| dc.description.abstract | Innovation in tourism destination marketing with the case of South Africa is the first study of its kind. Because the tourism product is intangible it makes the developing of processes, the understanding of consumers and the changing market difficult to understand. Research based on innovation in tourism destination marketing with the case of South Africa has been under-researched. This study offers an in-depth analyses of tourism marketing, consumer behaviour and innovation based on the tourism industry of South Africa. A more detailed analysis was done to determine the profile of respondents travelling to and within South Africa, to determine their individual travelling behaviour, factors that influence their travelling decision-making and which innovative practices they consider to be the most important elements of the tourism industry of South Africa.
An in-depth research process was followed to ensure that the main goal of this study was achieved by analysing innovation in tourism destination marketing in a South African context. This research followed a descriptive design, based on quantitative research method. This research was conducted at the OR Tambo International airport and therefore, an interceptive, face-to-face, non-probability survey was conducted. The OR Tambo International Airport was used because it is one of Africa’s biggest and busiest airports that facilitates over 21 million passengers per year (OR Tambo International Airport, 2018). A total of 232 completed questionnaires were received, including domestic and international travellers. The data of this research was analysed by capturing it in Microsoft Excel and exporting it to SPSS. The descriptive results revealed that most of respondents that participated in this study were fairly young qualified married male adults, working in as professionals, travelling in group sizes of 2 people and business were their main reason for travelling. Regarding the international visitors, they have been between 2 to 3 times and 4 to 5 times in South Africa. This group book their international trips 31-90 days in advance whereas the domestic tourists book their longer holiday 121 days in advance. The data on the factors influencing the travelling decision-making of tourists were analysed using descriptive statistics, factor analysis, t-tests, ANOVA’s and Spearman’s correlations. Based on the results, most visitors consider themselves open to new experiences, flexible and easy going. It is also clear that the Internet created new opportunities for marketing that the consumers are utilising. Most of the respondents prefer online travel information due to easy access and use the Internet to make travel decisions. It was also clear that not all innovative practises are acceptable to tourists, more specifically travelling to space and being served by a robot. The current most innovative practises for the respondents are Airbnb/Uber followed by travel apps and TripAdvisor. In both cases the consumer should trust the application and also have control over choices made – this is important for future developments. The one-stop shop for all app was also popular choice and this is an opportunity for South Africa to market itself as a tourism destination – tourists want the process to be easy and available. For innovation in product it is important to provide an unique experience that include food and drinks (new trend in tourism); in promotion the continued use of the Internet is evident; for pricing the consumer want to have control and pay only for the services and products used, for place the marketing channels should be online, and for people, the everchanging needs of consumers needs to be kept up with, therefore the innovative behaviour of employees contribute to the overall experience of consumers. These are important considerations for marketing innovation in the future. | en_US |
