreign countries.

The term marketing mix was first introduced by Prof. Neil Bordes in the year 1953

when he got the cue from a study of Management of Marketing costs which described

the marketing executive as a mixer of ingredients. Prof. Kotler (2003) has defined

marketing mix as the set of marketing tools that the firm uses to pursue its marketing

objectives in the target market. Marketing mix can also be defined as a mixture of

elements which interact and complement each other to achieve targeted results. So,

marketing mix for a destination is unlike that of the product. Destination as a bundle

of facilities and services or a bunch of attribute need better coordination, control,

direction, and flexible planning. So the preparation of an effective marketing mix

necessarily the result of the analysis of the tourist product(s), customer segment(s),

coordination between public sectors and private sectors and all intricate managerial

issues. Very often, Indian tourist destinations lack the full range of managerial and

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professional control and don’t consider or assess the important variables and

attributes because of the well formulated planning and sequential measures.

Figure 6.1: Marketing Mix and Destination Marketing Mix

Marketing Mix Destination Marketing Mix of Sikkim

Product Formulation of product comprises development of

destination keeping in view the proper line, length, width,

depth etc.

Price Selection of types and forms of tourism, extent of mass

tourism, tolerance and involvement level of residents,

polluter pays cost, taxes and surcharge from/ outside the

destination have major influence over the price level

Place Place largely implies how to get access to the convenient

point of sales and customer access.

Promotion Destination promotion mix is how we offer destination

products and create destination imagery. It largely

contributes to the positioning, image and identity

development of a destination.

People The term people include various stakeholders and broadly

hosts, guests, industry and destination developers.

Process Process includes synergetic values exuberated from better

coordination and participation among all stakeholders

Physical evidence Special attention to tangibilize the total experience

(i.e. destination imagery) that should be long lasting and in

turn ensure word of mouth communication and retention.

Distance and access

(Not applicable)

Distance and Access ( largely destination specific but the

relationship with competitive advantage found )

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6.2 Destination Marketing Mix and Sikkim

As described by Wahab et al. (cit. in Pike, 2004) tourism destination marketing is

a management process through which the National Tourist Organizations and/or

tourist enterprises identify their selected tourists, actual and potential, communicate

with them to ascertain and influence their wishes, needs, motivations, likes and

dislikes, on local, regional, national and international levels, and to formulate and

adapt their tourist products accordingly in view of achieving optimal tourist

satisfaction and thereby fulfilling their objectives. Tourism destination marketing has

traditionally been heavily oriented towards the promotion function and the same

tendency will, no doubt, continue well into the future. But growing recognition of the

need for a more holistic approach to destination management in the era of ‘‘new

tourism’’ (Poon, 1993) has led destination marketing organizations to focus on

achieving greater destination competitiveness (Haahti, 1986; Hassan, 2000; Ritchie &

Crouch, 2000) in order to improve the probability of success on a sustainable basis.

Destination marketing mix is a mixture of destination elements which interact and

complement each other to produce targeted results, may be as authentic visitor

experience, or high profitability, or some other broad objectives. That is why

destination marketing is unlike product marketing and not easily achievable or

controllable as far as its planning, control and other marketing management issues are

concerned. Place marketing is multifunctional functionalities and comprises

attractions; so too a hotel/guest house, transport sector etc (Frank Howie 2003).

Howie F.( 2003) intended to stratify the destination elements in explaining place

marketing.

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Figure 6.2: Elements of a Tourist Destination

Available

physical and

natural resources.

Infrastructure

and superstructure.

Manpower

resources.

Visitor

accommodation.

Ancillary

services

Informal

services

Safety and

security measures

including tourism

police or security

for environmental

protection.

Ashworth and Goodall, (1988) opined that Tourism is just one function within the

multi-functional place to be managed on the basis of professionally determined norms

and political decisions about the role it should play in the wider spatial setting for the

attainment of municipal goals. According to them there are several philosophies for

place management. Preservationist philosophy emphasizes the natural and cultural

resources and their intrinsic values in determining the nature of the place; their

preservation is a measure of success. Redistribution philosophy asserts the

unacceptability of social exclusion i. e. the existence of a sizable percentage of the

place’s population who are excluded from social and other basic ‘rights’ on account

of limited educational and other opportunities which determine their earning power.

The Marketing philosophy is superficially similar to that of planning, but Ashworth

and Voogd (1993) expressed it in this way.

It is not merely a matter of substituting a new terminology and renaming the various

procedures of the planning process. Tourism supply becomes the tourism product to

be positioned in relation to competing products, demand becomes the customers,

which need segmentation according to product purchasing behavior, and

management becomes market planning undertaken in a development or promotion

department.

...marketing simply takes a new set of planning procedures that claims to be customer

or client oriented…existing and potential demand conditions are compared with

product analysis, i.e. inventories of the facilities and attractions of places.

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Deficiencies are thus highlighted and dealt with by a mixture of new investments on

the supply side and market promotion on the other.

Tourism as a product has been defined as “an amalgam of three main components: the

attractions of the destination, the facilities at the destination, and the accessibilities of

it.”So, the core products of Sikkim is its attraction features which can broadly be

categorized into environmental, cultural, social and man-made resources. A diagram

representing the most happening resources/ tourist products of Sikkim is given here

under.

Figure 6.3: Tourism Product Mix Contributing to the Search for Unique Selling Proportion (USP) of Sikkim

Product Mix of Sikkim

………Move towards sustainable development approache……Leisure and Recreation

Heritage, pilgrimage

and tradition

Adventure and Sports

Alternative forms of tourism

Special interest tourism

Holidays and relaxation

Buddhist pilgrimage

River rafting Ecotourism Fairs and festivals

Increasing trend of MICE tourism in Sikkim as a resort areas

Exotic, quaint Buddhist heritage, culture and tradition

Mountaineering and rock climbing

Rural tourism

Researchers, scholars, students or such other tourists in group or individually

Pleasure, entertainment and sight seeing

Buddhist village areas, its uniqueness

Kayaking Sustainable tourism

Ethnic tourism

Trekking, camping

The planning and development of a destination are involved in a large degree in the

physical resource or product components of tourism. Equally important are analyses

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of potential visitors, costs of development, pricing policies, competitive destinations,

and other financial aspects to analyze feasibilities of development. Recently effective

destination marketing is also considering environmental, cultural, and social aspects.

Destination marketing considers almost all steps involved in market planning process

but factors involved in each process are different and often varied keeping in view its

relevance and importance. A market is a set of buyers and sellers. In tourism sellers

are often multidisciplinary; demand is actual or derived, unstable, varied and not

necessarily related to the transfer of ownership; supply is lumpy and influenced by

seasonality. So the marketing of a destination is also a continuous process to be in

line with the appropriate demand and supply equilibrium and it should be well

integrated with other tourism planning and development approaches. Marketing a

destination largely depends on how it communicates its image. Based on numerous

studies on destination image and the above literature reviews (Echtner and Ritchie,

1991, 1993; Gallarza et al., 2002; Pike, 2002; Tasci et al., 2007), we summarize, a

destination image is a perception by the tourists of what could be experienced at the

destination; takes on different forms based on who portrays that image how, e.g.

induced, covert, organic, authentic, etc.; is mostly measured on quantitative structured

scales; is measured with adjectives perceived as real by the researcher or marketer;

has cognitive, affective and co-native dimensions; has a core identity, attributes that

confirm the identity and an overall gestalt; has dimensions that are sometimes

confused with other constructs.

Figure 6.4 : Factors Affecting Destination Marketing Mix of Sikkim

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Macro environmental factors Micro environmental factors

Typical interaction between destination(s) and tourist generating market(s).

Emergence of substitute destination(s).

Socio-economic, political and cultural conditions of neighboring countries or states.

International convention, conference, declaration etc. for tourism.

Collaboration, cooperation, joint effort between member countries of an agency/organization operating at international and regional level.

Economic, political and socio-cultural discrimination between destinations and market areas.

Emergence of new types and forms of tourism and tourists worldwide i.e. trends of world tourism.

Competitive cooperation of different Indian states and Union Territories.

Through Incredible India campaign the central government has been promoting India as a tourist destination.

Landscape, topography, geology, physiology, drainage system etc.

Presence or absence of important tourism legislation.

Implementation and/ or adoption if international conference, convention, declaration etc. for tourism.

Collaboration, cooperation and joint effort among the members or stakeholders within a destination.

Political and economic condition of the destination area.

Analysis and assessment of tapping the international market keeping in view the important trends.

Market assessment and link between a destination’s domestic market and its international market.

Development and adoption of marketing approach extensively include a demand –

supply equilibrium and as such takes into account tourism system. Destination

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marketing is unlike a marketing of FMCG1 products as it considers and move towards

services. Again, in many cases the adoption and control is not fully devolved upon

corporate sectors. As a service marketing it includes customer relationship

management, internal marketing (with respect to a destination where all stakeholders

are part of the product and contribute to the image and identity), increased importance

of strategic alliances/ linkage etc. Destination marketing should be a part of

destination management but in Indian destinations the concept is not in vogue and

very often management and marketing are wrongly conglomerated with each other.

There are very few destinations well managed by scientific research and background

analysis. The country including Sikkim has poor quality database and only in few

cases the available data have been scientifically analyzed and interpreted as majority

of destination planners and government officials are not from tourism background.

So, an understanding of the demand for Sikkim as a destination and the capacity

levels (physical, biological, social, psychological, financial) largely contribute to the

overall marketing strategy.

The government of Sikkim is one of the very few Indian states trying to optimize

benefits from tourism for their local people. The recently adopted policy to position

the state as an ultimate ecotourism destination was really a committed responsibility

towards sustainable development. Next to this is rural tourism and adventure tourism.

Almost all these tourism will contribute to the alternative tourism development in the

state and the changes in types and forms of tourism will automatically have an impact

on the activities of the tourists, duration of stay, the number of tourist arrivals and the

tourism industry as a whole. So a proactive environment friendly approach has

already been adopted in the marketing mix and Unique Selling Proportions (USP) of

Sikkim though there are many things remaining. The major task for the government is

how to coordinate and control interest of all participants and infuse the idea of

sustainable practices in the state. The priority area is really confusing as there is a

traditional clash between development and conservation. The destination marketing

should not only increase the arrival of tourists but also be proactive in selecting target

1 Fast Moving Consumer Goods

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groups and introduce sustainable practices including mass awareness for

environmental conservation. Destination marketing, in a micro environmental sense,

is not only to search the USP ( Unique Selling Proportion) and choice of a suitable

promotional mix but also to develop product, formulate distribution mix and setting

prices. The development scenario of a destination changes over time and so its

marketing strategy.

6.3 Marketing Environment of SikkimWhile analyzing the marketing environment, the SCEPTICAL Analysis2 is a more

comprehensive approach. All such factors are change agents but the real challenge is

devolved upon how to disentangle the elements of threats from the elements of

opportunity within the changes in the wider world. These discontinuous changes

characterized by surprises and departures from past developments and trends should

be analyzed with all change agents in which tourism is also considered as a change

agent. Strategic option chosen for a destination is a reflection of the market

environment in which the destination finds itself. Developing individual place in a

broader concept of destination requires the concept of strategic business unit (SBU)

within a broad framework of a destination. Cost leadership should be an important

part of destination development strategy to achieve market leadership of Sikkim as it

is basically a leisure destination where the majority of tourists are price sensitive.

Evans et. al. ( 2003) suggested following means of cost savings. Using less expansive

resource inputs; Producing products with ‘no frills’, thus reducing; labour costs and

increasing labour productivity ; Achieving economics of scale by high volume sales;

Gaining volume purchasing discounts; Locating activities in areas where costs are

low; Obtaining experience curve benefits; Standardizing products or source inputs. In

contrast, a differentiation strategy implies setting high price for destination

experience and can be achieved through- Superior product performance ( whether

2 SCEPTICAL Analysis encompasses social factors; cultural factors ; economic factors; political factors; technical factors; international factors; communication and infrastructure factors; administrative and institutional factors; legal or political factors influencing tourism industry or a destination.

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through superior product quality, durability or performance); Superiority of product

perception (achieved through marketing communications and the direct experience of

customer groups); Augmentation of the product through higher service levels, better

offer sales support and more affordable financing.

Whenever a tourism firm/organization begins to analyze a potential market or selling

situation, it must have a strategic plan regarding its approach to the market. In tourism

industry, we find a general trend of depending more on tactical approach and

consequent adverse effects (Moutinhoo L. 2000, Strategic Management in Tourism,

1st edition, CABI Publishing). There should be different levels of strategy

development viz. corporate strategy among strategic business units (SBU), business

strategy among various departments of a firm, marketing strategy dealing with its

considerable mix. The destination management is increasingly focusing on resource

stewardship and resultant visitor satisfaction (Fyall and Garrod 1997; Crouch and

Ritchie 1999; 149). Bieger (1998; 7) argues that destinations may be seen as strategic

business units ( SBUs) from the management point of view. The strategic success for

mountainous region has to be related to economic development into which quality of

life for the local community, quality of visitor experience and environmental concern

are simultaneously integrated ( Flagestad and Hope 2001: 450).

After liberalization, privatization and globalization (LPG) India has become an

integrated part of the global open economy. India’s large market is its strength and

tourism is no exception to that. Even in this period of recession its large domestic

market has been showing its prowess and large scale informal sectors heavily

contributing to recoup and retain its economic strength. India’s tourism economy is

also largely informal and as such not heavily affected like developed countries. Of

course, this service sector is incomparable with other informal sectors where the risk

of being small in size can aggravate the risk of uncertainty, deteriorated service

quality and competencies to adopt ever changing technological advancement.

Traditionally inbound segment of tourism largely contributed to the promotion of

service standard, foreign exchange earning, alternative income and employment

generation, provision of infrastructure, cultural exchange etc. But the recent world

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wide economic meltdown is not only affecting the inbound tourism itself but also

adversely affecting all those contributions. The effect of the recent economic

meltdown has direct and indirect impacts on tourism or tourism economy of India

will change its directions being influenced by the recession. Direct effects include

less foreign exchange earnings, invest leakage (may be resulting from increasing

outbound tourism and decreasing inbound tourism), increased importance on

domestic tourism, negative balance of payment, dwindling multiplier effect resulting

from international tourism, negative input-output ratio etc. Indirect effects with

respect to tourism include adverse effects on other industries that will reduce travel

propensity for leisure tourists, the frequencies and number of business travelers.

India is not going to remain one of the exotic destinations as new destinations are

mushrooming up all over the Pacific and existing destinations are increasing their

marketing efforts. Backward infrastructure and technology in airports, insufficiency

of airports and space have resulted in technical constraints and negative image.

Drastic reduction in airfares, poor quality services, ever fluctuating oil prices, poor

airworthiness maintained by the DGCA and unhealthy competition have resulted in a

tough condition for civil air transport operation in the country. After becoming 25 th

state of the Union Government of India in the year 1975 the rapid development

activities ushered in a new era of tourism in Sikkim. Increased accessibility by

roadways and air transport, rapid socio-economic development, competitive

advantage both from the side of the destination and geographical proximity to tourist

generating states contributed to the development of tourism in Sikkim. Recognizing

the increased tourist arrivals, accommodation units were set up in Gangtok and a few

towns mostly by outsiders without proper land use planning and architectural design.

Ever increasing tourist arrival and increasing dependence on tourism as a powerful

industry and employment generating source, restoration of peace and harmony,

hospitable people, plenty of diversified natural and cultural resources, a typical

interest of the people of Indian to discover the unknown hidden Sikkim brought about

a new dimension for the development and marketing of tourism in Sikkim. Despite of

all such optimistic factors, Sikkim has been under-performing in attracting a

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significant number of tourists having high per-capita spending. The trend is evident as

the poor number of foreign tourist arrivals3 is very often masked by the high growth

rates over the years. Again, the top overseas generating market were the United

States ( 860), Australia ( 491), Britain ( 1,127), France ( 1,041), Germany ( 770),

Japan ( 391), Italy ( 273), Switzerland ( 263) and the Netherlands ( 365) in the year

20024.

Prior to 2002, the rate of growth for domestic tourists were generally in the low

percentages. The growth percentages were found to have double digits mostly after

the year 2002. It is important to understand the reason for the surge in growth to

better manage the growth in domestic travels. In addition, it can also be seen from the

figure 4.5 that a consistent growth in the arrival of domestic visitors had been

achieved over the past decade without year in which visitor-ship had dropped. This

implies an upswing and confident domestic tourism market trend that can withstand

destination supply oriented issues and unavoidable weather changes, economic

slowdown, natural calamity5 etc.

3 The proportion of foreign tourist arrivals in Sikkim as a part of the overall visitors had been consistent at about 4-6 % (average 5.6%).4 Since this year, there were no data breaking down the visitors generating market for international tourists.5 This may include the recently occurred earthquake on 18th September, 2011 in Sikkim and its neighboring states and countries.

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Figure 6.5: Domestic Tourist Arrivals in Sikkim before and after 2002

Source : Sikkim Strategic Planning: Tourism, May, 2008

As Sikkim has already emerged to be a mature destination, tourist arrivals over the

years are found to be seasonal. The month of May is the highest peak with about

21.21% ( See Fig. 4.6) of the visitor numbers over the past decade. April and October

are also notable periods with high number of visitors.

Domestic visitor arrivals to Sikkim also experience high peaks and deep troughs. This

uneven spread of demand during the year will cause stress on the tourism and public

amenities and also create a lumpy supply and supply glut during the peak period and

lean period and advocating different destination management separately with proper

coordination. Meteorological records indicate that the months from late May till

September are generally wetter than other months, thus possibly contributing to these

months having less visitors. Nonetheless, it was also unclear from the data gathered

on the proportion of the domestic visitors as day-trippers, summer holiday makers,

religious travelers or VFRs. Each category of visitors would have different needs and

make different demands on the tourism and public amenities. More data need to be

gathered to assess in details their tourism requirements.

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Figure 6.6: Peaks and Though in Tourist Arrivals indicating Peak and Lean Season

Source : Sikkim Strategic Planning: Tourism, May, 2008

Destination Life Cycle ( DLC) analysis is recommended to formulate strategies for

any destination as setting each destination, considering its characteristics, recommend

another stage and explore future consequences. A noticeable tendency for different

routes in Sikkim is notional and to categorize all routes broadly into two types viz.

conventional, popular routes for institutionalized forms of tourism along which

majority of tourist traffic is channelized and non-conventional, comparatively lesser-

known destinations with a blend of more closeness to nature and society. Again, not

only the purposes of travel, but also for activities of tourists like trekking,

mountaineering, river-rafting etc. classification of routes is equally important. The

same is true for safety, security of tourists also. In nutshell, categorization of different

routes with respect to the choice of destination, tourist activities, safety and security

of tourists etc. and Route Life Cycle Analysis ( RLCA) considering Destination Life

Cycle for each destination could be an unexplored areas of destination research and

strategies in Sikkim though individual destination area life cycle analysis is equally

important here. Route Life Cycle Analysis ( RLCA)6 will help National Tourism

Organization, State tourism organizations or any tour operators or service providers

6 It will include circuit development for mass and non-mass tourism and more specifically the development of routes for trekking, river running etc.

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offering a specific route/itinerary/circuit oriented package/ service as marketing and

financial decisions are cohesive and generally route/ circuit oriented in nature.

Figure 6.7: Destination Life Cycle and Changing Importance of Market

Conditions

N

umbe

r

Predominated attraction Features………Multiplicity of attractions &

Facilities………Dominance of Services

The diagram of Destination Life Cycle (DLC) presented in Fig. 6.7 has broadly

addressed three main discussing issues of development strategies (based on tourists

arrivals), related changes in opinion among hosts and changes in importance of

specific elements of marketing mix. Marketing mix strategies, more specifically,

enter into the deep of demand-supply aspects of a destination and include destination

attraction, accessibilities, all other services and facilities along with the hosts ( as they

are part of attraction, hospitality, service provider etc.) in supply side and tourists of

different places in demand side. So, tourism demand as well as supply aspects have

diversified fields and wide ranging views to be explored or explored in Sikkim.

6.4 Effective Marketing Mix Strategy for Sikkim

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Marketing Sikkim is unlike the marketing of FMCG products and considers almost

all issues of general service marketing with its own distinct characteristics. The

economies of scale in relation to marketing costs and also the ability to raise the

profile of individual businesses through development of joint packages are key

advantages from the operators’ perspective, while the development of new,

innovative and interesting product reflecting the region’s attributes are advantages

from the consumer’s perspective.

In product marketing, each consumer sees a product as a bundle of attributes. The

attributes associated are generally ranked by different customers differently. They are

also likely to develop a set of belief about where each product stands (compared to its

competitors) on each attribute. The set of belief held about a product is known as the

product image. Consumer’s set of beliefs may vary because of the consumers’

experience, selective perception, selective distortion, and selective retention. The

tourist is assumed to have a utility function in product marketing. The tourists arrive

at attitudes towards the similar destinations through some evaluation procedures.

On the other hand the generic term destination is a problematic concept and its

marketing largely varies with its elements and important market conditions, far away

from its location. Gunn (1988) and Pearce (1989) suggest that tourism plans often

emphasize development and/or marketing but ideally both activities should be

together with a clear definition of goals and a broader appreciation of tourism’s place

in the overall process of economic and social development. In fact sound destination

marketing, development and planning are based upon good, up to date, reliable,

relevant information and knowledge. And this may come in part from experience in

most cases will need to be supported by research. A marketing strategy focusing on a

more organic perceived image would follow a societal marketing approach that does

not only target the needs of the tourists but provides benefits to the residents’ and

community as well. Again, tourists, interestingly, want a mix of distinctive or unique

or unfamiliar and sometimes familiar attributes of tourism product or services. Again

“competitive cooperation” is not evident in supply sectors i.e. among different

6


principles. From the marketer’s perspective, the success of a destination depends

upon its ‘Pull factors’, or attractiveness and range of services and facilities etc. that

reduces gap between perceived quality and expected quality ( technically called

disconfirmation, Service Marketing by R.T.Rust, A. Zahorik, T. L. Keiningham, pp.

232) that ultimately contributes to the vacation satisfaction of the tourists. Destination

development is characterized by specific stage of its life cycle, level of competition,

involvement of the local people, measures for environmental conservation,

investment incentives and fiscal control, roles and responsibilities of the Government

authorities and the level of private sector participation. Marketing mix strategy is

broadly revolving around the reasons for travel, sources of travel information,

duration, pricing, booking contributing to travel distribution, retention and optional

excursion, spending pattern of tourists, factors involved in tourist retention,

marketing strategy for accommodation.

Here, in this study the marketing analysis is based on the field survey. The study area

covered the reasons for which people travel, their spending pattern and related effects

on tourism multiplier, types of tour, types of booking they like, the source of

information before or during traveling to a destination in Sikkim, range of facilities in

accommodation units they are opting for and interested in, level of infrastructure and

superstructure needed for tourism and factors responsible for retention of tourists.

Some inter-conflicting issues like dual peak seasons (October-November and April-

May) and related fluctuations in arrivals, over dependability only on one or two

tourist generating regions and its related effects on accommodation sectors, over

dependability on a specific type of tourism, low per-capita spending of tourists, and

resulted environmental problems are exhibited to be relatively new aspects of

marketing research for Sikkim. Widening the peak season for tourism in Sikkim is

found to be another important area of future marketing research. Controlled booking

system may be adopted or de-marketing at least for the busiest routes or redirection or

substitution of existing demand analysis is essential. The study also indicates the

development or equally attractive routes, routes for alternative tourism so that other

districts will have no dependability on east districts for receiving tourists.

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6.5 Conclusion The search for destination marketing mix for Sikkim is expected to help the

formulation of Unique Selling Proportion (USP). Broadly various demand and supply

related issues, destination carrying capacity and sustainable orientations, changing

aspects of all such things are addressed in the formulation of marketing mix to be

effective and efficient to incorporate newly discussed issues and to delineate old

unsustainable practices. From a general view of arrivals and related growth statistics,

the study enter into the trend analysis and found the scope for two different peak

seasons. This seasonal influx is found to be significant in the increase in tourist

arrivals that can separately manage domestic and international tourists in Sikkim.

Empirical evidences also enlightened the reasons for travel, types of future tourists,

patterns of future trips, duration of stay, travel retention, booking related problems

and major sources of prior information, areas of infrastructural and super-structural

development needed (See, chapter VIII, Survey of tourists visiting Sikkim).

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chapter vi- development of an effective...

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