5. Summary and Discussion
5.1 Summary
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5. Summary and Discussion
Though Taiwan has tried to promote itself as an island of tourism internationally since 2000 and thus included tourism industry as one of the key national
developments, little attention has been paid to the global communications of Taiwan’s tourism in the academic field. Furthermore, none of them examine the tourism
marketing from the perspective of GIMC. Therefore, this research aims at analyzing how Taiwan integrates its global communications in the three main target regions during the campaign— “Tour Taiwan Years 2008-2009”—from the perspective of GIMC. By conducting a case study on Taiwan, this research, on one hand, aims to provide suggestions for Taiwan’s future tourism policy, and, on the other hand, help contribute to GIMC literatures by exploring its application in tourism marketing.
In this chapter, first, the finding of this case study on “Tour Taiwan Years 2008-2009” will be summarized. Second, implications for Taiwan’s tourism
marketing strategies will be offered. Third, the limitations of this research and future suggestions will be given.
5.1 Summary
The finding of this study can be summarized into three points.
1. Either within each region or across regions, the strategies Tourism Bureau employs are close to globally integrated strategy, but with different level of vertical and horizontal integrations.
a. Within region (Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe& America) In either Japan or Korea, the vertical integration is coordinated, especially between advertising and PR since regional strategy of celebrity endorsement closely
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connects the two disciplines. Although celebrity endorsement are not used in sales promotions and direct marketing, the strategies behind are also trying to reflect the image of Taiwan as tourism island by providing incentives for visitors and also travel information through the websites of Tourism Bureau. However, the vertical
integration between sales promotions and direct marketing with the others can be strengthened better, but basically the strategies in each marketing discipline are integrated together to build the image of Taiwan as an island of tourism within countries. Furthermore, since the promotions in Japan and Korea are mainly
standardized in strategy as well as execution, the horizontal integration is very high.
Therefore, in Northeast Asia, the strategy is close to globally integrated strategy.
In Southeast Asia, the level of integration is the highest, either horizontally or vertically. As in Northeast Asia, celebrity endorsement is used, but the integration between the spokespersons and the positioning of Taiwan is better revealed, with double spokespersons from different generations to show the multiple aspect of Taiwan for different ages. Furthermore, the endorsement by the spokespersons can be found in all of the marketing disciplines, which complement each other and
strengthen the consistency and integrity of the promotions here. Thus, the vertical integration is high. Since the promotions in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia are standardized in both strategy and execution, the horizontal integration is also high.
Therefore, together in Southeast Asia the strategy is globally integrated strategy. The statistics by Tourism Bureau (2008) seems to prove the success of the strategy in Southeast Asia, revealing that the growths in all the three countries are positive, with the highest 32.82% in Hong Kong, 5.17% in Singapore, and 16.49% in Malaysia.
In Europe and America, there is no regional strategy like celebrity endorsement to connect all marketing disciplines but only the essence of tourism resources of Taiwan to show the image of diversified island. Thus, in general the strategies across all
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marketing disciplines are coordinated, but the connection in between is not as strong as in the other two regions where the use of spokespersons complements each other and gives people synergic and clear identification of this campaign. Comparatively speaking, lack of a creative and outstanding technique to attract people’s attention on Taiwan makes the vertical integration in America in a medium level. The vertical integration in Europe is even worse than in America since the website for directly communicating with local people are not well managed and integrated with the website for America.
In terms of horizontal integration in Europe and America, different levels of integration are found from discipline to discipline: sales promotion is the highest, followed by advertising and PR, and then direct marketing. However, basically the marketing strategies behind these tools are coordinated across countries. Therefore, with medium level of vertical integration and high level of horizontal integration, the strategy is this region is somewhere between globally integrated strategy and globally non-integrated strategy.
In summary, within each of the three target regions, the strategies are all close to
“globally integrated strategy,” which is trying to present Taiwan as an island of tourism with diversified charms, but the level of coordination differs. The holistic integration is the highest in Southeast Asia, followed by Northeast Asia, and then Europe and America as shown in Figure 5.1. It can also be clearly seen that Tourism Bureau recognizes the importance of standardizing worldwide communications to certain degrees but also allows room for adaptations. This exactly corresponds to the contingency approach of GIMC based on which a campaign can be elastic enough to be modified with respect to the characteristics of target markets while still applying the same generally themes (Grein and Gould, 1996), which is “an island of tourism with diversities” in the case of “Tour Taiwan Years 2008-2009.”
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High
Globally Multi-domestic integrated integrated
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Globally Multi-domestic non-integrated non- integrated Low
Figure 5.1 GIMC Strategy used in Europe and America Source: Adapted from Grein and Gould (1996)
Note: From top to the bottom: Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia, Europe and America
b. Across regions
The strategies of all marketing communication tools are coordinated across regions basically, but the level of horizontal integration is different across disciplines.
In terms of advertising, some are standardized while some are adapted but basically all of them follow the same strategy, which aims to promote Taiwan as an island of tourism by introducing diversified tourism resources though different
creative ways and media. Thus, based on the criterion of this research, the advertising across the three regions (i.e. horizontal integration) are well integrated.
In terms of public relations, similar to advertising, some are standardized while some are adapted. Although with different regional PR events such as “Fahrenheit as one-day tour guide” for Northeast Asia, “Love 101” for Southeast Asia, or the media invited report for Europe and America, the strategies behind are all trying to introduce Taiwan’s different tourism resources for image building. Therefore, the uses of PR across the three regions are also well integrated.
Sales promotions are the most standardized across three regions, with three
Vertical coordination
Horizontal coordination High Low
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identical incentives for all and two more incentives especially for Europe and America due to the numerous transit passengers from this region, but the purposes behind all these incentives are the same—to attract international visitors with Taiwan’s
diversified features and activities in tourism. Thus, the sales promotions across regions are highly integrated.
In terms of direct marketing, the website of Tourism Bureau serves as the interactive channel between consumers and Tourism Bureau for exchanging travel information of Taiwan but allows different presentations and setting of regional websites. Although the layout and design of the website in different language versions differ, the function of contacting Tourism Bureau directly are available in all regions.
However, the travel information displaying or downloading are not provided on European websites. Generally speaking, the horizontal integration of direct marketing is high except for the European market where the interactivity of the regional website as a direct communication tool with consumers should be improved.
The result of horizontal integration across regions during this campaign supports the GIMC concept that coordination communications across countries is crucial, but the level and nature of coordination across promotion discipline as well as countries vary from case to case (Grien and Gould, 1996). The overall results within region or across regions also suggest that Tourism Bureau is moving toward the right direction for globally integrated strategy, which is pointed out by Grein and Gould as the trend for global business in the future (1996).
2. The proposition, which suggests that public relation, sales promotion, and direct marketing are more difficult to standardize compared to advertising, is not supported in the case of “Tour Taiwan Years 2008-2009.”
As discussed in the previous section of horizontal integration within region and
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across region, the proposition is not supported in either case. Based on the definition of standardization of strategy used in this study, within Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia, each marketing communication tool is highly standardized not only in strategy but also in detailed execution across countries. In Europe and America, the level of standardization varies from discipline to discipline, with sales promotions the most standardized, followed by advertising and PR, and then direct marketing. However, the strategies behind are basically standardized across countries.
Across the three regions, the situation is similar to that in Europe and America. In general, sales promotions is the most standardized, followed by advertising and PR, and then direct marketing. Sales promotions, with the same strategy and execution, show the highest level of standardization.
Why can sales promotion, which used to be considered as a more local practice, becomes the most standardized one in this case? Taking a closer look at the sales promotions in this campaign, we can see that these incentives, including “Quarterly Giveaways,” “Gifts for Millionth Visitors” and “Free Half-day Tours,” all apply to every international visitor no matter they are female audiences in Northeast Asia, general public in Southeast Asia, or businessmen and Chinese immigrants in Europe and America. This study suggests that it is this universality or generality make these incentives applicable worldwide. In addition to this universality, the flexibility for visitors to choose sales promotions like which gifts to take in “Quarterly Giveaways”
or what routes to visit in “Free Half-day Tour” also strengths the attraction and applicability of these sales promotions. As pointed out by Li-Hisng, Lai:
Actually the coupons for theme parks (i.e. 2nd Quarterly gift) are not for all markets. They are mainly for Southeast Asia because they like our theme parks.
Other visitors are not necessarily family groups but those from Southeast Asia are, and thus they like this (coupons for theme parks) very much……in fact, people
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can select between the 1st and 2nd Quarterly Giveaways. If you don’t want coupons for theme parks, you can choose MRT pass instead (interview, 2009/6/9).
Besides, it may also relate to the different roles advertising and sales promotion play in destination marketing. Compared to advertising, which are mainly used for arousing people’s attention and building the destination image, sales promotions act more like to urge people to take immediate reactions when the destination is already attractive to them. As inferred from the past literatures, destination image is a key element in deciding a tourism destination for consumers (e.g., Baker and Cameron, 2007), and thus should be managed carefully based on the characteristics of the markets. Therefore, the different objectives of advertising and sales promotions may explain why in this case the advertising is adjusted to regional markets to promote Taiwan’s image toward various target audiences while keeping the sales promotions universal.
Furthermore, these incentives not only encourage prospect visitors to tour Taiwan but also reflect the values and features of Taiwan, such as the free coupons for taking hot spring, specialty snacks, or MRT pass, etc. This just corresponds to what Hall and Bantick (1987) pointed out that “global sales promotion should be kept simple and follow from the values established for the brand in its advertising, image, and
packaging (Grein and Gould, 1996, p. 151).” In this way, the simple, creative strategy to show Taiwan’s features behind these incentives is shared in all markets and thus makes sales promotion the most standardized instead of advertising. This also supports the idea that sales promotion is not necessarily a local activity but can become a global activity as proposed by Kashain and Quelch (1990).
3. The application of GIMC to tourism marketing in this case suggests that
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strategy should be the guiding principle for integration; and the classification
of GIMC strategy should be adjusted and made based on a continuum approach.
The goal of applying GIMC to real practice is to find out how a global firm manages its international communications so that improvements can be made to achieve higher synergy as well as better integration through the coordination across countries. Since Grein and Gould (1996) proposed that global integrated strategy does not necessarily imply a standardized strategy but can also be achieved through an adapted one, “strategy” seems to be a more applicable and sensible criterion for examining whether integration is accomplished, though they didn’t specify this clearly.
That is to say, as long as the strategies of the global promotions are coordinated, they can be viewed as integrated strategies even the executions differ. Thus, “strategic consistency” is considered as the criterion for examining integration in this study.
After conducting such analysis on Taiwan’s case, the current study found the criterion suitable and “strategy” indeed should be viewed as the key element for integration.
For example, though there are different advertising or PR events in the three regions, the strategies behind these promotional tools are all trying to convey the same idea, that is, Taiwan is a diversified tourism island. In this regard, the global promotions of Taiwan are basically integrated.
However, what has been found in this research different from the GIMC typology proposed by Grein and Gould (1996) is that their classification (i.e. globally
integrated strategy, globally but non-integrated strategy, multidomestic integrated strategy, and multidomestic but non-integrated strategy) should allow room for
flexibility, which means that the GIMC strategy may move across a continuum among the four types rather than necessarily a unitary one. Like the case of “Tour Taiwan Years 2008-2009,” only the promotions in Southeast Asia could be seen as a globally
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integrated strategy while the other two regions both fall somewhere between globally integrated strategy and globally but non-integrated strategy. As pointed out by Grein and Gould (1996), the internal and external factors that influence the levels of
integration either horizontally or vertically are many. Some of the marketing
communication tools may possess higher level of integration than the others, and the situation is even more complicated since the use of marketing tools differs from country to country. Different combinations of vertical and horizontal integrations cause the complexity and difficulty to categorize a campaign into a unitary, pure GIMC strategy.
Besides, classifying a global campaign into one of the four types sometimes may disregard the real situation of the integration of the whole campaign. For instance, if a global campaign is categorized as globally but non-integrated strategy, it seems that the integration work within countries are bad but maybe the non-integration part is just too miner to spoil the whole good part. The levels of integration across marketing disciplines or across countries may not be well revealed with such a fixed
categorization. Therefore, considering the complexity of the global context as well as for better demonstration of the integration, the current research, based on the
examination of “Tour Taiwan Years 2008-2009,” suggests that any GIMC strategy may fall everywhere among the four types like moving across a continuum instead of the original four-type-only model. Actually, this classification, though not accurately, shows better the contingent spirit of GIMC.
Though this classification is not 100% accurate, still it provides valuable thoughts for marketers. By planning a campaign based on the GIMC framework, marketers can attain the advantages of standardizing worldwide communications such as economies of scale, economies of scope, and sharing of creative ideas or information, etc (Grein and Gould, 1996). On the other hand, it also helps marketers to evaluate whether there
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exists inadequate or insufficient integration across marketing disciplines as well as across countries so that the future suggestions for better integration can be draw.