The growing of internet-based evaluation of Tourism

As internet has taken a most important space in our lives, it has started to be relevant for all kinds of action one’s wish to do. When they seek for information, examples, distraction, recognition, people tend to go on their laptop, phones, or tablets. Internet is our answer to everything. But behind what we search on Google, what we shop, and even what we watch on YouTube, are real and physical persons. The opinions or experience one’s seek about this movie or this hotel, is written by someone else, in the same position as the researcher, behind a device.

For many businesses it has now become common to have their own “internet identity”. By that, we mean the fact that they are known or that they are documented and bookable online and can be found by anyone. It is as true for restaurants and other experiences as it is for hostels, museums and cultural places. According to Rayman-Bacchus, and A Molina. (2001)  even public agencies seek to generate wider economic gains through promoting the attractions of their nation or region. This is the case of museums like The Louvre in Paris. Internet is now a place for tourism. According to Lane (2020), “Some websites do direct sales, but many tourism web sites do not sell directly to the consumer”. The range of documentation and linked ressurces on internet is wide. Also, Rayman-Bacchus, and A Molina. (2001) found that “Co-operation as much as competition is a feature of the emerging online tourism services sector, where commercial operators and public agencies alike provide access to each other’s resources.” Tourism marketers now need to improve their usage of social networks in order to enhance their relationships with tourists as well as to attract new consumers for their market. That is why we can observe “the development of a web sector based on strong multi-node networks linking differentiated producers and users.”, Different websites support eachothers with links and adds.

Today, you can easily picture a monument you always dreamt of seeing as well as you can choose to book this specific 5-stars guide to visit it. No matter how wonderful this is, it is not all positive or all negative. According to Rayman-Bacchus and A Molina (2001), the traditional business model of a travel agent is being challenged. “First, co-operation through electronic networking is pervasive; the use of hypertext linking is ubiquitous, both as an organising device and as an aid to competitive positioning. Second, novel types of information are being provided by infomediaries, who do not sell tickets as do travel agents, but are more than online travel guides, providing live information and links to other relevant sites.” The problem-and also advantage- is that anyone can access and comment anything on every experience they make. But sometimes those comments can reveal themselves dangerous and deadly to some businesses. Tourism marketers now must think about that as a major component of how much consumers they can attract. Because tourists use social networks for both achieving information on possible destinations and for expressing negative judgements, it includes practices for replying to negative tourists’ reviews posted online. Rayman-Bacchus and A Molina. (2001) found that such immediacy coupled with the speed and ease of network configuration supports a much faster feedback loop between service provider and purchaser, carrying greater scope for adaptation by both service provider and user, than is possible with traditional High Street-based tourism services provision.

Here is a graph on the process for online tourism:

Nowadays, even old-economy businesses start adopting a dot.com or similar suffix. The demand and offer on internet and its potential so big that they almost have to create and develop a space on internet. Is this an evidence that the new-economy is supplanting the old-economy?

References

Pantano, E. and Di Pietro, L. (2013), “From e‐tourism to f‐tourism: emerging issues from negative tourists’ online reviews”, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology, Vol. 4 No. 3, pp. 211-227. https://doi.org/10.1108/JHTT-02-2013-0005

Lane, Charles. (2020). DESTINATION MESSAGE DESIGN ON TRAVEL AND TOURISM INFORMATION WEB SITES By.

L Rayman-Bacchus, A Molina. (2001) “Internet-based tourism services: business issues and trends”, Futures, Elsevier

Travel Industry Monitor (1998) Travel and Tourism Intelligence. The Economic Intelligence Unit

Williams AM, Montanari A (1995) Introduction: tourism and economic restructuring in Europe. In: Montanari A, Williams AM, editors. European tourism: regions, spaces and restructuring. Chichester, UK: Wiley, p. 4.

Sweeney, S. (2005). Internet marketing for your tourism business: proven techniques for promoting tourist-based businesses over the internet.

Urry J., (1990), “The tourist gaze: leisure and travel in contemporary societies.” London: Sage.

The use of green marketing and green washing techniques by cosmetic brands

With the ongoing climate change, consciousness awakens and, as a logical effect of that, one’s habits change. People start to realize that this product or this other product is better for the environment, more “eco-friendly”, and decide to buy it, because of this specific reason. This new factor, the changing of the consumer’s buying habit, automatically must be taken as a key element for the brands, which will eventually also lead to a change in their products and even sometimes, identity. In fact, the demand changing, they must modify their offer to the public in order to keep their businesses up. Moloy (2011) said “in this era  where consumers determine the fate of a company, green marketing imparts a proactive strategy for these companies to cater the market by imparting  nature-friendly products/services which otherwise reduce or minimize any detrimental impact on environment.”

Unfortunately, even though this all trend of “eco-friendly” brands and products is meant to change bad habits and start polluting less, it is also as previously said, a trend. Meaning that they are always people following it without necessary believing in it. In the cosmetic world, the consumer observed a changing of the landscape this past decade. Brands started to promise natural ingredients, both better for the planet, and your skin! But sometimes behind those promises, an ugly truth lies, and it’s what has been commonly called “greenwashing”.

What is greenwashing and where does it “come” from?

 Greenwashing, could be considered as a false approach of Green Marketing. Scholars have been interested about this new practise since the early 90’s and this is how they defined it: Mintu and Lozada (1993) understood  green marketing  as  “the application of marketing tools to facilitate exchanges that satisfy organizational and individual goals in such a way that the preservation, protection and conservation of the physical environment is upheld”. 

Moreover, Polonsky (1994), says about it that it “consists of all activities, designed to generate and facilitate any exchange indented to satisfy human needs and wants, such that the satisfaction of these needs and wants occur with minimum detrimental impact on the natural environment. “

Richard Welford (1995), gathered all the elements of green marketing in order to show its different aspects as a strategy which has a direct impact on the envirronement, on the company’s image and help rise awarness.

From a wrong, and even a non-application of the green marketing strategy, greenwashing was born. In fact, greenwashing is a misleading or false claim about the environmental benefits of a product, or of a company practice. It makes a company appear to be more environmentally friendly than it really is. In order to realize that, those companies spend more time and money on marketing themselves as a “green brand” than they do on reducing their environmental impact.

How to recognize it?

Most of the conventional cosmetics bear dangerous products for our health and the environment. However, some brands don’t hesitate to highlight certain ingredients, labels or mentions in order to better care for their image and hide their true composition. It is also more economically attractive for a cosmetic brand to invest in a subtly mendacious advertising campaign (by playing on words and unspoken words) than in real cosmetic innovations.

Environmental Marketing categorized marketing claims into these “7 sins of greenwashing”:

The hidden trade-off: suggesting a product is “green” based on some attributes without caring about other important environmental issues. A paper may be produced from a sustainably harvested forest, but it still was produced with energy and pollution costs.

Fibbing: Lying about the environmental certification of a product (falsely claiming to be Energy Star certified for example).

The “no” proof: No evidence that a claim is true: for example, the fact that the paper used for a product was recycled.

Irrelevance: A claim (environmental claim) that is often true but is unhelpful for the consumers decision. For example, “CFC-free” is meaningless given that chlorofluorocarbons are already banned by law.

Vagueness: A so poorly defined claim or sentence that the consumer will most likely have trouble understanding its real meaning. For example, a tag on which is written “all natural”.

Lesser of two evils: A claim that may be true within the product category but distracts the consumer from the health or environmental impacts of the category (organic cigarettes).

False labels: Using fake labels or claims of third-party endorsement. For example, a certification-like image with green vocabulary such as “eco-preferred” or “eco-certified”.

How common is greenwashing?

A 2010 study from Terra choice showed that of the more than 2,000 products of all types making green claims, as many as 98% are guilty of some degree of greenwashing. The study also found that cleaners, along with cosmetics and children’s products, are most prone to greenwashing.

In a 2012 study by the Korea Consumer Agency 46.4 percent of investigated products featured unsubstantiated claims of eco-friendliness, illegitimate eco-friendly certification labels, or were disguised as officially recognized environmentally friendly goods.

Lee Jung-im, a senior researcher at the GRI, explained that those products are dangerous for both the environment but also the consumers’ trust.

“There needs to be a more systematic maintenance of these products by establishing a civil complaint system so that consumers can report false products, and that can assist with refunds and compensation,”. He then went on saying that “there must be clear guidelines established to outline what constitutes the illegal use of eco-friendly labels and advertising, and authorities must strengthen their efforts to crack down on companies that make habitual use of greenwashing.”

http://www.ecolabelindex.com/ is a good website to find labels to trust in term of envirronmentaly-friendly!

References

주양원, (2003), Green marketing strategies of a cosmetics company : case of AMOREPACIFIC. http://lib.ewha.ac.kr/search/detail/CATTOT000000788171?mainLink=/search/tot&briefLink=/search/tot/result?q=new+branding_A_service_type=brief_A_bk_1=jttjengjttj_A_bk_0=jttjtjttj_A_st=KWRD_A_y=0_A_si=TOTAL_A_x=0

은현승, (2003),Global and local strategies of the multinational cosmetics firms : the Estee Lauder Companies and the L’Oreal Group. http://lib.ewha.ac.kr/search/detail/CATTOT000000766600?mainLink=/search/tot&briefLink=/search/tot/result?q=new+branding_A_service_type=brief_A_bk_1=jttjengjttj_A_bk_0=jttjtjttj_A_st=KWRD_A_y=0_A_si=TOTAL_A_x=0_A_pn=2

Ghoshal, Moloy. (2011). Green Marketing. BVIMR Management Edge. 4. 82-92.