Travel and tourism understanding of branding poor
Comment by Neil Stollnow – Stollznow Research
As the global environment for travel and tourism develops branding has become one of the hot topics. But how well does the industry as a whole understand the role and importance of brands? According to Neil Stollznow, Director of Quantitative Research at Stollznow Research, the industry performs very poorly.
“While countries and airlines have been successfully developing brands for a long time, many other players in the industry fail to distinguish between ‘product names’ and brands” says Stollznow. In his cross hairs are some of the hotel chains, smaller plant, and support companies.
“At its most basic level a brand is a way for the consumer to ensure they receive a consistent product. It makes life simpler for consumers because they know what to expect when they use a product or service. The range of variation in product delivery in travel and tourism undermines this concept and we simply end up with ‘names’.
In the global environment people using brands to ensure consistency are constantly disappointed. Hotel chains are particularly problematic with service levels that vary by country, naming rights on properties that are not compatible with the brand position and legacy properties that are behind others in standards.”
But it’s not just hotels that have issues. “There are many smaller players in non-accommodation sectors that also fail to ensure consistency. Without this there cannot be any brand equity, simply a name. While travel and tourism is the largest industry in the world there need to be a more staff working who have at least completed Marketing 101”.
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