Introduction

In a crowded and competitive market, attracting customers to purchase tourism and hospitality services is critical to the success of any business. This process of attracting customers is generally known as marketing.

Marketing is based on the idea that customers have particular needs and values. Companies that are able to effectively communicate how the service that they offer can meet those needs and values are likely to be more successful in a competitive environment and in these challenging times.

What you will find in the following pages is a bitesize interactive taster course. Written by subject experts, the idea of this taster course is to give users a brief introduction into one aspect of marketing and of the benefits that can be gained through understanding your customers and through developing a marketing orientation to business operations.

The course is designed to support managers of tourism and hospitality businesses but it is also useful for individual learners and for tourism and hospitality students, as well as their tutors.

The development of this bitesize interactive learning course was funded by LEAP AHEAD, the lifelong learning network for Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. You can find more information about Leap Ahead and the work that they do by clicking on http://www.leapahead.ac.uk

Should you have any comments, feedback or questions, or indeed if you would like to find out what else we can offer then please email info@trip-eastmidlands.org.uk. Alternatively you can find information about additional learning opportunities offered through the Christel DeHaan Tourism and Travel Research Institute by clicking on http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/ttri