TOURISM PLAN

Tourism Plan

Tourism Plan

Executive Summary

This marketing plan is for the Four Seasons Tented Camp, Chiang-Rai, Thailand. The target market currently is the luxury traveller. Objective is to expand further to the Asian market to tap the eco traveller and to change the perception that participating in ecotourism does not mean that luxury is compromised.

Introduction

An opportunity for Chiang-Rai's success exists because the national tourism and travel industry is growing 4% and adventure travel 10% annually. Further, the Four Seasons Tented Camp adventure market is growing at least 12% annually and has no providers who specialize solely in adventure travel. (http://www.fourseasons.com/goldentriangle/directions_and_map/chiang_rai_international_airport.html) Four Seasons Tented Camp, Chiang-Rai is poised to take advantage of this growth and lack of competition with an experienced staff, excellent location, and effective management and marketing. The Four Seasons Tented Camp area, like much of the Thai Northwest, has a large concentration of outdoor recreation enthusiasts. These health-conscious individuals, couples, and groups interested in popular adventure sports, such as skiing, kayaking, trekking, etc., are Chiang-Rai's primary customers. Chiang-Rai's target market is an exploitable niche and Chiang-Rai will provide a specialised and thus differentiated service.

Situation Analysis

According to the Department of Commerce, the Thailand travel and tourism industry is the nation's third largest retail industry and will be number one by the year 2000. (Cohen 1996, 17-36) Revenues from tourism have increased approximately 100% in the last decade with Thailand tourism sectors producing over £100 billion in revenues each year. Adventure travel, a segment of the travel and tourism industry, is growing at least 10% per year. More than 50% of the Thailand adult travelling population, or 147 million people, have taken an adventure trip in their lifetime, 98 million in the past five years. Thirty-one million adults have engaged in hard adventure activities like white-water rafting, scuba diving, and mountain biking. An additional 25 million engaged in both a hard- and soft-adventure activity. Activities most commonly participated in during adventure vacations: camping (85%), hiking (74%), skiing (51%), snorkelling or scuba diving (30%), sailing (26%), kayaking or white-water rafting (24%), and biking trips (24%).

Customers tend to be young and affluent, ages 18-34, and one fourth are from households with annual incomes of £75,000 or more. In addition, statistics show that 8,000 Thai companies offered adventure packages that generated £7 billion in 1997. There was a 66% increase in executive participation in adventure travel between 1992 and 1996. California holds the largest population of adventure travellers, who tend to live in urban areas. Chiang-Rai is a very beautiful area in Thailand. In addition, it will be the only adventure travel agency in an area with 300,000 people and a large concentration of outdoor recreation enthusiasts and customers who match Chiang-Rai's target profile.

Planning an adventure trip requires knowledge of the travel industry and popular adventure sport destinations, as well as adventure travel activities. Adventure travel customers are a specialty group. These are primarily young professionals who often lack the time and experience necessary to effectively plan an adventure trip on their ...