旅游小镇的产品培育机制与营销策略研究——以无锡灵山小镇·拈花湾为例外文翻译资料

THE TOURISM PRODUCT

Stephen L. J. Smith

University of Waterloo, Canada

Abstract: An industry is characterized by a generic product and production process. For tourism to be considered an industry, it is necessary to show that such a generic product and process exist. This paper argues that they do exist, and presents a model that describes the product as consisting of five elements: the physical plant, service, hospitality, freedom of choice, and involvement. The generic production begins with raw inputs, progresses through intermediate inputs and outputs, to final outputs, or the tourist’s experience. The model is a potentially important contribution in the debate about tourism as an industry; it also formalizes the intuitive notion of many authors that tourism products are fundamentally experiences. Keywords: product, industry, supply side, production processes, economics of tourism, definition.

INTRODUCTION

Product development is a prerequisite for satisfying tourists’ changing demands and insuring the long-term profitability of the industry. Ideally, tourism products meet marketplace demands, are produced cost-efficiently, and are based on the wise use of the cultural and natural resources of the destination. Despite the importance of product development, relatively little work has been done to examine the nature of the generic tourism product. The purpose of this paper is to fill that void.

The term “generic product” refers to the conceptual commodity produced by an industry. For example, the generic products of agriculture are food and fiber; the generic product of the automobile industry is personal transportation. A generic product will take a wide variety of real forms, but each form of the same generic product will provide the same function. In the case of tourism, the function of the generic product is the facilitation of travel and activity of individuals away from their usual home environment. This function thus represents the working definition of tourism in this report.

The need for a model can be illustrated by two recent debates in the literature of debates about whether or not tourism is an industry. Tucker and Sundberg asserted in their analysis of international service trade that, “trade in tourism services may be thought of as arising due to demand by itinerant or ‘footloose’ consumers. It [tourism] is not an industry1 in the conventional sense as there is no single production process，no homogeneous product and no locationally confined market (1988:145, emphasis added). S. Smith (1993), in an assessment of his debate with Leiper (1993) on the definition of tourism and whether tourism is an industry, suggests their differences stem from their implicit definitions of tourism products.

A clear and explicit concept of the product will provide greater precision in discussions related to the nature of tourism and the planning, development, management and delivery of its products. Improved understanding of the structure and functioning of the product also will assist developers, entrepreneurs, and planners in creating more successful products for the marketplace. In the long run, the concept will aid researchers in more accurately measuring, analyzing, and modeling industry performance. Before presenting the concept, however, it will be useful to summarize the existing literature on product development. This will be done by reviewing concepts of product development from both the demand (marketing) and supply side perspectives.

PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

Marketing Perspectives

Although few, if any, marketing professionals would challenge the importance of product development, the subject receives much less attention from marketing analysts, planners, and policymakers than do segmentation, consumer behavior, advertising, and promotional strategies. The lack of attention to product development is not unique to tourism. Most service industries also emphasize marketing — that is, selling, advertising, public relations (Kotler 1983:6) —over product development. This situation is in marked contrast to manufacturing industries, which devote significant financial resources to research and development to create and refine products for the market.

Although product development is contrasted here with marketing, some authors assert that product development is a subset of the marketing concept (Kotler 1983; Meidan 1989; Middleton 1989). In practice, though, linking product development with marketing is more academic hope than business reality. Kotler notes that in his survey of 300 business school administrators, 90% said that marketing meant only “selling, advertising, public relations” (1983:6). Another illustration of the gap between marketing and product development is Gruenwald’s (1991) report that research and development laboratories were the single most important source of new products in manufacturing industries, followed by direct suggestions from consumers. Marketing departments ranked third.

Although marketing practice only infrequently addresses product development, the issue of the origin, evolution, and nature of products is not totally ignored by marketing scholars. Haywood (1985) and Cooper (1992)，for example，critique the potential of the product life cycle in tourism market planning. Moutinho (1989) describes a strategy for new product development in tourism. However, the broad descriptive observations about tourism products and services made by marketing scholars are of more relevance to this paper.

Kotler’s definition of a product is a good example of how a marketing scholar conceptualizes “product”： it is “anything that can be offered to a market for attention, acquisition, use, or consumption that might satisfy a want or need. It includes physical objects, se

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