Sustainability and marketing value: A comparison of traditional and sustainable marketing scenarios in tourism
Master thesis
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Date
2019-06Metadata
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- Studentoppgaver (SV-NHS) [620]
Abstract
Climate change is a key issue that the earth is facing. With the increasing demands for a more sustainable development in the tourism industry, many companies and co-operations are facing the choice of whether to adapt to the sustainable tourism environment and change from traditional, economic focused tourism marketing to a more sustainable tourism marketing. Researchers have argued that sustainable tourism marketing can offer a competitive advantage to the tourist destination, but there is currently a lack of empirical data to support such claims.
This thesis aims to conduct both quantitative and qualitative data to examine whether sustainable tourism marketing can be competitive in the tourism industry by conducting surveys to find out the perceived value of sustainable tourism marketing against traditional tourism marketing in a buying scenario experiment. In addition, this thesis also includes interviews with Norwegian hotel managers to provide insight on how sustainable tourism is perceived among decision makers in the industry.
The findings of this thesis show that sustainable tourism marketing can be more competitive when compared to traditional tourism marketing in terms of perceived value. The result of the buying scenario experiment showed consumers perceived sustainable marketing to be significantly higher than traditional marketing in terms of emotional response and quality under the perceived value construct, and there is potential to use sustainable tourism as a competitive advantage in the tourism industry. Further, the interviews with Norwegian hotel managers show that there is a demand and awareness for sustainability in Norway, but there are also challenges and obstacles preventing sustainable marketing to be implemented further.
Overall, this thesis contributes to the understanding of sustainable tourism by providing empirical data on how consumers perceives sustainable tourism marketing when compared to traditional ones and provides insight on how decision makers in the industry views sustainability and its current challenges.
Description
Master's thesis in International hospitality management