Promotion in the Travel Agency Aquamarin

Part 1: Introduction
Every day and everywhere we can see a lot of advertisements. Their aim is to persuade the people to buy products and services and inform them about their features. In this project I have analysed the use of the promotional tools in the travel agency Aquamarin. The manager of this travel agency – Ms. Eva Samborska provided me the information during a personal interview.
The travel agency – AQUAMARIN
The travel agency was founded in 1995. The owner of the Aquamarin is Mgr. Eva Samborska. The travel agency specialises in holidays in Croatia. The Aquamarin is situated in Horna street, in Banská Bystrica. Its products are provided in the whole Slovak Republic by the partners´ travel agencies. During the summer season the company sells its own products, during the winter season it sells the products of other partners´ travel agencies.
Part 2: Marketing and promotional tools
Marketing consists of all business activities focused on developing, expanding and facilitating the profitable introduction and promotion of a company’s products or services. Traditionally, this is taken to include the ”4 Ps” – Product, Price, Promotion and Place.
 Product refers to discovering market requirements and ensuring that those requirements are reflected in the products or services offered by the company.
 Price is obvious – determining and setting the most appropriate prices for the products or services.
 Promotion refers to all the activities involved in making potential customers aware of the company, its products and services and their benefits and encouraging them to buy.
 Place - determining the best geographic areas to sell in, it also refers to the determination and management of the best channels for reaching those markets – direct sales, distributors, resellers, etc.
Promotional tools or only promotion are all marketing activities designed primarily to persuade members of a target audience to take a specific action.
 Advertising is the paid promotion of goods, services, companies and ideas, by an identified sponsor. The purpose of advertising is to stimulate demand for a product, services or idea. Other objectives include short or long term increases in sales, market share, awareness, product information and image improvement. Some commercial advertising media include: billboards, radio, cinema and television ads, web banners, magazines, newspapers, etc. The TV commercial is generally considered the most effective mass-market advertising format and this is reflected by the high prices. Advertising on the World Wide Web is a recent phenomenon.
 Public relations – mass-communications for which, unlike advertising, there is no direct payment from the originating organisation to the media carrying the information. The vehicle is typically a news story picked up by one of the news media, but also includes company-controlled activities and vehicles such as annual reports, lobbying, special events, and so on. The purpose is to communicate information about the organisation and its products and services to audiences that may go beyond prospective customers, to include any other group that the organisation wishes to influence, such as investors or governments.
 Sales promotions are non-personal promotional efforts that are designed to have an immediate impact on sales. Sales promotion is media and non-media marketing communications employed for a pre-determined, limited time to increase consumer demand, stimulate market demand or improve product availability, including examples: coupons, discounts and sales, contests, point of purchase displays, rebates. Sales promotions targeted at the consumer are called consumer sales promotions. Sales promotions targeted at retailers and wholesalers are called trade sales promotions.
 Personal selling is the most expensive promotional tool, and is generally used only in a low degree. Besides prospecting for customers, spreading information about company’s products and services selling these products and services, and assisting customers with possible technical problems, salespeople have another important function. They are extremely important channels of information.
Part 3: Use of the promotional tools in the Aquamarin
Promotion has an important position in the travel agency Aquamarin. The Aquamarin uses the promotion for providing information about its products, their quality but also for collecting the ideas and suggestions from its customers. It is a way to be informed about the needs of people and how to offer them better products.
The travel agency defines three main goals of the promotion’s activities:
 to raise the number of clients,
 to increase the turnover of the company,
 to find new possible sellers of the Aquamarin’s products.
Part 3.1: Advertising
The travel agency supports this tool with the largest sum of money. The efficiency of the advertising is regularly evaluated at the end of the season. The main instruments are as follows:
• leaflets,
• classified advertisements – Pardon, special magazines about tourism,
• TV advertisements,
• catalogues, price - lists,
• shopwindows,
• World Wide web,
• labels,
• calendars, bags, pens.
The objective of the advertising is to come into the customers´ mind and inform about current products.
Part 3.2: Public relations
The Aquamarin tries to develop good relations with public, with potential customers and builds up a good image of the company. The company uses:
• public discussions with the managers of the company – mainly on the radio or television programmes about tourism,
• taking part in the exhibitions, markets,
• sponsorship – providing the products to the competitions, usually trips for 1 or 2 persons, 20 persons per year.
Part 3.3: Sales promotions
This type of the promotional tool is not used so often in the company. Sales promotions include:
• discounts for the long-term customers,
• the company’s presents - calendars, pens, labels, bags, etc.
Part 3.4: Personal selling
The direct contact with the customers is an important part of the company’s presentation. The employees have to be:
• kind to the customers,
• informed about the company’s products,
• specialists in this field,
• flexible.
The aim of this tool is to influence the customers to return to the travel agency.
Part 4: Comparison of the promotional tools
Criteria Price Time Importance for the customer Efficiency
Promotional tool
Advertising 200, 000,-- Sk summer season – classified advertisements weekly in the local newspaper Pardon, advertisements on TV, radio,
all the year – webside, shopwindows, catalogues... providing information, to motivate to look for the additional information 2
Public relations 150, 000,-- Sk January, February, October, November, lower prices but the products of good quality 4
Sales promotions discounts 7-15 % summer season the possibility to situate the company in the customers´ mind,
to develop loyalty to the company 3
Personal selling 160, 000,-- Sk all the year providing the expert information and consulting 1
Table 1 Author: Katarína Petríková
PRICE
The most expensive promotional tool is advertising. The costs are 200, 000, -- Sk. These costs include mainly the commissions for the TV advertisements, on TV channel Markíza, advertisements in the newspaper Pardon, other costs for the printing of price - lists and catalogues, etc. The personal selling is on the second position. These expenditures contain year’s salary of an employee, who works in the travel agency and is responsible for the personal contact with the customers. On the third place is sales promotion. However, we can explain this sum of money only like discounts for the customers in the amount of 7 – 15 %, in comparison with the number of clients it can be 150, 000 – 200, 000 Sk. The cheapest tool is public relations. Here belong the costs connected with the exhibitions, markets, and sponsorship.

TIME
This factor is influenced by the type of the season – summer or winter. During the summer season (June – September) the TV advertisements, classified advertisements, and the providing discounts are used. During the winter season (January, February, October, November) the managers of the Aquamarin take part in the exhibitions (in Prague, Bratislava, Košice or Zagreb) and markets. All the year the customers can achieve the information from the shopwindows, Aquamarin’s webside or personal contact with the employees of the company.
IMPORTANCE FOR THE CUSTOMERS
The advertising should captivate the customers. The target customers can be people who read newspaper, watch TV and are interested in the information from the advertisements. Personal selling is aimed at finding new customers and keeping permanent customers. The main idea is provided the best quality for low prices. Public relations create a good image of the company and its products. It helps customers situate the company into the customers´ mind, and develop loyalty to the company. Personal selling is unique. The customer can get a lot of special information, advice that influences him.
EFFICIENCY
The most efficient and important tool is personal selling. It influences directly the sum of sold products and return of the customers. Advertising is the second most important tool, which should be addressed to all possible customers. Public relations and selling promotions are on the same level of efficiency. They help decide customers by providing information.
Conclusion
To conclude this research we can claim that the company uses the promotional tools well. But we can improve or change using some of them.
Advertising – It is one of the most utilising tools. The advertisements are usually full of colours, with pictures of sunny beaches, beautiful nature and relaxing. They are very attractive for every person.
Public relations – The company should present its products more frequently in the magazines or at the meetings with people because many activities are aimed only at permanent customers. But also new potential customers are important for each company.
Sales promotions - In my opinion providing discounts is not a sufficient way to attract people. The Aquamarin could organise some competitions, where the first prize would be a trip or holiday. Also the sellers of the company’s products could be motivated by bonuses, discounts, etc. to sell more and more products.
Personal selling – This tool is used the best of all. The employees are well-educated, kind, flexible and specialists in their field.
If the company uses its tools so efficient in the future and develops them, it will improve its position among other competitive travel agencies. The position of the Aquamarin on the market will be strengthened.
References:
Documents of the Aquamarin
Internet sources: www.marketingprinciples.s om
www.marcommwise.com/gloss aryindex.phtml
www.aquamarin.sk