Tourism Marketing in Western Europe

This book looks at contemporary marketing tools utilised by various Western-European countries. It presents case studies on how tourism marketing in this region has been handled and evolved in an era of contradictory forces such as competitiveness versus sustainability, locality versus globalisation, maturity versus new product development.

Tourism is characterized by diversity, enormous growth, and multidimensional impacts on several levels. In the current turbulent environment, tourism destinations need, on the one hand to maintain and enhance their products in the tourism map, and on the other hand, to protect their resources'' integrity for future generations, based on sustainability premises. This is more evident for traditional destinations in Western-Europe, as many of them face the consequences of over-growth, unsustainable development, and lack of service quality. In this respect, attention in the literature needs to be given to how destinations in the region can conceptualize and mitigate their weaknesses as well as capitalize on their competences in order to plan, develop and manage tourism products that could lead them to sustainable competitiveness in the long-term. The collection of cases in this book: · Considers global trends and forces in order to understand the marketing environment of a wide number of countries and the appreciation of the sustainable competitive development of destinations.· Explores specific marketing strategies in Western-European countries'' destinations.· Is authored by scholars who have performed extensive research on tourism in the countries documented. The book is of significant interest to those researching and working within the area of tourism marketing, but also of interest to students who are seeking wider reading on the topic.