ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces a range of concepts and issues related to tourism marketing, emphasizing the role of value in the marketing process, the importance of understanding the marketing mix, understanding customers’ needs, and the role of marketing planning and various techniques used to analyze the marketing environment. Yet the formal identification of the concept of marketing emerged in the 1950s, and reviews of the evolution of marketing in tourism highlight a number of different stages including: a production era, a sales era, a marketing era and a digital era of marketing. There are five core customer and marketplace concepts which are the foundations of the marketing process: needs, wants and demands, market offerings (products, services and experiences), value and satisfaction, exchanges and relationships, and marketsSource. There is a growing interest among marketers in the concept of value for tourists, given its potential to provide businesses with a competitive advantage if it is understood and built into the marketing offer.
