Effective marketing thus results in consumer satisfaction, protection of the public interest, and profit or other desirable outcomes to the provider. According to this concept, the community needs to assess both the positive and negative impacts of any potential tourism development over the long run and not in just the near term. To develop a harmonious tourism economy in your community you will need to consider several issues. Many of these issues will deal with effective marketing. This section of the handbook presents the concept of demand driven marketing and discusses five key questions you need to answer to assess the market potential of any tourism development.
Many communities are interested in tourism as an economic development tool.
Local committees interested in tourism often start by looking solely at what the community currently has to offer. While this may be a useful initial exercise for getting the committee thinking about tourism development, it can also lead the community in the wrong direction. The lessons of marketing indicate that the most successful economic development activities will be consumer or demand driven and not attraction or supply driven. Your community action committee should focus on what tourists need and want in a vacation experience. There are several reasons why demand driven tourism development is more likely to succeed than supply driven development.