An empirical study of marketing of SMEs in the tourism sector

ABSTRACT

In the tourism industry, products and services of destination are synonyms with branding. Marketing works as a bridge that connects the path for a successful business approach, especially for rural tourism firms. However, the nature of community tourism firms’ marketing and their various produces are understudied. The current study aimed to access and understand these gaps. A survey of 355 tourism firms owned and run by the local community was collected through a semi-structured questionnaire from Arunachal Pradesh, Northeast India. The study found that most community tourism firms lack a long-term branding approach and integrated marketing communication. The majority of community tourism firms conceive product/service features by themselves without any external interventions. The implication of this study will be useful in segmenting tourism products and services produced by community tourism firms from general tourism marketing; contribute to industry practitioners and government bodies involving in projects related to rural and community-based tourism.

KEYWORDS:

• Rural tourism
• SMEs
• marketing
• India
• management

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the respondents of the study for their valuable time and cooperation in the survey.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).