LET GO OF THE FAMILIAR,
THE POTENTIAL IS IN THE UNKOWN
A bachelor thesis on the potential of the Luxembourgian tourist to help a Dutch campsiteincrease its occupancy rate in its low season
AUTHOR: NICKY VAN HEE
INSTITUTION: HZ UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES STUDIES: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS & LANGUAGES
COURSE: GRADUATION WORK PLACEMENT
COURSE NUMBER: CU06793
STUDENT NUMBER: 00065827
SUPERVISOR: B. BIJKERK-VAN OMMEN
DATE: 02-06-2017
VERSION: 1
FIRST EXAMINER: B. BIJKERK-VAN OMMEN SECOND EXAMINER: M. TEMPELMAN
LET GO OF THE FAMILIAR: THE POTENTIAL IS IN THE UNKNOWN
-A BACHELOR THESIS
EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION
HZ University of Applied Sciences Edisonweg 4, 4380 A.J. Vlissingen
Tel +31 (0)118 489000 Fax +31 (0) 118 489200 Email: info@hz.nl Website: www.hz.nl PROGRAMME COORDINATOR Drs. I.A.K. Kuijpers Room: PE220 Telephone: 0118 489 378 Email: i.kuijpers@hz.nl
GRADUATION PHASE COORDINATOR INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS & LANGUAGES Mrs. B. Bijkerk-van Ommen Room: PE215 Telephone: 0118 489 816 E-Mail: b.bijkerk@hz.nl GRADUATE INTERN
Author: Nicky van Hee
Studies: International Business and Languages Supervisory teacher: Mrs. B. Bijkerk-van Ommen Second examiner: Mrs. M. Tempelman
Publication: Nieuwvliet, The Netherlands, 2 June 2017 Semester and academic year: S8 – 2017
COMPANY
Camping Zonneweelde
In-company mentor: Maaike Basting Email: info@campingzonneweelde.nl Telephone: 0117 391 910
Address: Baanstpoldersedijk 1, 4504 PS, Nieuwvliet Website: www.campingzonneweelde.nl
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A
CKNOWLEDGEMENTS
With the utmost satisfaction I proudly present you this bachelor thesis that concludes my four month- graduate internship and therefore my four years of my studies International Business & Languages.
On the 30th of January 2017 I started my graduation internship at campsite Zonneweelde in
Nieuwvliet, in the province of Zeeland. Now, four months later, I would like to thank every person who contributed to the process of this research for all the kind support that I received.
First of all, I would like to thank my parents, who always have and always will stand by my side and believe in me in every phase of my life.
Furthermore, a big thank you to my supervisor, Mrs. Bijkerk and second examiner Mrs. Tempelman, for their great tips, flexibility and encouragements during the process of writing this thesis.
Then, a big warm heart to all the staff and the owners of Zonneweelde, who have welcomed me with open arms in their hospitable and driven team that has taught me a lot about the power of customer service and establishing good relationships with the guest.
Moreover, I would like to give many thanks to Mr. Arthur van Disseldorp, RECRON regional manager of Zeeland and Brabant and Mrs. Linda Gedink, vice president at the European Federation of Campsite Organisations and Holiday park Associations, who provided me with many connections with the Luxembourgian target group and therefore played an essential role in the process of my research.
Finally, a great, many thanks to Mr. Jean Douros, of the Automobile Club of Luxembourg, who, during our interview, opened the first doors for Zonneweelde that are essential for entering the Luxembourgian market in the future.
Nicky van Hee
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A
BSTRACT
Campsite Zonneweelde is a medium-sized campsite that is located in Nieuwvliet, in the region of Zeeuws-Vlaanderen, the Netherlands. The family company was found in 2001 by the Basting family. In 2009, the campsite was bought by the current owners Martin Basting and Maaike Basting and has been growing and being renovated ever since. As many campsites in the neighbourhood, Zonneweelde has received many guests from the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium, but it has never seen a large amount of visitors from Luxembourg.
The tourism industry of Zeeuws-Vlaanderen has always been dealing with heavy seasonality and many companies are always looking for ways to increase their occupancy rate during the low seasons. However, many of these companies safely stick to their well-known target group from the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium. Few of them have shown much interest in focusing on Luxembourg.
Being real entrepreneurs who are not afraid of a challenge or a change of strategy, Martin and Maaike wanted to try things differently. Before taking real actions, it was essential to research whether there would be potential for Zonneweelde to push up their occupancy rate during the low seasons, by attracting the Luxembourgian target group. This research
question has been answered with the use of qualitative research. A combination of semi-structured interviews with the Luxembourgian target group and in-depth interviews with experts on the tourism industry of Zeeuws-Vlaanderen and Luxembourg have been performed.
The results of the interviews concluded that there is an interesting amount of potential for Zonneweelde to push up its occupancy rate during the low season by attracting the Luxembourgian target group and that the next step would finding out in what ways Zonneweelde should do this.
In order to support the results of these interviews and the conclusions and recommendations of this thesis, several academic publications have been analysed in the theoretical
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T
ABLE OF
C
ONTENTS
List of Definitions and Abbreviations ... 5
1. Company Overview ... 6
1.1 Introduction ... 6
1.2 Mission Statement ... 6
1.3 Company History ... 7
1.4 Management Team ... 8
1.5 Legal Structure and Ownership ... 8
1.6 Locations and Facilities ... 8
1.7 SWOT Analysis ... 9
2. Introduction ... 9
2.1 Introduction ... 9
2.2 Problem Statement ... 9
2.3 New Target Group ...11
2.4 Main question & Sub-questions ...12
3. Theoretical Framework ...12
3.1 Introduction ...12
3.2 Leisure Lifestyle Segmentation ...12
3.3 Seasonality of the tourism industry in Zeeland ...13
3.4 Developments in the tourism industry of Zeeuws-Vlaanderen ...14
3.5 The Customer Journey ...15
3.6 The role of Social Media in the tourism industry ...16
3.7 The Importance of Search Engine Optimization ...16
3.8 Conceptual Model ...17
4. Methods ...18
4.1 Introduction ...18
4.2 Desk Research and Qualitative Research ...18
4.3 Operationalization ...19
4.4 Validity, Reliability and Ethics ...19
4.5 Analysis ...19 4.6 Schedule……….19 5. Results ...20 5.1 Introduction ...20 5.2 Results to sub-question 1 ...20 5.3 Results to sub-question 2 ...20 5.4 Results to sub-question 3 ...21
4
5.5 Results to sub-question 4 ...23
5.6 Results to sub-question 5 ...24
6. Discussion ...25
6.1 Introduction ...25
6.2 Discussion on the used method ...25
6.3 Discussion on the results ...25
7. Conclusions and Recommendations ...27
7.1 Introduction ...27 7.2 Conclusion of sub-question 1 ...27 7.3 Conclusion of sub-question 2 ...27 7.4 Conclusion of sub-question 3 ...28 7.5 Conclusion of sub-question 4 ...28 7.6 Conclusion of sub-question 5 ...28
7.7 Conclusion of central research question ...29
7.8 Recommendations...30 7.8.1 Recommendation 1 ...30 7.8.2 Recommendation 2 ...30 7.8.3 Recommendation 3 ...30 8. References ...31 9. Appendices ...36
5
L
IST OF
D
EFINITIONS AND
A
BBREVIATIONS
-ADAC: Allgemeiner Deuscher Automobil Club (ADAC, 2017) German organization for traffic and tourism
-ACL: Automobile Club du Luxembourg (ACL, 2017) Luxembourgian organisation for traffic and tourism
-ANWB: Algemene Nederlandse Toeristenbond (ANWB.nl, 2017) Dutch organisation for traffic and tourism
-B2B: Business to Business
-Flanders: A region in the south-western part of the Low Countries, now divided between Belgium (there is East and West Flanders), France, and the Netherlands (Oxford Online Dictionary, 2017)
-Glamping: Glamorous camping (Glamping.com, 2017) -IBL: International Business & Languages
-Kenniscentrum An organization that keeps track of important consumer trends Toerisme: (and reports on them in Dutch), provides companies with important data about the tourism and leisure industry and publishes articles, reports and other materials on tourism and leisure in the Netherlands (Kenniscentrum Toerisme, 2017)
-Low season The period in the year when the fewest people visit a place and when the prices are at their lowest level, for Zonneweelde between the months of September and June (Cambridge Online Dictionary) -Noordzee: A sea that borders the Netherlands, Great-Britain, Belgium, Germany, Denmark and Norway. The Noordzee is highly used for transportation as it holds a lot of important shipping lanes (Rijkswaterstaat, 2017) -Occupancy rate: The occupancy rate is the ratio between the number of occupied pitches and the number of pitches offered by campsites
(Insee - National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies, 2017) -Recron: Vereniging van Recreatieondernemers Nederland (Recron, 2017) -Search engine The process of maximizing the number of visitors as to a particular optimization website by ensuring that the site appears high on the list of results returned by a search engine (Oxford Online Dictionary, 2017) -Seasonality Fluctuations or restrictions according to the season or time of year (Oxford Online Dictionary, 2017)
-Snowball effect: A situation in which something increases in size or importance at a faster rate (Cambridge Dictionary, 2017)
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1. Company Overview
I
NTERNAL OVERVIEW 1.1 IntroductionThe company overview provides an internal overview of the company’s mission statement, the company history, management team, legal structure and ownership, locations and facilities and an external overview of the company’s SWOT analysis.
A personal interview with the owners of Zonneweelde provided a clear company overview (Basting & Basting, Personal interview for Company Overview, 2017). Zonneweelde is a 4,5 star campsite located in the province of Zeeland, the Netherlands. The campsite consists of a total of 372 pitches on which it offers different accommodations of which several unique ones for the neighbourhood. The campsite not only obtains its uniqueness from its
accommodations, but also of its high focus on customer service. The campsite has always been a family campsite and therefore still focusses on its target group of families with young children. However, the campsite is also often visited by the elderly. Zonneweelde’s guests usually come from the Netherlands and Germany, occasionally from Belgium and only exceptionally from Luxembourg.
Figure 1 Five P's of Zonneweelde
1.2 Mission Statement
Mission, Vision and Uniqueness of the product.
A mission is what the organisation wants to expand to the outside world. It defines what the employees of the company stand for, what their identity is and what their values are. The vision is the general prospect of the future of the company. It defines the goal of the
7 organisation, what its future dreams are (van Ormondt, 2017).The uniqueness of a product measures to what extend a company's product is different to that of a company in the same sector or industry. In a personal discussion with the owners, the mission, vision, core values and uniqueness of the product of Zonneweelde were stated (Basting & Basting, Personal interview for Company Overview, 2017).
Figure 2 Mission, Vision, Core Values and Uniqueness of the product of Zonneweelde
1.3 Company History
Zonneweelde is owned by the Basting family. A personal interview with the two owners provided an interesting company history. In 2009, Mr. and Mrs. Basting became the owners of Zonneweelde. As soon as they took over the campsite, they started with promotional activities of Zonneweelde that went further than the border of the Netherlands. More and more foreigners, especially Germans, spent their vacation on Zonneweelde. They completely renovated the campsite to increase the comfort of their guests. In 2007, they added the neighbouring campsite Adornis to Zonneweelde, increasing the total surface by 2.5 hectare.
A modern soccer field and several different playgrounds were constructed and Zonneweelde became one of the first campsites in the neighbourhood with an outdoor swimming pool. In 2014, when the overall demand for camping pitches for caravans and tents had decreased, Zonneweelde wanted to stay up-to-date on trends and introduced glamping on its campsite.
During an interview with Mr. Basting in February 2017, he stated that many campsites in the neighbourhood are experiencing a decrease in the demand for camping pitches for caravans and tents and in result these camping pitches are completely removed. Despite this,
8 This is probably due to the fact that they are one of the few that still offer simple camping pitches and therefore they experience less competition in this field. This was confirmed by touristic Trend watcher and Leisure Expert Goof Lukken, who analysed the camping trends of the future for the magazine KCK (Kampeer- en Caravan Kampioen) and the ANWB. He stated that the amount of tourists who only go camping is decreasing. “Tourists now easily switch between a holiday on a camping pitch, in a bungalow on a holiday park or cheaply booking an all-inclusive accommodation abroad” (Lukken, 2017).
In 2016, Zonneweelde was awarded the permission to build fifteen beach houses on the beach of Nieuwvliet by the municipality of Sluis. Several campsites in the neighbourhood had submitted their plans tot the municipality, but after the assessment of an independent review committee, Zonneweelde was elected for the new challenge. In May 2016 the beach houses were constructed and were then rented for the new private company ‘Strandweelde’. The new concept turned out to be one big success and the beach houses are always fully booked for the whole season. In relation to the beach houses, the campsite has a much lower
occupancy rate during the low season (Basting, Personal Interview, 2017).
1.4 Management Team
The owners both have their own responsibilities within the campsite. Mrs. Basting is often found in the office. She is not only the owner of Zonneweelde, but also member of RECRON, a Dutch organisation for entrepreneurs in the leisure industry. Furthermore, she keeps
herself updated on trends by participating in different courses that are given for the tourism industry. Contrary to Mrs. Basting being often in the office, Mr. Basting is often to be found working on the campsite itself. The owners are supported by a diverse team at the reception, supermarket, lounge bar and maintenance. Zonneweelde outsources several services to different companies in the neighbourhood.
1.5 Legal Structure and Ownership
The private company Zonneweelde, the private company of the beach houses of
Strandweelde and a part of the campsite that is owned by Mr. Basting’s parents, are all run by Mr. and Mrs. Basting and go under the name of Zonneweelde. The owners are the only shareholders of their company.
1.6 Locations and Facilities
Zonneweelde is located in Nieuwvliet, Zeeuws-Vlaanderen, in the province of Zeeland, at the south-west coast of the Netherlands. The campsite offers camping pitches, mobile homes, glamping accommodations, cottages, seasonal pitches, yearly pitches and the newly built beach houses located at the beach of Nieuwvliet. Furthermore, the campsite offers several facilities as a swimming pool, loungebar, supermarket and playgrounds. Zonneweelde is located in an agricultural landscape with a lot of nature and small picturesque villages. However, the area is very touristic and therefore filled with many other campsites and large holiday parks. Some of these campsites share the same target group as Zonneweelde and two of them offer the same concept of beach houses. A lot of these campsites have been able to fill up their low seasons with guests that have returned for years, which has of course positively affected their profits. These guests are mainly from Germany, Flanders and the Netherlands. Zonneweelde, however, is struggling to fill up its campsite during the low
9 seasons and is now looking for a new, foreign group of customers that could solve this
problem. Although Zonneweelde faces high competition in the environment, it also enjoys its location at only 600 metres from the Noordzee, which gives it a great advantage over other accommodations in the neighbourhood that are located at a greater distance of the sea. Two maps of Zonneweelde’s location and a map of the campsite can be found in the appendices.
E
XTERNAL OVERVIEW1.7 SWOT Analysis
SWOT ANALYSIS
Strengths Weaknesses
- Personal and hospitable customer service - Location near the beach
- Large camping pitches
- One of the few in the neighbourhood that still offers camping pitches
-One of the few in the neighbourhood that has a swimming pool
- High variation in rental accommodations
-Little time dedicated to marketing
-Lot of yearly and seasonal pitches which decreases space for change
-Little bad weather facilities (swimming pool is outdoors and not heated)
Opportunities Threats
- Amount of trendy accommodations can be expanded
- Increase of elderly going on vacation - Increase of foreign tourists visiting Zeeuws-Vlaanderen
-Plans and space for bad weather facilities
-General decrease of tourists that want to go camping
-Increase of holidays outside the Netherlands during the low season
2.
I
NTRODUCTION
2.1 Introduction
In the introduction, the problem statement, new target group, main questions and sub-questions of the research are described.
2.2 Problem Statement
The first personal interview with the owners resulted in a different approach to the research than what was eventually decided. Previously, Zonneweelde wanted to find out how it could fill up their occupancy rate by attracting their target group in Germany, Flanders and
Luxembourg.
After several discussions with the owners and previous internship supervisor Bianca Bijkerk-van Ommen, it was concluded that this approach turned out to be too broad and impossible
10 to perform within 4 months. Therefore, the target group had to be narrowed down and more segmented (Meeting with supervisors , 2017).
During these discussions it was concluded that, first of all, the Flemish guest would not be the best potential guest to target. The Marketscan België 2016 of Kenniscentrum Toerisme stated that most of the Flemish guests who spend their vacation in the Netherlands, only stay for a short period of time (Marketing, 2016). Furthermore, a few years ago, one of the owners followed the course ‘Vlaamse Goesting’ given by Mr. de Serrano, in which entrepreneurs of Zeeland could learn more about the Flemish guest and how they could be approached best. During this course, Mr. de Serrano stated that, even for a short holiday, the Flemish guest usually doesn’t find travelling to the region of Zeeuws-Vlaanderen worth the while if it is so close by. Therefore, the Flemish guest usually skips the region of Zeeuws-Vlaanderen to find a destination further up North in Zeeland.
Second of all, during these discussions, Mrs. Basting stated that in principle, the German guest is not yet reached optimally, but is reached enough for the moment. Moreover, the German guest is already well-known in the neighbourhood and Zonneweelde already knows very well how to approach this German guest. The conclusion of the discussion was, that the most interesting country to target would now be Luxembourg, since it was concluded that during previous research, hardly anything was found about the Luxembourgian tourist and it would therefore be a new, interesting challenge for Zonneweelde in an unknown market.
Then, in March 2017, a preliminary brainstorm was held with internship supervisor Margot Tempelman to find out whether there was enough demand for the research. Mrs.
Tempelman is general manager at Kenniscentrum Toerisme and therefore has an expert view on where the potential lays in the tourism industry of Zeeland. The goal of this interview was to obtain Mrs. Tempelman ‘s opinion on the importance of targeting the Luxembourgian guest as the new target group. She stated that she found the idea of the research incredibly interesting, since even Kenniscentrum Toerisme hadn’t researched the Luxembourgian guest yet.
Moreover, Mrs. Basting stated that, a couple of years ago, she had tried an extra marketing project to create brand awareness in Luxembourg, which immediately resulted in a lot more bookings from the Luxembourgian. After that moment, Mrs. Basting hadn’t continued the extra promotion in Luxembourg. Therefore, it would be very interesting to research whether it would be a good idea for Zonneweelde to pick up this extra promotion again. Lastly, it would be unique to research the Luxembourgian guest, since this has never been done before in the region. Mrs. Basting stated that most campsites only focus on finding guests in Belgium and Germany. Mrs. Tempelman confirmed that therefore, Zonneweelde could be the first campsite in Zeeuws-Vlaanderen to value Luxembourg as an important country to focus on in marketing.
In short, the owners of Zonneweelde are looking for a new target group that can increase its occupancy rate during the low seasons. This research will analyse to what extend it would be interesting to look for this target group in Luxembourg. Now, the problem statement, new target group and main question and sub questions of this research can be set up.
11 Figure 3 Problem Statement, Symptoms and Causes (Basting, Personal Interview, 2017)
2.3 New Target Group
At the moment, Zonneweelde’s target group consists of families with young children, mainly from the Netherlands, Germany and Flanders. However, for this research, the customer groups that were targeted in Luxembourg is more specific and more segmented. There are different reasons to target these specific groups. First of all, families with young children were targeted, since Zonneweelde’s main target group consists of families with young children and Luxembourg’s national vacation dates are different than that of the Netherlands, Germany and Flanders. This means that there is a high chance that when Dutch, German or Flemish families do not have the time to go on vacation, the Luxembourgian families have. Moreover, the elderly were targeted due to their flexibility. They are often retired and do not have to take fixed vacation dates into account.
Target Group Families with young children Elderly
Geographic Country of Luxembourg Country of Luxembourg Demographic Parent’s ages between 20-50 Ages between 50-80
Owning driver’s license Owning driver’s license and still able to drive long distances Earning a salary that enables saving
a small amount of money for vacation
Retired but able to save a small amount of money for vacation
Behavioural Looking for a camping vacation of a good quality/price ratio
Looking for a camping vacation of a good quality/price ratio
Looking for a campsite that is child friendly
Looking for a campsite that offers peace and nature
Psychographic Having an adventurous personality Having an adventurous personality Are open to new cultures Are open to new cultures
Like travelling Like travelling
Do not expect great luxury from their holiday accommodation
Do not expect great luxury from their holiday accommodation
12 2.4 Main question & Sub-questions
Main question
To what extent is there potential for Zonneweelde to push up the occupancy rate in the low season by attracting its Luxembourgian target group?
Sub-questions
1. What has Zonneweelde learned from past strategies that it has already used to attract more Luxembourgian to its campsite?
2. How could the new touristic developments in Zonneweelde’s environment affect the Luxembourgian target group in their decision to choose Zeeuws-Vlaanderen as a holiday destination?
3. What does the customer journey of Zonneweelde’s Luxembourgian target group look like?
4. In what way could RECRON’s Leisure Lifestyle Segmentation be applied to Zonneweelde’s Luxembourgian target group?
5. With regard to the findings of the customer journey and the Leisure Lifestyle Segmentation of the Luxembourgian target group, how could Zonneweelde adapt its marketing strategy to establish a better connection with Zonneweelde’s Luxembourgian target group?
3.
T
HEORETICAL
F
RAMEWORK
3.1 Introduction
This theoretical framework will provide an overview about the theories and expectations that already exist on the subject of the research and will give insight in the information gap that needs to be filled in order to successfully perform the research.
3.2 Leisure Lifestyle Segmentation
“Due to the rapid changes in today’s economic, social, political, legal, demographic,
competitive, technological and limited resources, there have been great shifts in customers’ taste, demand and expectations. These shifts have become a major challenge to business practitioners. Customers are surrounded by unlimited choices” (Abdullah & Hamdan, 2012). They can easily switch to another holiday destination if they are not satisfied with the one they have experienced. Therefore, according to Porter’s five forces model, Zonneweelde faces high buyer power (Tan, Shah, Tan, & Choon, 2017). There are several different ways in which customer groups can be segmented. For this research, the Leisure Lifestyle Segmentation of RECRON is analysed. For the Leisure Lifestyle Segmentation, RECRON has created seven different lifestyle categories, of which each one has its own colour: yellow, lime, green, aqua, blue, purple and red. Each lifestyle category has its own characteristics that belong to that lifestyle. These characteristics and lifestyle categories are based on what is known of the Dutch tourist. These seven Leisure Lifestyles are listed in the appendices. Companies use RECRON’s Lifestyle Segmentation as an inspiration for defining what makes their company so special and how they can translate that to their target group. This way, companies can create their own unique experience.
13 In an article of the journal ‘Recreactie’ Martin Maassen who is RECRON region manager and has recently concentrated on adapting his company on the leisure lifestyles, confirms the importance of applying RECRON’s Leisure Lifestyle Segmentation: “Also in the leisure industry, companies that do not focus on specific target groups are struggling. Many of them are experiencing strong competition of similar, but cheaper companies abroad. Choosing for ‘everyone’ is not choosing at all”. In the same article, Sandra te Morsche, head of Business conduct and Fundraising of the Foundation of Zuid-Hollands Landschap, explained that she wanted to adapt her rental houses to a specific target group by using the Leisure Lifestyle Segmentation. She stated: “We found out that the Leisure Lifestyle Segmentation is a helpful tool. It helps you to determine your target group, the size of that target group and to estimate your chances of success” (Sandijk, 2016).
3.3 Seasonality of the tourism industry in Zeeland
A campsite’s success highly depends on its occupancy rate. The occupancy rate of a campsite is seasonal in nature. It is common for a campsite in the Netherlands to have a higher occupancy rate during spring and summer, which are the peak seasons. The
occupancy rate also highly depends on the period in which the largest amount of the target group has holidays. The reason why it is very important for Zonneweelde to attract its target group from Luxembourg can be conducted from the table below. This table shows the different dates of the national summer holidays.
National summer holidays in 2017
Earliest date of start summer vacation
Latest date of end summer vacation
Netherlands 08-07-2017 03-09-2017
Luxembourg 15-07-2017 14-09-2017
Figure 4 Big differences in dates of 2017 of national summer holidays per country (Feiertagskalender.ch, 2017) (Schoolholidayseurope.eu, 2017)
National holidays in 2018
Easter holidays in 2018 Start of holiday End of holiday
Netherlands (province North-Holland) 01-04-2018 01-04-2018 Luxembourg 31-03-2018 15-04-2018
Whitsun holiday & May holidays in 2018 Start of holiday End of holiday
Netherlands May holiday (province North-Holland) 28-04-2018 06-05-2018 Luxembourg Whitsun holiday 19-05-2018 27-05-2018
National summer holidays in 2018
Earliest date of start summer vacation
Latest date of end summer vacation
Netherlands 07-07-2018 02-09-2018 Luxembourg 14-07-2018 16-09-2018
Figure 5 Big differences in dates of 2018 of national summer holidays and public school holidays per country
14 Touristic trend watcher Goof Lukken, who watches the trends in the tourism industry for the Dutch ANWB, stated that seasonality mainly results from the increase in websites who compare holiday prices. After comparing holiday prices people now easily switch in between holiday accommodations and destinations. To have more security of good weather, they now easily book their holiday outside the Benelux, which is of course a threat to organizations in the Dutch tourism industry (Lukken, 2017).
When comparing the different dates of the national summer holidays to Zonneweelde’s planning for the summer season of 2017, it can be concluded that most reservations are made for the period of the 22nd of July and the 19th of August. In the other weeks of July and
especially the month of September, hardly any reservations for a camping pitch have been made. When comparing the planning listed and figures in the appendices, it can be stated that Zonneweelde is not yet making full use of the difference between the summer holiday dates of the Netherlands and Luxembourg. When looking at the national holidays of 2018, it could be stated that many differences remain also for next year. Zonneweelde could make use of these differences in 2018.
3.4 Developments in the tourism industry of Zeeuws-Vlaanderen
In the last couple of years, many new projects have been set up and performed in the coastal area of Zeeuws-Vlaanderen. Different companies have started to clear this area of old
buildings in order to replace them with holiday accommodations or nature reserves. An example can be drawn from the Belgian company het Zoute, that has started very large projects to build lots of new holiday accommodations in Cadzand, which is located at 5 kilometres from Nieuwvliet. Another example can be drawn from the project Waterdunen that was started up by Provincie Zeeland, the municipality of Sluis, Waterschap Scheldestromen, Molecaten and Het Zeeuwse Landschap. This project has cleared a very large area between Groede and Breskens of local houses and farms in order to build a large nature reserve and leisure park. Many different opinions exist about these projects, not only among the local habitants but also among the tourists. On the one hand, people like the new developments as it is claimed that it would create many new jobs (Planners, 2009). On the other hand, not only local people actively protested against these new developments (1500 protestfolders actiecomité tegen Waterdunen, 2010), but also several tourists have expressed their
dissatisfaction. In a news article of Omroep Zeeland, the provincial broadcasting company of Zeeland, tourists stated that they are afraid that the coast of Zeeland will become like the coast of Knokke, one of the most popular seaside resorts in Belgium, which in their eyes is crammed with flats, shops, restaurants and other buildings (Zeeuwse Kust mag geen Knokke worden, 2015). In another news article of Omroep Zeeland, several tourists gave their
negative opinion after they heard about the new beach houses of Strandweelde that were about to open back in 2016. They stated that accommodations at the beach shouldn’t be built, since it is the emptiness and peacefulness of the beaches that motivates them to come to Zeeuws-Vlaanderen (Toerist: Kust niet volbouwen, wij komen voor de rust, 2016).
Furthermore, according to in ABN Amro’s Scan of campsites and holiday parks of 2017, it was stated that there is an important trend going on that could be called ‘hotelization’. In the last couple of years, there has been an increase in the need for luxury and comfort in the leisure industry. Campsites and holiday parks react to this by getting inspiration from the hotel sector. For example, they react to this by offering extra services as flexible check-in and check-out hours, breakfast services, massages and package holidays with organized activities in the neighbourhood.
15 Moreover, the same scan concluded that the demand for rental accommodations on a
campsite is increasing. Since 2012, the stays per night in a rental accommodation increased with 18,4%, while the stays per night on a camping pitch increased with only 0,4%. What is prominent is the increase in the amount of foreign tourists. In 2012, 79% of the total stays per night came from Dutch tourists, whereas in 2017, this percentage had decreased to 73 (Steff Driessen, 2017).
3.5 The Customer Journey
To offer the best hospitable service possible, it is essential to understand the wishes and the experience of the guest. As previously stated, this can be done by segmenting customers by figuring out their leisure lifestyle. But there are more ways to find out how a company can affect customer satisfaction. This can be done by positively affecting the customer’s experience as much as possible. How does the guest experience the region and the
company? The customer journey helps imaging how the guest experiences his vacation. The concept of the customer journey was introduced by Voss en Zomerdijk (Voss & Zomerdijk, 2010). They described services as a journey that starts long before and ends long after the actual service takes place. A clear explanation of the customer journey can be found in an online article of Kenniscentrum Toerisme. The makers of this article stated that the customer journey consists of several touchpoints. These touchpoints are moments of interaction between the customer and the company or brand. The customer journey is cyclical, since the evaluation of a service can make the customer want to purchase the product again. That is why, the customer journey is often depicted as a circle with three phases: before, during and after the purchase.
The customer journey is often used for many different sectors, but specifically suits the leisure industry. Buijtendijk en Van de Mosselaer stated that the decision process of the consumer when choosing a vacation can best be approached as a process of many small decisions that result in subjective and dynamic factors before, during and after the holiday experience and continuously affects the consumer’s behaviour (Buijtendijk & van de Mosselaer, 2014).
It is important to bear in mind that the same customer journey does not apply to every guest. Each guest has his or her own customer journey and things that he or she finds important. Therefore it is important to understand which touch points there are and how these touch points are experienced by different guests. Furthermore, it must be clear that in the leisure industry, the touch points are not affected by only one organization. If a guest visits Zeeland, he or she gets in touch with several different companies. This means that parties within the leisure industry as well as parties out of the leisure industry have to cooperate to make the customer journey a positive experience (Kenniscentrum Kusttoerisme, 2015).
There are several different models that have been created to image the customer journey. Buijtendijk en Van de Mosselaer introduced their Travel Funnel Model. In this model, Google describes the customer experience of holiday and leisure products. The entire travel funnel model consists of 5 phases in total. Google splits up the phase before the holiday in dreams, planning and booking. In the phases before the purchase, it is very important to what extend the leisure industry inspires, is reachable and is bookable, online as well as offline. During the customer’s visit, the leisure industry has to make sure that the customer gets a positive experience that meets his needs. Finally, it is important that the customer can share his or her experience with others, during the visit as well as after the visit.
16 The Travel Funnel model is listed in the appendices. The black definitions show the phases and the blue definitions show the touch points.
3.6 The role of Social Media in the tourism industry
“Social media play a significant role both on the demand and on the supply side of tourism allowing destinations to interact directly with visitors via various internet platforms and monitor and react on visitors´ opinions and evaluations of services” (Kiráľová & Pavlíčeka, 2014). There are different ways in which Social Media marketing experts describe the concept of Social Media. Adam Kleinberg, CEO and co-founder of advertising agency and innovation consultancy Traction, stated that most organizations approach social media in the wrong way. “They ask “who should own it?” as if it were simply another channel like email or search. Social media is not one thing. It’s five distinct things: it is a strategic tool for
uncovering business insights, it manages the influencers who are driving the conversation around your brand it provides value and turns customers into evangelists, it’s a critical component of customer care and it transforms an organization to meet the transparency and humanity customers now expect of brands” (Cohen, 2011).
Doctor Augustine Fou of the Marketing Science Consulting Group Inc. described Social Media as “people’s conversations and actions online that can be mined by advertisers for insights but not coerced to pass along marketing messages. It’s the new form of media that does not exist until it happens and that cannot be bought by advertisers to carry their
messages” (Cohen, 2011). At the moment, most sales managers are still underestimating the importance of using Social Media as a serious marketing tool.
A survey of B2B magazine stated that “only 5% of B2B marketers said that social media marketing was a “fairly mature and well optimized” part of their mix. A clear majority (58%) admitted to being “in early stages,” and 17% said they didn’t use social media at all” (Giamanco & Gregoire, 2012). There are very few sales training courses that cover Social Media and some companies even forbid their employees to use Social Media at work. Studies of Experian Marketing Services stated: “Social networking now accounts for 15% of internet visits in the United States. LinkedIn and Twitter have surpassed 100 million
members and most of these people are also on Facebook, which is nearing the one billion mark, meaning that it includes 14% of the world’s population” (Giamanco & Gregoire, 2012).
3.7 The Importance of Search Engine Optimization
“Search engines are the biggest source of access to information on the internet and their importance is increasing day-by-day. Therefore, search engines, in providing right content within a right time, gained so much importance nowadays. To be on top with the search results is very important, if the aim is to target a large audience. With the increasing competition between sites, the emphasis is now put on search engine optimization for the better search result ranking” (Egria & Bayrak, 2014). Gokhan Egria and Coskun Bayrakb analysed the many innovations and new factors for search engine optimization that had arisen in the last couple of years. The research concluded that it is not only important to get as many page views as possible, but also that the website is interesting for the visitor to stay on to. The research also stated that it is very important for the visitor that he or she can easily find the information that he or she was looking for on the website. Therefore, websites need to be clean and simple.
17 Furthermore, there are several programs that can track the user’s behaviour on the website. By tracking the user’s behaviour, the website’s owner can find out what the most popular pages are and where the website needs improvements. For example, it is very important where links or buttons are placed on the website, because when these are not situated in a spot where they can usually be found, many people won’t be able to find it. The researchers found out that, just by moving a button to another corner of the website, the click ratio was increased by 66,8%.
Moreover, according to Google, the session time can indicate the quality and functionality of the website and can therefore measure the visitor’s satisfaction. People use google search to find the website that will give answer to their request. When the session time of a website is high, it means that a lot of visitors have found what they were looking for, which means that the key words they used in their search were relevant to the website’s content. When the session time of a website is low, it is important that the owner of the website checks, whether his key words still match the website’s content or not.
3.8 Conceptual Model
In the theoretical framework it was first of all stated that over the past few years, there has been a shift in a customer’s taste, demands and expectations. RECRON’s Leisure Lifestyle Segmentation is used to find out specific characteristics of a customer group. The results of the interviews that are held will test whether RECRON’S Leisure Lifestyle Segmentation for the Dutch tourist could also be applied to the Luxembourgian target group. Therefore, the questions that will be used in the interviews are partly based on this segmentation.
Furthermore, the seasonality of the touristic industry of Zeeuws-Vlaanderen was discussed. When looking at the planning of the national holidays of 2018, it can be stated that there is a big difference between the Dutch, German and Flemish dates and the Luxembourgian dates. The fact that this gives Zonneweelde an interesting target group to focus on, makes it even more interesting to find out how much potential there is.
Moreover, the developments in the tourism industry in Zeeuws-Vlaanderen were explained. It was discussed that campsites and holiday parks are experiencing guests with a growing need for luxury and comfort. Campsites and holiday parks are also increasing their amount of holiday accommodations. In the past few years, many projects have been started up in Zonneweelde’s environment and many different opinions on this exist among the foreign tourists. This research will find out how these new touristic developments could affect the targeted Luxembourgian guests in their process of choosing Zeeuws-Vlaanderen as a holiday destination or not.
Additionally, the Travel Funnel Model of Buitendijk en Van de Mosselaer was explained. This Model is used to describe the customer journey of a touristic guest. For this research, it has yet to be found out what the customer journey of the Luxembourgian target group looks like. The questions that will be used in the interviews are partly based on the different phases of the customer journey.
Then, the role of Social Media in the tourism industry was analysed. Using Social Media in marketing is ever increasing. The semi-structured interviews with the Luxembourgian target group will find out how Zonneweelde could best adapt its marketing strategy to establish a better connection with its Luxembourgian target group.
18
4.
M
ETHODS
4.1 Introduction
For this research, a combination of desk research and qualitative research was used. In this chapter, the method that was used to perform the research is described.
4.2 Desk Research and Qualitative Research
Desk research was used in order to find out the theories that were already known about the subjects that were researched.
Due to the lack of information that could be found through desk- and field research,
qualitative research in the form of several interviews was performed. The qualitative research that is used for this research was a combination of semi-structured and in-depth interviews.
For the first sub question, an in-depth interview was held with one of the owners, who supervises all promotional activities of Zonneweelde. Therefore, she was able to provide detailed information on which strategies Zonneweelde had already used in the past to attract more Luxembourgian to her campsite and what was learned from this.
For the second sub question, an in-depth interview with Mrs. Korteweg-Maris of the Kenniscentrum Toerisme was held. This interview gave insight in the way in which
Zonneweelde ‘s environment had adapted itself to its upcoming target group. She was asked which developments were taking place in Zonneweelde’s environment. Further
semi-structured interviews with Zonneweelde’s Luxembourgian guests found out how these developments could affect the decision process of the targeted Luxembourgian guest when choosing a holiday destination. In the discussion, Mrs. Kortweg’s interview results are compared with desk research on the subject in the theoretical framework.
The third, fourth and fifth sub question were answered by performing in-depth interviews with experts on the Luxembourgian tourist and semi-structured interviews with Zonneweelde’s target group in Luxembourg. Mr. van Disseldorp was contacted, who is RECRON Regional Manager of Zeeland and represents all entrepreneurs of the leisure industry of Zeeland. Mr. van Disseldorp distributes his interest over several different countries but does not focus on Luxembourg. However, with regard to his many international connections, Mr. van Disseldorp could help with establishing contacts with other experts that had more knowledge about the targeted Luxembourgian guest. This is called the snowball effect. The questions that were asked, depended on how much knowledge an expert had about the targeted Luxembourgian guest and how much the targeted Luxembourgian guest wanted to talk about him or herself. Since some people preferred to stay anonymous and were not always prepared to do an interview on site or by phone, some interviews were held by mail contact. The goal of the semi-structured interviews with the targeted Luxembourgian guests was discovering the customer journey of the Luxembourgian tourist. These also found out their needs and wishes. The questions of the interview were therefore all linked to a specific phase of the customer journey and RECRON’s Leisure Lifestyles Model. Since Mrs. Basting is member of RECRON, RECRON’s Leisure Lifestyles Segmentation had previously been used by
Zonneweelde and was therefore the most logical and easiest model to use. The results of the interviews found out how RECRON’s Leisure Lifestyles can be applied to Zonneweelde’s
19 target group in Luxembourg and the customer journey of the Luxembourgian tourist could be set up. Furthermore, the typical characteristics of the Luxembourgian culture were mentioned using the Lewis Model by Richard Lewis and the book ‘International Review: Destination the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg’ that was given to the researcher as a present by Mr. Feinen, one of the interview respondents. Then, with all these results, it was found out how
Zonneweelde could adapt its marketing strategy to establish a better connection with its Luxembourgian target group. RECRON’s Leisure Lifestyle Segmentation, the Travel Funnel Model and the Lewis Model are listed in the appendices.
4.3 Operationalization
After the methods are discussed, the operationalization of concepts can be drawn up. The operationalization table is listed in the appendices.
4.4 Validity, Reliability and Ethics
For this research, it was essential that ethics were highly valued and that all the company details and results of the interviews were never shared with other parties outside the company. As Zonneweelde is a small, family company that has good relationships, friendly connections and therefore a high level of trust among its small amount of employees, the results of this research could be shared among the main staff members that had a fixed contract. As several employees were also asked for details, their opinion or tips on the research, it was impossible to keep every detail of the research a secret. However, if any information was shared, it had to be minimal and in favour of the results of the research .
In order to keep the research reliable and valid, the questions of the semi-structured
interview were first of all tested during an interview with Mr. Mathias, who was recommended to the researcher by Linda Gedink, an essential connection of Mr. van Disseldorp. After the questions of the test interview were approved, the final interviews were held with experts of the tourism industry as well as targeted Luxembourgian guests. The interview with Mr.
Mathias and the final layout of the semi-structured interview can be found in the appendices.
The total amount of experts of the tourism industry that were interviewed depended on the efficiency of the snowball effect that was reached through Mr. van Disseldorp. Three experts of the tourism industry were interviewed. Additionally, in order to obtain a valid result, as many targeted Luxembourgian guests as possible were interviewed until saturation was reached. Saturation was reached when participants of the interview continuously gave the same answers to the same questions.
4.5 Analysis
Each question of the interviews held with the targeted Luxembourgian guests was related to a specific phase in the customer journey or Recron’s Leisure Lifestyle Segmentation. The questions and answers of these interviews were analysed by different codes. To make it easier for the reader to find the results of a specific phase or lifestyle, each phase had its own colour. The layout of the interviews with the legend of the codes is listed in the appendices.
20
5.
R
ESULTS
5.1 Introduction
The results of the qualitative research provided an additional insight to the findings in the theoretical framework. The results of each sub-question are provided below.
5.2 Results to sub-question 1
In order to find out whether there is potential for Zonneweelde to push up the occupancy rate in the low season by attracting its Luxembourgian target group, it first of all had to be found out what Zonneweelde had learned from the past strategies it had already used to attract more targeted Luxembourgian to its campsite. An in-depth interview with the owner of Zonneweelde provided the answer to this sub-question. The results of the in-depth interview showed that the previous strategy that was applied to the Luxembourgian tourists was performed through Facebook. The owner believed that the Luxembourgian guests would be a nice addition to the German and Flemish guests, especially in the periods when the Luxembourgian would have holidays and the rest would not. The target group was kept very broad, since the specific characteristics of the Luxembourgian target group remained
unknown then. The goal of the strategy was increasing Zonneweelde’s brand awareness. The owner didn’t distribute written information because she found it too difficult and too expensive and didn’t have the time to gather enough information to create an effective advertisement on paper. The result of the strategy was a reasonable amount of bookings from Luxembourg. Zonneweelde learned that most of the Luxembourgian made a reservation by e-mail and that they were also quite active on Facebook.
For the future, Zonneweelde learned that it should better monitor its strategy results to create a better focus on the target group and learn from that. It also learned that its marketing should become more intense to keep the customer’s attention.
5.3 Results to sub-question 2
In the theoretical framework, the developments in the tourism industry in Zeeuws-Vlaanderen were explained. In the past few years, many projects have been started up in Zonneweelde’s environment and many different opinions on this exist among the locals and tourists. An in-depth interview with Mrs. Korteweg-Maris provided an insight into what these developments are. The semi-structured interviews with the Luxembourgian guests concluded how these developments could affect the targeted Luxembourgian guests in their decision of choosing Zeeuws-Vlaanderen as a holiday destination.
5.3.1 Developments of the tourism industry of Zeeuws-Vlaanderen
The results of the in-depth interview with Mrs. Korteweg-Maris concluded that, especially in the last five or six years, along the whole coastline of Zeeuws-Vlaanderen, especially around Cadzand, a lot has happened. Many old campsites have been bought and changed into bungalow parks. Some of these bungalow parks are purchased by large holiday
organizations. Also in Breskens a lot is happening. A couple of years ago, project
Waterdunen started and more holiday parks are emerging there as well. There is not only a lot of transition from camping pitches to chalets or bungalows, but also much addition of chalets and bungalows. In Cadzand, due to the increasing demand for second houses, many apartments are built, and of course the new port has been established. The demand for a
21 second house mainly comes from the Flemish, since Zeeuws-Vlaanderen is close by for them. In general, thousands of units have been added in a couple of years.
Furthermore, in the last five years, the supply of special glamping accommodations has largely increased. This was due to the decrease in people going camping. Tourists wanted to stay in a natural environment, but not with their own camping equipment. The need for luxury and comfort increased. Furthermore, the interest for yearly pitches decreased, which resulted in a lot of free space on the campsites. Campsites then looked for a way to fill up these empty spaces. When the new concept of glamping proved to be successful, copying
behaviour among the campsites was started. On the campsites, ordinary camping pitches or yearly pitches are now transformed into rental accommodations and ordinary, basic mobile homes are transformed into the most luxurious glamping tents. Zonneweelde itself has made these changes and this is also very popular among other campsites.
Finally, it was stated that the senior market is still growing. Mrs. Korteweg-Maris stated that the developments of the tourism industry of Zeeuws-Vlaanderen wouldn’t negatively affect the elderly in their decision process of choosing Zeeuws-Vlaanderen or not, since there are many older tourists who love facilities close by and bustle. Now, the opinion on this of the interview respondents should confirm or reject her statement. The in-depth interview with Mrs. Korteweg is listed in the appendices.
5.3.2 Interview respondents’ reaction to developments
The results of the semi-structured interviews with the Luxembourgian target group gave an insight into the respondents’ reaction to the developments in the tourism industry of Zeeuws-Vlaanderen. In general, the developments wouldn’t negatively affect the Luxembourgian respondents decision process, as long as negative effects as mass tourism, an increase in prices or a lot of noise would not emerge. The results of the semi-structured interviews are listed in the appendices.
5.4 Results to sub-question 3
In the theoretical framework, the Travel Funnel Model of Buitendijk en Van de Mosselaer was explained. This model is used to describe the customer journey of a touristic guest. With the results of the semi-structured interviews with the Luxembourgian guests, that are listed in the appendices, the following customer journey of the Luxembourgian target group was set up:
5.4.1 To Dream
Four out of six respondents usually travel with a camper or a caravan. An in-depth interview with the secretary of a Luxembourgian camper club also confirmed that in the last couple of years there has been a large increase of Luxembourgian travelling with campers. Four out of six respondents possessed knowledge about the province of Zeeland and about half of them had already visited this province. One of them new the province only from literature and another one didn’t know the province at all. Four out of six respondents were interested in spending their holiday in Zonneweelde’s environment, mainly because of the peacefulness of the landscape and the beaches. One respondent was not interested in spending his holidays here, because he wanted to travel to another country every year and Zeeuws-Vlaanderen didn’t offer him enough natural highlights. The interesting thing is that this was also the respondent that didn’t have any knowledge about the province of Zeeland. Therefore, it could be said that, if this respondent got to know the province of Zeeland, he could have had more interest in the province. Even the Luxembourgian expert of the ACL had heard of Zeeland, but never of Zeeuws-Vlaanderen. What stood out was the fact that four out of six
22 them to choose a campsite in Zeeuws-Vlaanderen as their holiday destination. Two other popular elements were the tranquillity of the region and the beaches. The most popular elements that the respondents were looking for in a holiday destination were cleanliness, a destination close to the sea, high quality food in the environment and cycling paths.
Another interesting fact was that most respondents were not sure what their opinion was on the developments in Zonneweelde’s environment. Overall, they answered that these
developments wouldn’t negatively affect their decision to choose Zeeuws-Vlaanderen as their holiday destination as long as the new developments wouldn’t push up the overall prices and noise and wouldn’t attract mass tourism.
5.4.2 To plan
The most popular sources that the respondents used when searching for a holiday destination were camping guides, magazines, exhibitions (the Vakanz exhibition in
Luxembourg was mentioned twice), the internet (www.camping.info.de was mentioned twice) and mouth-to-mouth recommendations from family and friends. The key words that the respondents use for searching were Camping/Campingfeld/Campingplatz, the name of the destination, Sehenswürdigkeiten/Kultur and WIFI in combination with other words. What was absolutely confirmed by the interviews is that the Luxembourgian prefer to be informed about a holiday destination in German or French. These two languages were mentioned by all respondents.
5.4.3 To book
An outstanding fact was that more than half of the respondents hardly ever make a reservation for their holidays. If they do, they mostly do this 1-3 months before arrival. According to the respondents, a campsite could make it easier for the Luxembourgian to book a holiday by translating at least its website in German and/or French. Mail contact and phone contact in German or French would also be a plus. Participating in an exhibition would be a good idea. The essential information the respondents look for on a campsite’s website were the availability of pitches, opening hours of the campsite and reception and the prices.
5.4.4 To experience
According to the respondents, the most important services that are expected of a campsite are a place to buy fresh bread (as good quality food was highly valued by the respondents), a clean sanitary and WIFI. The most popular activities that would interest the respondents during their stay would be hiking, cycling, children’s activities and going out to eat something. It is always very important to bear in mind that not only Zonneweelde, but every company that gets in contact with a customer influences the customer in some way and is therefore responsible for the end result of the customer journey.
5.4.5 To share
According to the respondents, the most popular way to share holiday experiences among the Luxembourgian is through mouth-to-mouth conversations. They also like to share pictures with families and friends and they occasionally like to write a comment on Facebook. A Luxembourgian website where holiday reviews can be found remains unknown. Some respondents confirmed that if they do write a review, it would be on a German website (only www.camping.info.de and the website of ADAC were mentioned).
23 5.5 Results to sub-question 4
5.5.1 The Leisure Lifestyle of the Luxembourgian target group
In the theoretical framework it was stated that over the past few years, there has been a shift in customer taste, demands and expectations. To find out the different characteristics of a customer group, RECRON’s Leisure Lifestyle Segmentation is highly used in the tourism industry. Since the Leisure Lifestyle Segmentation was based on the Dutch tourist, it still had to be found out whether this segmentation can also be applied to the Luxembourgian or if it has to be adapted. The semi-structured interviews with the Luxembourgian target group provided an insight to this.
Every respondent was asked to choose 10 out of a list of characteristics of RECRON’s Leisure Lifestyles that would best fit his or her lifestyles. After the interviews were held, the results showed that the characteristics that were mostly chosen were: honest, respectful, helpful, jovial, calm, spontaneous, active, critical, hospitable and happy.
After the list of the most chosen characteristics was known, the Leisure Lifestyles colours that best fit this list were selected. It was concluded that, according to the chosen
characteristics, the Luxembourgian target group could not be placed in one Leisure Lifestyle colour, but possessed a mixture of the characteristics of the colours yellow, lime and aqua. This means that, at the moment, RECRON’s Leisure Lifestyle Segmentation can not be applied to the Luxembourgian guest and will therefore have to be adapted. The three colours yellow, lime and aqua were selected together with the interests that belong to that colour. Out of the list of interests shown in the table below, a mixture of interests was chosen that were repeated the most during the interviews. With this list, the main interests of the Luxembourgian target group could be summed up. The Leisure Lifestyle colour mixture for the Luxembourgian target group is listed in the appendices.
5.5.2 The characteristics of the Luxembourgian culture
According to the Lewis Model, the Luxembourgian culture is the perfect linear-active cultural type. This means that in general, the Luxembourgian like planning and are very concentrated on their work. Moreover, they are polite, but direct and think logically. In a discussion, they like to stick to the facts and do not let their feelings take over. This could mean that it would be important for a Luxembourgian guest, that a holiday destination sticks to the agreements. In the results of the first sub-question it was shown that the owner of Zonneweelde didn’t use any written information in her previous strategy to attract the Luxembourgian target group. However, the semi-structured interviews showed that written word is quite important to them. Many respondents stated that they like to book their vacation by e-mail and not only by phone. Additionally, this was stated by the book ‘International Review: Destination the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg’ that quoted that “Luxembourg’s more than 750.000 people have a voracious appetite for the written word, capable of sustaining a broad and diverse selection of homegrown newspapers and magazines. This situation owes something to a government policy of encouraging diversity of opinion in the national press through a system of financial support. Other factors include the country’s economic prosperity, which makes for a booming advertising market and the fact that radio and TV take a rather smaller share of the
advertising cake than in other countries” (International Review: Destination The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, 2001).
This book, which was sent to the researcher as a present from Luxembourg after the semi-structured interview with Mr. Feinen, described Luxembourg as a small but extremely dynamic country that over the years has seen the remarkable rise of its financial sector,
24 which nowadays means not just banks but investment funds, insurance companies and reinsurances captives. Only second to Qatar, Luxembourg is the world’s second richest country by GDP per capita. It could therefore be stated that the chance is high that
Zonneweelde’s Luxembourgian target group has the financial means to travel more times in a year and out of the country. This clarifies the fact that the Luxembourgian respondents of the interviews expect good facilities of a campsite.
5.6 Results to sub-question 5
For this research, different interviews with experts and the Luxembourgian target group were held to get an insight into how Zonneweelde coud adapt its marketing strategy to establish a better connection with the Luxembourgian target group.
To start with, it was concluded that four out of six respondents knew the province of Zeeland and had already been in Zeeuws-Vlaanderen. This means that 75% of the Luxembourgian target group that was interviewed, already knew about Zeeuws-Vlaanderen. The fact that only out of six respondents, already two didn’t know about Zeeuws-Vlaanderen, means that there could be a lot more of the Luxembourgian target group that doesn’t have this
knowledge either. This proves that there is potential for Zonneweelde to promote its region and its campsite to increase their brand awareness among its Luxembourgian target group.
Then, the answer to sub-question 2 revealed that the developments in the tourism industry of Zeeuws-Vlaanderen wouldn’t negatively affect the Luxembourgian respondents decision process, as long as negative effects as mass tourism, an increase in prices or a lot of noise would not emerge. Zonneweelde could react to this by adapting its marketing strategy.
Then, the Travel Funnel Model described the customer journey of the Luxembourgian target group. The phases of the customer journey that Zonneweelde could have the most effect on with its marketing strategy would be the dream phase, where it could inspire the guest and the plan phase, where it could affect the customer’s decision process and lead a potential tourist to Zonneweelde as a holiday destination. The marketing strategy that is used should be selected on the most popular media sources and the keywords that the respondents use when searching for a holiday destination. The respondents stated that the language in which they wish to be addressed would be either French or German. They also stated that a popular Luxembourgian website that reviews holidays remains unknown and that they therefore often visit German holiday websites to obtain information. The interview with expert Mr. Douros showed that the Belgian cities of Blankenberge and Oostende are already widely known among the Luxembourgian. This could help Zonneweelde to spread the word about its own region since it is located close to these cities.
Moreover, the semi-structured interviews concluded that more than half of the respondents hardly every make a reservation for their holidays and that if they do, they do it one to three months before arrival. This means that the interviews gave an insight into the moments on which Zonneweelde could best approach its Luxembourgian target group.
Additionally, the interviews also gave an insight into the facilities on the campsite and activities in the neighbourhood that Zonneweelde could promote best to its Luxembourgian target group. According to the respondents, the most important services that they looked for on a campsite are a place to buy fresh bread, a clean sanitary and WIFI. The most popular activities that would interest the respondents during their stay are hiking, cycling, children’s activities and going out to eat something.
25 Besides this, the semi-structured interviews concluded that, with regard to RECRON’s
Leisure Lifestyle Segmentation, the Luxembourgian target group could best be described as a combination of the colours lime, aqua and yellow. This means that there is potential in adapting the marketing tools of Zonneweelde by differentiating them to fit the demands of these three Leisure Lifestyles.
What is more, the results to sub-question 4 gave a short insight into the main characteristics of the culture of the Luxembourgian target group. The Lewis Model gave away that the Luxembourgian culture is of a perfect linear-active type. The book ‘International Review: Destination The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg’ stated that the Luxembourgian prefer written information over radio or television broadcasts. It also stated that the Luxembourgian have great financial means which enables them to travel more times a year to foreign destinations.
Finally, the semi-structured interviews stated that most of the respondents like to share their holiday experiences through mouth-to-mouth conversations, by sharing pictures with families and by occasionally writing a comment on Facebook. If they write a review, they would do this on a German website. In one of the in-depth interviews Mr. Douros of the Automobile Club Luxembourg offered a cooperation between Zonneweelde and the ACL. If Zonneweelde would accept the offer that he made, its campsite and its region would appear in the next newsletter of the ACL that would be distributed among 175.000 Luxembourgian members.
6.
D
ISCUSSION
6.1 Introduction
In the discussion, the findings of the theoretical framework are compared to the results of the research.
6.2 Discussion on the used method
The in-depth interviews with the experts and the semi-structured interviews with the
Luxembourgian target group supplied the main source of information for this research. The interviewed experts were selected on what knowledge on the subject was expected of them. The interviewed Luxembourgian target group was randomly selected by the researcher’s Luxembourgian contact point Mrs. Gedink and afterwards sent to the researcher to perform the interviews. The theoretical framework provided the two models on which the semi-structured interviews were fully based. These were RECRON’s Leisure Lifestyle Segmentation and the Travel Funnel Model of Buijtendijk en Van de Mosselaer. Each
question of the in-depth and structured interviews was aimed at answering the sub-questions of this research. The findings of the interviews enabled the researcher to answer the central research question in the end.
6.3 Discussion on the results
To start with, in the theoretical framework, it was stated that RECRON’s Leisure Lifestyle Segmentation is a helpful tool when a company wants to focus on a specific target group. The conducted in-depth interviews stated that the Leisure Lifestyle model is indeed very helpful when analysing the characteristics of a specific target group. The conducted in-depth
