Page 205 - Tourism The International Business

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The public awareness program

Successful implementation of a tourism program involves two distinct promotional efforts. Naturally, you must
promote your community to the traveling public, a task discussed in Marketing tourism. Less obvious, but of equal
importance is promoting tourism to your own community. This is accomplished through the community awareness
program.
The purposes of advertising have been described as to inform, to persuade, and to remind. It is helpful to think
of the community awareness program along the same lines. The community should be informed of the benefits of

tourism and the nature of the tourism organization's activities. They may need to be persuaded these benefits are
worth the cost. Finally, they must be reminded of the program from time to time and brought up to date on its
progress, just to keep them "in the fold".
Some might question the allocation of resources to this task. A possible challenge is: "Spend the dollars or time
devoted to the public awareness program on advertising to tourists; the benefits will speak for themselves". This
seems ill-advised for several reasons.
Community leaders are likely to have mixed feelings toward tourists and tourism. An early effort to bring people
on board may be necessary before a concerted effort at promoting the community is possible.
The benefits people receive from tourism differ in degree and kind. For those actually collecting tourist money,

the advantages are obvious. Second order, or multiplier effects are more subtle and difficult to identify; even
experts do not agree as to their magnitude. These may not be recognized without careful and thorough explanation.
It may appear community resources are being spent to benefit the owners of a few attractions, restaurants and
hotels.
The public awareness program is extremely important and should be planned and initiated before beginning to
promote the area to vacationers. A manufacturer wouldn't advertise a product until he had a product to advertise.
In tourism, an important part of the "product" is the community's receptiveness. Developing, or reinforcing the

friendly, helpful attitudes that are so essential is a task of the community relations program.
Value of tourism
A central purpose of the public awareness program will be to educate the community as to the value of tourism
to the community.

Relevance
The term "community" has been used as if its population were completely homogeneous. In fact, a community is

a collection of individuals, families and groups with diverse attitudes, goals, and aspirations. This diversity must be
recognized in planning and conducting the public awareness program. It is important to identify the audience for a
particular communication and tailor the message to its needs. A critical factor to be considered in explaining the
benefits of tourism is relevance. One must analyze the interests, aspirations, backgrounds, and life styles of the
audience one is addressing. Only benefits which are relevant to a particular group should be selected for emphasis.
Taking an example, an increase level of banking activity might be a benefit of tourism of interest to the financial
community. It would be a ridiculous theme for a campaign directed toward disadvantaged youths; it is not a
concept that is relevant to their world. Even a reduction in the unemployment level might be too remote a notion,
since this audience may often have been left unemployed in periods of rapid economic expansion. A discussion of

the number and kinds of new jobs this group can fill would be focused on a benefit to which they can relate.

Tourism the International Business 205 A Global Text