5. Katipul Tribal Tourism – Current Situation
5.4 Marketing strategy
國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
The chart below shows the rough tourists age distribution among these 1500 tourists.
80% of the tourists are students and young adults, that is 1200 people.
Among these 1500 tourists, only 30 people attend the 2 days 1 night tour. And large amount of people are attending the ceremony experience tour arranged by education foundation or university, these tourists are almost not making any financial contribution to the KCDA.
5.4 Marketing strategy
There is almost no marketing strategy at all. The tour team only relies on its own website, press release, informing government and inviting hotel managers to try the tour. Even the tour team posts the information on the website, but no designated website maintainer, the information did get updated frequently. And compare with other tribal tourism website, the KCDA tribal tour website is away too simple and not attractive at all. The press release also not worked well. There is no PR working for the tour team; the story does not be communicated properly and efficiently.
The tourism bureau of Tai-tung county government seems not focus on tribal tourism
80%
20%
Student & young adult Other age group
‧
The tour team now considers promoting the tour to hotels and tour agencies since the Katipul tribe is in a famous “hot-spring” area and surrounding by many hotels and resorts. There are many tourists stay in this area for sightseeing and enjoy the SPA and hot spring bath. Therefore the tour team tries to have hotels and tour agent to bring in tourists to the tribe. But the tour team only makes the managers from hotels and tour agencies to attend the tour, there is no any brochure can be given away.
And from the tourists who attend the Katipul tribal tourism, large portion of them are students and you adults. KCDA tour team does not realize it and design the marketing campaign which aims to this group of people.
5.5 Financial status
The tour team does not have any financial people to run the cost analysis, and the accounting system does not been set up completely. Therefore while I visited the tribe and talked to the tour team, no one from the team was able to give me the exact financial data. The only thing they told me was the net profit ratio from the tribal tour is less than 10% from its total tour income. There was no detail break down cost structure for each tour course, and the tour team actually adjusts the tour charge from time to time. For example, the team may raise the tour charge after losing money in a single tour event.
The estimated total income was around 500 thousand NT dollars; the net profit from the tour was around 50 thousand NT dollars. And if we add up the salary that the government paid to the four Multi-employment team members and the cost of the jobs done by volunteers, the tour is not making money at all. Not to mention the maintaining cost of the tour site and budget to hold the ceremony, were also paid by the government projects.
For example, if there are 2 separate group, each group is 6 persons, attending tour 3, the “2 hours strolling tour at Palakuwan Park” in different time in a day, the total profit will be NT1,200 since the KCDA does not paying salary to the tour guide and cost of using the tour site.
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
A real tour company won’t have all the employees are part time employees and won’t have the financial support from the government. If we remove all the government support, and treat it as a real company, income statement should looks like:
Total annual salary expenditure for 1 director and 4 full time employees:
$24,000 X 5 X 12 = $1,440,000
Where $24,000 is the monthly salary currently paid to the employees of Multi-employment by government.
The part time instructors costs:
$1,000 X 3 X 52 = $156,000 (NTD)
Where we assume there are 3 part time instructors needed every week and the tour running 52 weeks per year. And the daily salary for part time instructor is $1,000.
The total salary expenditure is:
$1,440,000 + $156,000 = $1,596,000 (NTD) The estimated total material cost for 1500 tourists:
$150 X 1500 = $225,000 (NTD)
Where the number $150 material cost per head is referring to the current profit deduct the part time salary and insurance.
The estimated total insurance cost for 1500 tourists:
$50 X 1500 = $75,000 (NTD) The marketing and promotion cost:
$200 X 50 = $10,000 (NTD)
The number comes from the material cost times the guests which the tour team invited for the free trial.
‧
The pro forma income statement will be:
Sales
This business under current condition in the real world is actually losing big money.
Luckily the team can get government support.
5.6 Competition
In Tai-tung County, there are only few tribes having the tribal tourism courses. But among all 10 Pinuyumayan tribes, only Katipul is running tribal tour. Of course there are competitors in this area; they are Tarumak (Rukai), Lalaulan (Paiwan), Bunnun Village (Bunun), and Forest Museum (Bunun). The competition from both Lalaulan and Tarumak can be ignore since the financial condition and tour resources are worse than Katipul tribe, and both of the tribes are also not pushing this trvel business aggressively.
The largest threaten should be the Bunun village. The Bunun village was built by a Bunun priest, the village is consists of restaurant, coffee shop, gift shop, archery, performance stage. The Bunun village opens daily, and has long history working with tour agencies. The Bunun village is more focus on providing the traditional singing
‧
includes dancing and songs from other ethnic group.Another competitor is the Forest museum. Even it is called “Museum”, in fact, there are only few cottages in Du-Lan hill. The reason why they call it “Forest Museum” is because of the various Eco-environments and many high raising old trees in the low elevation forest. The tour which the Forest Museum offered is a one day tour. The tour includes visiting several wild forests; the tour guide narrates the history and teaches tourists to identify plants. After the aboriginal Lunch in the open space, the tour guide will led the tourists into the “hunting trial” for hiking and mountain climbing for two hours.
Compare with the major competitors, the advantages of Katipul tribe tour are:
1. Various tour content
Not like competitors, the Katipul tribe tour offers not only hiking, natural scenes, but also handcraft art experience and hunting skill training. And even more, tourists would have the chance to experience the major tribal ceremonies.
2. Pinuyumayan tribe
Other competitors are all from other ethnic. The Katipul tribe is the only Pinuyumayan tribe doing the tribal tour.
3. Easy to access
The tribe is in the sub urban area of tung city. Once tourists come to Tai-tung, they can reach the tour site without any transportation concern.
4. Government funding support
The employees are mainly paid by government therefore the cost of tour is lower than competitors since other major competitors are private companies.
5. Complete tour site
The Katipul Palakuwan Culture Park is fully equipped. There are classroom, rest rooms, exhibition cottage, Takuvan, Palakuwan, and kitchen in the Park.
‧
Compare with the major competitors, the disadvantages of Katipul tribe tour are:
1. Too many low price options
Not like competitors, the Katipul tribe tour offers too many low price tours.
The competitors either offer only one full day tour or only performance show combine with meal. Competitors are easier to estimate the costs since they are running the same tour daily.
2. No performance show
Pinuyumayan tribes are proud of their traditional dancing and songs. Only the Puyuma tribes won 9 golden melody awards in the last 10 years. But Katipul tribe tour does not offer this most well known part of the traditional culture.
3. Too many resort and aboriginal restaurants around
There are too many hot spring resorts and hotels around. These resort and hotels will not recommend the 2 days 1 night, high price tour since the hotel will lose the room charge for one night. And the aboriginal restaurants around also reduce the tourists’ desire of trying the aboriginal food in Katipul tribe.
Another challenge from hotel and resort is that the hotel and resort might offer the same tours to the hotel guests since the KCDA tour site is a public park and open to everyone, and the offsite place that KCDA holds the hunter tour is also a public trail. The hotel can also hires or trains the instructor for delivering handcraft arts DIY to guests. And regarding the hunter experience tour, hotels can also do the same service as KCDA since the hotel can recruit hunters by itself.
4. Not allow walk-in tourists
Tourists need to make reservation at least a week beforehand. Other competitors allow walk-in tourists. For those tourists who know the tour information after they get into the area, it is very inconvenient since they cannot join the tour immediately.
5. Difficult to find the tour information
The Katipul tour information can only be found on its own website. There is no brochure at hotels or government tourist service point.