Marketing Woes of Foreign Tourist Segment in Goa: A Study into Satisfaction Discriminators

Abstract

In recent years rate of domestic tourist to Goa has gone up but not the foreign tourist. This has led to loss of shack culture and gypsy experience being marketed by Goa as destination image. Policy makers have tried to rejuvenate the destination but with little success. One of the explanations to this problem is in a fundamental of marketing which states that Marketing strategies should have their base in segmentation and targeting policies of the product. A mismatch in the two could lead to decreased market share. This is well accepted in marketing of products however, in case of destination marketing the fundamental is lost. The current paper tries to use case study of Goa. This paper is an attempt to illustrate how segmentation and targeting problems have led to marketing mix issues for the destination and influenced its market share and led to serious marketing woes. The study was undertaken with the specific objective to understand the marketing woes Goa as a destination is facing. Data was collected from 298 foreign tourist visiting Goa. The study tried to meet this objective by studying the discriminators of foreign tourist satisfaction. The results of the discriminant analysis indicated that three factors were significant predictors of satisfaction in terms of foreign tourist in Goa i.e. experience, hygiene and safety. The results of the study further indicated that there was a need for the Goan Government to make policies specific to experience and quality of experience the destination offers. A dimension wise detailed analysis was also undertaken to help the Goan Government develop specific strategies. The specific targeting strategy would also help the government develop a more effective positioning strategy and basis for performance evaluation. Therefore, the segmentation of the market on basis of psychometric variable will help Goa develop a more effective marketing strategy. However, there is a need to convert these into demographic variables for practical reasons which can be explored as future areas of research.