How to choose right target market areas – risk management needed

For decades, I have been thinking about risk management when choosing market areas. In my opinion, there are risks involved in all international tourism markets. There are political risks in some markets, which could lead to a complete interruption of tourism flows to the Baltic and Nordic countries. At times, the market may be associated with risks related to seasons, stays, tourism income, customer groups, or the purchase and use of customer services.

Why put marketing measures in only one market? In my opinion, investing in a single nationality in the short and long term undermines service production, one-sided customer service, discriminates against guests of other nationalities in the destination, only leads to a certain kind of tourism income effect and even increases the gaps between seasons. Markets can be very different from a global perspective. So why don’t we share the risks between several market areas?

The tourism industry, like the entire global economy, has been going from one hard-to-predict crisis to another for several years now. The coronavirus and Russia’s war of aggression and the resulting effects have put both decision-makers and companies in a situation where large-scale and far-reaching decisions and measures have had to be taken at very short notice. Developing resilience is part of the company’s strategic management, requiring foresight and risk management tools and know-how.

ToolBox Consulting emphasize to analyze markets first and to combine different target market areas. Also we see that one marketing action in one country is not enough. One sales workshop doesn’t make fast success. Idea of creating marketing-mix is needed. See our snapshots of different target market areas in our website where we have analyzed 30 different target market areas: https://www.toolboxtravel.fi/market-areas/

Kari Halonen

ToolBox Consulting Ltd.