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Conceptualising a contemporary
marketing mix for sustainable tourism
Alan Pomering
a
, Gary Noble
a
& Lester W. Johnson
b
a
School of Management and Marketing, University of Wollongong,
Northfield Avenue, Wollongong, New South Wales, 2522, Australia
b
Management (Marketing) Programs, Melbourne Business School,
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Version of record first published: 01 Aug 2011.
To cite this article: Alan Pomering , Gary Noble & Lester W. Johnson (2011): Conceptualising a
contemporary marketing mix for sustainable tourism, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 19:8, 953-969
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Journal of Sustainable Tourism
Vol. 19, No. 8, November 2011, 953969
Conceptualising a contemporary marketing mix for sustainable
tourism
Alan Pomering
a
, Gary Noble
a
and Lester W. Johnson
b
a
School of Management and Marketing, University of Wollongong, Northeld Avenue, Wollongong,
New South Wales 2522, Australia;
b
Management (Marketing) Programs, Melbourne Business
School, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
(Received 24 November 2009; nal version received 6 April 2011)
This paper outlines how marketing, though traditionally considered an enemy of sus-
tainability, can play a role in implementing sustainable tourism. It notes the redenition
in 2007 by the American Marketing Association of marketings aims to consider wider
societal issues beyond those of clients and customers. It illustrates how the recognition
of the importance of sustainable tourism at all scales of tourism activity provides mar-
keting with an opportunity to pursue sustainability outcomes. We review the strategic
tourism marketing planning process and conceptually develop a sustainability tourism
marketing model that embeds sustainability considerations at each stage of the planning
process. Our proposed model contributes to sustainable tourism theory development
and offers a conceptual tool for managing a tourism organisations ecological and soci-
etal footprint on the supply side and a critical opportunity for transforming consumer
decision-making on the demand side, irrespective of tourism scale. A 30-cell matrix is
proposed that cross-references a strong set of 10 marketing elements (product, price,
promotion, place, participants, process, physical evidence, partnership, packaging and
programming) against the questions posed by the triple bottom line of economic fac-
tors, the environmental and sociocultural concern, creating a check list of indicators for
management purposes.
Keywords: marketing; marketing mix; sustainability; sustainability tourism marketing
model; sustainable tourism
Introduction
The growth of the tourism industry and its environmental, social and cultural impacts have
prompted increasing calls for greater levels of sustainability. International tourist arrivals
reached 880 million in 2009 (UNWTO[United Nations World TourismOrganization], 2010)
and are forecast to increase to 1.6 billion by 2020 (UNWTO, 2004a). As tourismis currently
estimated to contribute 5%of the emissions that aggravate climate change (G ossling, 2009),
this forecast growth will present major environmental and societal threats for the future,
challenging the very notion of sustainable tourism. Australias recent Garnaut Climate
Change Review suggested that, in Australia at least, there will be a serious loss of tourist
attractions (Garnaut, 2008). In response to such external threats, researchers are looking at
adaptive destination-level strategies (e.g. Lambert, Hunter, Pierce, & MacLeod, 2010), but
for tourism to mitigate its contribution to this global problem, a clearer understanding is
needed of how tourism might be pursued more sustainably.

Corresponding author. Email: alanp@uow.edu.au

ISSN 0966-9582 print / ISSN 1747-7646 online
C
2011 Taylor & Francis
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2011.584625
http://www.tandfonline.com
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Frameworks such as Butlers (1980) destination cycle model, based on the notion
of a critical carrying capacity, have considered sustainability from the destination per-
spective, but the phenomenon of tourism requires a whole-systems approach (Farrell &
Twining-Ward, 2004); destinations need to consider the sum of their tourisms cumulative
negative impacts. Farrell and Twining-Ward argue: progress in tourism has lagged behind
as researchers have only shown passing interest in whole systems approaches, despite the
advantages such methods afford for coping with the multidisciplinary environment in which
tourismoperates (2004, p. 278). Transport to reach a destination, for example, is estimated
to account for between 59% and 97% of a tourists ecological footprint according to mode
(Dolnicar, Laesser, & Matus, 2010).
Transports contribution to tourisms negative ecological footprint is likely to increase.
For example, despite the environmentally superior performance of new-generation aircraft,
projected improvements in fuel efciency will be largely surpassed by trafc growth of
around 5% each year, leading to a projected net increase in emissions of 3%4% per
year (IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change], 2007). Although the sustainable
tourism discussion has tended to focus on the physical environment (Butler, 1999), the
effects of tourismon sociocultural values have long been acknowledged (UNESCO[United
Nations Educational, Scientic and Cultural Organization], 1976). Further, impacts on the
physical environment are inexorably linked to impacts on communities; the relationship
between environment and poverty, for example, is well recognised (Jahan & Umana, 2003).
G ossling (2009) argues that solutions need to be found through global agreements, while
Belz and Peattie argue that changes are necessary to expand the intersection between
socio-ecological problems and consumption, and to set up conditions for the successful
marketing of sustainable products beyond market niches (2009, p. 34). The key question
is how sustainable tourism might be pursued in a way mindful of wider complex systems,
considering not only destination-level management issues but also the linkages formed
throughout the tourism value chain. If value is not created at all points of linkage across
this tourism chain, addressing impacts of the sum of tourism organisations and tourists
activities, the process might alternatively be conceived in terms of a harm chain (Polonsky,
Carlson, & Fry, 2003).
A 15-year analysis of papers in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism (JOST) by Lu and
Nepal (2009) conrms a shift away fromparallel notions of tourismand sustainable tourism,
distinct and separate from the other, towards all tourism needing to move to achieve more
sustainable outcomes. If sustainability is to be the goal of all forms of tourism, including
mass tourism, tourism management cannot simply be business as usual. To meet this
need, a managerial framework is needed that is sufciently comprehensive and exible to
span differences in tourism scale and tourisms various components, such as destinations,
tour operators, hospitality and transport providers, and attractions. Such a framework must
also promote the collaborative partnership between tourisms interrelated components, the
tourismindustry, to ensure that sustainability efforts are in concert rather than piecemeal,
to transform activities on the supply side and tourists demand-side behaviours. This paper
conceptually develops such a framework through the lens of marketing, a managerial task
traditionally considered at odds with sustainability (Buhalis, 2000) but one that ensures an
organisations operations are developed to meet the needs of consumers, the organisation
and, importantly, society at large.
This paper develops a sustainability tourism marketing model by reviewing the generic
marketing planning process and placing the emphasis on achieving enhanced sustainability
performance at each level of the process. We argue that marketing is an appropriate vehicle
to drive increased sustainability; within its domain are the managerial areas that determine
tourisms market-facing characteristics. Marketing has been succinctly described as the
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Journal of Sustainable Tourism 955
whole business seen fromthe customers point of view (Drucker, 1954, p. 36) and therefore
more a way of doing business than a mere managerial function. This way of doing business
is reected in marketings strategic planning processes and, ultimately, in marketings mix of
activities that should aimto improve sustainability performance across a range of economic,
ecological and societal indicators.
In developing our model, we make several contributions to sustainable tourism theory.
Firstly, we describe strategic sustainability marketing, and, taking a phenomenological ap-
proach, we expand extant conceptualisations of the marketing mix for tourism. Further, by
drawing on the American Marketing Associations (AMAs) revised denition of marketing
(AMA, 2007), which ascribes a responsibility to marketing of satisfying not only the needs
of individuals and organisations but also the needs of society at large, combining this ex-
panded mix with the ecological, societal and economic facets of sustainable development,
we develop a model for sustainable tourism that appreciates tourisms role as a part of a
complex system (Farrell & Twining-Ward, 2004). We propose a framework that is suf-
ciently serviceable to be used by tourism organisations, irrespective of scale. Proposing
such a framework as the sustainability tourism marketing model is acknowledged as a key
mission of JOST (Lu & Nepal, 2009).
We structure this paper as follows: After reviewing recent literature regarding sus-
tainable tourism, we consider the role of marketing in the quest for greater tourism sus-
tainability. We then discuss the sustainability tourism marketing model, which culminates
in the expanded sustainability tourism marketing mix (STMM). How this mix might be
operationalised is described and illustrated with practical examples. We conclude with a
discussion that includes recommendations for future research.
Sustainable tourism
Sustainability has been described as a concept charged with power (Mowforth & Munt,
2009, p. 20), surrounded by questions over who denes it and how it is to be achieved.
Equally, the meaning of the term sustainable tourism has been seen as a value-laden
construct (Bramwell, Henry, Jackson, & van der Straaten, 1996) and one that is open to
interpretation (Butler, 1999), cast multifariously as a philosophy, an ideology, a concept,
a political catch phrase, a process or even a product (Wall, 1996). Butler argues that the
key for sustainable tourism is not ensuring the continued introduction of small-scale,
environmentally and culturally appropriate forms of tourism, but how to make existing
mass tourism developments as sustainable as possible (1999, p. 13). Lu and Nepal (2009)
document sustainable tourisms evolution in this direction, highlighting the terms shift in
relevance from small-scale to mass tourism. Farrell and Twining-Ward (2004) argue that
sustainable tourismshould be considered in the context of a whole system, rather than being
conceived solely at the destination level, an approach now being captured in measurement
of tourists total ecological impacts (e.g. Wackernagel & Rees, 1996).
As tourism is essentially an economic activity, sustainable tourism has become sub-
sumed by the broader notion of sustainable development, conceived as tourism devel-
opment that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs (Bramwell & Lane, 1993; World Commission on
Environment and Development [WCED], 1987, p. 43) and framed by the domains of en-
vironmental integrity, social equity and economic prosperity (Bansal, 2005), or as triple
bottom line reporting.
Taking a whole-systems approach, Liepers (1979) tourism system model describes
how the tourism phenomenon, consisting of its human, industry and spatial elements,
interacts with surrounding macro-environments. The tourism value chain is created as the
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956 A. Pomering et al.
Figure 1. Dimensions of sustainable tourism.
tourist moves from their origin to their destination(s), aided by tourisms industry elements,
and back again. Although mentioned but not specically discussed by Lieper (1979),
these broader environments (p. 404) include, inter alia, the physical, sociocultural and
economic environments. Just as these environmental forces might inuence tourismactivity,
tourisms human and industry elements, in turn, will affect the nature of each environment
across the geographic origin, transit and destination regions. Sustainable tourism might,
therefore, be regarded in terms of the tourism value chains intersection with the three
sustainable development domains, as shown in Figure 1. The value chain concept (Porter,
1985) describes how value is created as the product is brought forward through the supply
chain to the end consumer. The tourism value chain, as with many service experiences,
however, creates value as the consumer, the tourist, is taken through the supply chain to
the product, the destination. And, as value is created as the tourist is moved from their
origin to their destination(s), the notion of value should be weighed in terms of not only its
contribution to the individual consumer but also to overall environmental integrity, social
equity and economic prosperity. Sustainable tourism must seek to reduce the harm that is
simultaneously created along with value for the tourist (Polonsky et al., 2003).
Four sustainable development principles have been offered: (1) holistic planning and
strategic decision-making; (2) preservation of essential ecological processes; (3) protection
of human heritage and biodiversity; and (4) growth that can be sustained over the long-term
(Bramwell &Lane, 1993; WCED, 1987). Several years later, these principles were reected
in the UNWTO (2004b) prescription that:
Sustainable tourism should:
(1) Make optimal use of environmental resources that constitute a key element in tourism de-
velopment, maintaining essential ecological processes and helping to conserve natural heritage
and biodiversity.
(2) Respect the socio-cultural authenticity of host communities, conserve their built and living
cultural heritage and traditional values, and contribute to inter-cultural understanding and
tolerance.
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Journal of Sustainable Tourism 957
(3) Ensure viable, long-term economic operations, providing socio-economic benets to all
stakeholders that are fairly distributed, including stable employment and income-earning op-
portunities and social services to host communities, and contributing to poverty alleviation.
A key element in this concept of sustainable tourism has been that of limits, origi-
nally expressed in terms of the tourism carrying capacity of a destination area (Butler,
1999). To calculate carrying capacity, measurement against sustainability indicators is
necessary. Butler argued that: without such indicators, the use of the term sustainable
is meaningless (1999, p. 16). Twelve broad indicators have been provided by the World
Tourism Organization (UNWTO, 2004). More specic site-related indicators feature in the
sustainable tourism literature and are, for example discussed in Miller and Twining-Ward
(2005).
What specic sustainability indicators to use, especially for minimising the sum of
impacts across the tourism value chain, remains a critical question. Blackstock, White,
McCrum, Scott, and Hunter (2008) regard sustainable tourism in terms of corporate so-
cial responsibility and suggest that sustainable tourisms indicators might be identied
by answering the questions: by whom and for what responsibility is owed? Responsible
tourism encourages a closer look at the issues of intra-generational equity and the active
involvement of stakeholders and tourism management to foster meaningful, respectful and
enriching experiences for both hosts and guests (Blackstock et al., 2008, p. 279). Taking
social and environmental responsibility seriously, these authors argue, requires all stake-
holders to be willing to engage in such change. Selin (1999) has described a typology of
such sustainable tourism collaborations in the United States. The evolution of sustainable
tourism indicators has been characterised by an expansion from a project to destination
scale, the addition of qualitative to quantitative metrics and the use of a range of planning
frameworks to facilitate indicator development, including Carrying Capacity, Limits of
Acceptable Change, Visitor Preference and Experience, Destination Lifecycle, Comfort
Indicators, and Visitor Impact Management (Lu & Nepal, 2009, p. 13). Carbon neutrality
claims are a recent addition to these for destinations and tourism rms, but G ossling is
critical of such efforts, particularly for international destinations, arguing that: current
approaches to carbon neutrality appear often neither credible nor efcient . . . and might
in practice even prevent the implementation of serious climate change policy measures
(2009, p. 33). These views, however, avoid sustainable tourism cast in a whole-systems
light, where the sum of the impacts of tourism to a destination is considered. Taking such
a summative approach presents tourism managers with a major challenge.
Although environmental and economic indicators can be measured in absolute terms,
impacts within the sociocultural dimension of sustainability prove more difcult to deal
with. Perhaps this explains why much sustainable tourism research has focused on the
ecological front (Butler, 1999), with, for example, broad investigation of the impact on
climate change of tourists and tourisms ecological footprint (Wackernagel & Rees, 1996)
emerging as a contemporary research theme (see, e.g., Dolnicar et al., 2010, for a recent
discussion).
The use of directional and impressionistic rather than distinct or comparative indicators
has been suggested appropriate for small tourism enterprises, given their dominance and
increasing importance within the framework of sustainable tourism(Roberts &Tribe, 2008).
A similar view was taken by early certication concepts such as Green Globe (Hawkins,
1995). The value of a directional approach, according to these authors, is to reveal progress,
or the lack thereof, rather than deal with numerical absolutes. Reed, Fraser, and Dougill
argue that such an approach will stimulate a process to enhance overall understanding of
environmental and social problems, facility capacity building and help guide policy (2006,
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p. 407). Weaver (2006) contends that indicators complexities and uncertainties make it
difcult to calculate whether or not a destination is sustainable; hence, it may be more
prudent to merely identify whether it appears to be by conforming to best practice. Farrell
and Twining-Ward suggest that sustainability is to be considered as a journey or a path,
rather than an achievable goal (2004).
Even impressions or directions, however, must be related to some base point, reinforcing
the clich e: what gets measured gets managed. Ultimately then, the choice of indicators,
and their reporting, for the purposes of organisational clarity and marketplace transparency,
is critical. An opportunity exists here for marketing to guide indicator choice around key
organisational market-related decision areas and the reporting of results to key stakeholder
audiences. The sustainability tourism marketing model we propose provides this.
The role of marketing in sustainable tourism
At face value, the role of marketing in achieving increased sustainable tourism is a ques-
tionable one. To date, the perceived role of marketing has been that of the enemy of sustain-
ability, traditionally concentrating on increasing tourist numbers and treating tourism like
a commodity (Buhalis, 2000). Such a criticism, however, suggests that either marketing
has been construed far too narrowly or it has done a very poor job of marketing itself, or
both. Marketings credibility and relevance for corporate decision-making has recently been
questioned (Gr onroos, 2006), and it has been criticised as preoccupied with tactical issues
and poorly linked to strategy (McGovern, Court, Quelch, & Crawford, 2004). In order to
assign the appropriate role for marketing in sustainable tourism then, it is necessary to
review what marketing is, and is not.
Marketing has been described as a pervasive societal activity rather than a narrowly
dened business activity (Kotler & Levy, 1969), a way of doing business (McKenna,
1991) and the effective management of everything the customer sees of the organisation
(Drucker, 1954). It is therefore a market-related activity, attempting to shape and present
the organisations identity in a way that will lead to a positively perceived image and
acceptance in the marketplace. It does so through the creation and communication of the
meaning, relevance and value of the organisation and its product, whether a widget or a
destination, for identied consumers and other stakeholders.
One problem may be how marketing has traditionally been dened. Importantly, up
until 2004, the denition used by the AMA spoke only of the dyadic, or coupled, relation-
ship between consumers and organisations; other stakeholders were ignored. Marketings
societal orientation (Kotler & Keller, 2006), whereby the organisation would accept the
responsibility for societys wellbeing as well as the individuals and organisations needs,
was considered optional. Adenition of marketing should, however, strengthen marketings
organisational role (Gr onroos, 2006) and should reect changes in the external environment
(Cooke, Rayburn, & Abercrombie, 1992). Marketings search for relevance saw the AMA,
in 2007, revise its denition to clearly afrm marketings role in line with the societal
orientation: Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, com-
municating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients,
partners, and society at large (AMA, 2007).
Theories and frameworks to support this revised conceptualisation, however, have
lagged behind, leaving the discipline with old models that lack versatility in the face
of changing market and societal conditions. One framework which has dominated the
scope of marketing activities since the 1950s (Gr onroos, 2006) is the marketing mix, which
is used to operationalise the results of the organisations strategic marketing planning
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Journal of Sustainable Tourism 959
process. Part of marketings problem, according to Day and Montgomery (1999), is the lack
of versatility of the traditional marketing mix framework in the face of changing market
conditions. To achieve sustainability outcomes, new marketing models are needed, but the
theoretical development of marketing research on sustainability is considered to be in its
infancy (Connelly, Ketchen, &Slater, 2011). These criticisms are addressed in the proposed
sustainability tourism marketing model, presented in the next section.
A decade ago, Buhalis argued that if tourism is to survive by generating satisfaction
among interacting tourists and hosts, it must adopt societal marketing strategies (2000,
p. 98). Buhalis sawa role for strategic marketing to achieve destination policies . . . to avoid
over-exploitation of local resources (2000, p. 114). Linked to sustainable tourisms notion
of operating within a destinations capacity constraints, the techniques of social marketing
and demarketing have been employed to engender more positive consumer awareness,
attitudes and behaviour and reduced demand. Social marketing is typically done by a non-
prot or government organisation to address a social problem (Kotler & Keller, 2006) by
changing public attitudes and behaviour and may involve de-marketing, through which
the task is to reduce or shift demand temporarily or permanently (Kotler, Brown, Adam,
Burton, & Armstrong, 2007). Dinan and Sargeant (2000) provide an insight into the role
that social marketing might play in achieving sustainable tourism. De-marketing as a tool
for sustainable tourism is discussed in Beeton and Beneld (2003).
Both social marketing and de-marketing are important techniques, but we argue that
tourism organisations seeking enhanced sustainability should focus on societal marketing
strategies, as called for by Buhalis (2000). In the proposed sustainability tourism marketing
model, we use the termsustainability in keeping with Belz and Peatties (2009) distinction
described between sustainable marketing and sustainability marketing; while the former
term can relate to long-lasting customer relationships without any particular reference to
sustainability issues, the latter explicitly relates to the sustainable development agenda.
The sustainability tourism marketing model
Holistic planning and strategic decision-making is the rst of four sustainable develop-
ment principles (WCED, 1987). Strategic planning assists organisations by making them
understand how they will compete in the future (Hamel & Prahalad, 1994). Through the
strategic planning process, value is created: value for consumers, value for the organisation
and, importantly, value for society at large (AMA, 2007). In terms of sustainable tourism,
this value should be created for tourists, the physical environment, the sociocultural envi-
ronment and the organisation or rm. The planning process occurs at a number of levels,
commencing with the vision and/or mission, which articulates how the organisation sees its
place in the future, its purpose and what it wants to accomplish in the larger environment
(Kotler et al., 2007, p. 80). These wants are then translated into goals and objectives. It
is critical that the sustainable tourism organisation addresses sustainability at this initial
level. The mission acts as an invisible hand that guides people in the organisation so they
can work independently and yet collectively toward overall organisational goals (Kotler
et al., 2007, p. 80). In co-produced tourism experiences, these people may include the
organisations employees, tourists and even the host community. Goals and objectives must
include aspirations stated in terms of sustainability indicators.
From the mission, planning cascades to the strategic level. Marketing strategy requires
the planning and coordination of marketing resources and the integration of the marketing
mix to achieve a desired result (Kotler et al., 2007, p. 79). It is ultimately the marketing
mix that produces value, or alternatively, harm. In a marketing framework designed to meet
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the needs of individual consumers, the organisation and society at large, the marketing
mix must be determined, taking into consideration each of these need sets. That is, the
marketing mix must aim to satisfy consumers, ensure the long-term nancial success of
the organisation and protect the physical and sociocultural environments. Marketing is
silent, however, on how this might be achieved, with contemporary frameworks, such as
the marketing mix, not addressing broader societal considerations. Given this gap, we
next propose an expanded conceptualisation of the marketing mix for the achievement of
sustainability tourism outcomes.
An expanded sustainability tourism marketing mix
The marketing mix represents the sellers view of the marketing tools available for in-
uencing buyers (Kotler & Keller, 2006, p. 19). The marketing mix not only determines
the demand for a business or destination (Weaver & Lawton, 2010) but also provides
the organisation with the opportunity to consider issues of sustainability in the light of
resource-allocation decisions. That is, each of the marketing mix elements is designed to
operationalise the organisations over-arching mission, and therefore, each can contribute
to increased sustainability. The notion of the marketing mix is attributable to Neil Borden,
who in his address to the AMA in 1953, drew on James Cullitons earlier idea of the
business executives role in combining different ingredients (Van Waterschoot & Van den
Bulte, 1992). Borden proposed six of these ingredients, but it was the four advanced by
McCarthy (1960), product, price, promotion and place, that proved popular until another
three elements were added by Booms and Bitner for Services Marketing contexts in 1981.
This adaptation of the original marketing mix for services has prompted others to determine
more specic marketing mix frameworks for specic service situations, such as tourism
marketing. Morrison (2009), for example, adds elements for the tourism context.
Morrisons (2009) marketing mix, consisting of eight elements, is a popular model for
tourism marketing. By taking a phenomenological approach, recognising the applicability
of Booms and Bitners (1981) marketing mix for service products and Morrisons (2009)
overlap with their People element, we identify 10 elements in the marketing mix for
tourism: product, price, promotion and place, proposed by McCarthy (1960); participants,
process and physical evidence, proposed by Booms and Bitner (1981); and partnership,
packaging and programming, proposed by Morrison (2009). Each of these 10 elements
may be cross-referenced against the triple bottom line of sustainable development to create
the STMM.
The resulting STMM provides a rather simple yet comprehensive sustainability-value-
creating checklist for decision-making. When marketing mix elements are cross-referenced
against the three sustainability principles, 30 cells are produced to highlight, question and
guide decision-making. Sustainability indicators might be determined for each of these
cells. On the basis of the UNWTOs (2004) principles of sustainable tourism, questions that
prompt the determination of sustainability indicators might be framed as follows:
Sociocultural: Howdoes our (marketing mix element) demonstrate respect for the socio-
cultural authenticity of host communities, conserve their built and living cultural
heritage and traditional values, and contribute to inter-cultural understanding and
tolerance?
Environmental: How does our (marketing mix element) make optimal use of envi-
ronmental resources, maintain essential ecological processes and help to conserve
natural heritage and biodiversity?
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Journal of Sustainable Tourism 961
Economic: How does our (marketing mix element) ensure our viable, long-term eco-
nomic operations; provide long-termsocioeconomic benets to all stakeholders that
are fairly distributed, including stable employment and income-earning opportuni-
ties and social services to host communities; and contribute to poverty alleviation?
Next, we briey describe the 10 elements of the mix and introduce examples of how
the STMM might be used to answer these questions in practice.
The expanded sustainability tourism marketing mix in practice
The concept of the marketing mix is the ideal checklist for examining what tourism organi-
sations currently do and how they might more appropriately meet increasing sustainability
demands. The elements of the marketing mix are captured in the core values of the organ-
isation, reecting the nature of its relationships with key stakeholders, such as suppliers,
consumers, employees, host communities and the environment. These relationships signal
the degree of the organisations sustainability orientation.
To provide a framework for sustainable tourism marketing, we apply the triple bot-
tom line of sustainable development to our expanded marketing mix. These conveniently
maintain the pneumonic consistency with extant marketing mix conceptualisations, but we
do not introduce them in an additive way; each is expected to cross-refer to each of our
marketing mix elements.
Product is anything that can be offered to a market to satisfy a want or need (Kotler
& Keller, 2006, p. 372). In tourism, the destination might be the product, made up of
private and public goods, or it might be the industry element, such as an attraction,
accommodation service or tour operator. The marketers level of control over the public
element of the product will more limited relative to the private element. Weaver and Lawton
(2010) suggest that the tourism manager will have little control over or responsibility for
untidy streets, unfriendly residents and inclement weather, for example, but the partnership
element of the marketing mix may provide an opportunity for reducing some of these
negative effects. That the host community may form part of the tourism product may
impose some obligation on the tourism manager to work to ensure its collaboration rather
than confrontation. While the weather is uncontrollable, both tourists (participants) and
local residents (People) may benet from collaborative efforts to improve the physical and
social environments.
Price is the money charged for the products consumption; it can inuence demand
and is therefore important in managing capacity use by helping to balance load and is
also a key positioning factor, inuencing how the product, or brand, is thought of by the
consumer relative to the competition (Kotler & Keller, 2006). While premium prices might
be attained by niche sustainable tourism products, price rarely captures the full cost of
the products negative externalities. Airlines, for example, invite passengers to voluntarily
offset the carbon produced by their travel by adding to the price of their original ticket, but
low subscription rates for such offset programmes (G ossling, Haglund, Kallgren, Revahl,
& Hultman, 2009) essentially mean that the cost to the physical environment is not paid
in full. Price-cutting in a ercely competitive marketplace by tour operators is also seen
as one threat to sustainable destination development (Curtin & Busby, 1999). Full-cost
accounting, which takes the externalities of travel and tourism into account, is not currently
practiced. As pricing decisions can only be made with a clear understanding of the value of
the service from the customers point of view (Booms & Bitner, 1980, p. 348), consumer
education will be an important complement to full-cost pricing.
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Promotion is the means by which rms attempt to inform, persuade, and remind
consumers directly or indirectly about the products and brands that they sell (Kotler
& Keller, 2006, p. 536). Marketing communications also represent the brands voice and
allow it to build relationships with customers (Kotler & Keller, 2006). Belz and Peattie
suggest a dual focus for sustainability marketing communications: to communicate with
the consumer about the sustainability solutions the company provides through its products,
and to communicate with the consumer and other stakeholders about the company as a
whole (2009, p. 180). A third focus, however, is the mode of promotion; while attention is
paid to reducing environmental and sociocultural impacts in some areas of the organisations
operations, the means by which this is communicated to key audiences, for example, via
lengthy, full-colour brochures, appears devoid of sustainability considerations.
Belz and Peattie (2009) note a recent increase in online communications and interactive
sales promotions, while growth in the use of social media is also assisting relationship-
building. Individual rms and destinations encouraging consumers to download brochures
to their portable media devices, at times stimulated by sales promotions, such as price dis-
counts on merchandise, demonstrate how relationships might be developed and ecological
footprints reduced using new media tools. Promotion is also a powerful means of educating
consumers about sustainability: a suitable communication strategy should support desti-
nation authorities to convey their message and promote environmentally friendly practices
locally (Buhalis, 2000, p. 114). Promotion might also be used to transform consumers
tourism buying decisions. VisitScotland, for example, seeks to promote greener forms of
transport, such as train travel, through its websites and marketing communications in an
effort to reduce the carbon footprint of Scotlands 75% of tourists arriving by a car or plane
(Lane, 2009).
Place, formally marketing channels, is the range of independent organizations
involved in the process of making a product or service available for use or consumption
(Kotler & Keller, 2006, p. 468). In the context of tourism, these organisations add value
along the value chain from origin to destination and include the rms and organisations
that make up the industry element of Liepers (1979) tourism system, such as destination
marketing organisations, retail travel agencies, tour wholesalers, transportation providers,
accommodation providers and attractions. As noted already, these organisations might, in
producing consumer value, also add ecological or sociocultural harm. Encouraging alterna-
tive modes of transportation to access and/or move about within a destination might reduce
tourists overall ecological footprint. Lower-impact forms of transport, such as walking,
barging, sailing, cycling and local bus/train, might also help to sustain local communities
and their economies. Insights into tourist reactions to lower-impact transportation to a resort
destination, for example, are provided by Reilly, Williams, and Haider (2010). The new
concept of Slow Travel could also be an important consideration (Lumsdon & McGrath,
2011).
Owing to the distinctly different challenges that marketers of service products face
compared with goods products, Booms and Bitner (1980) introduced three additional
elements to the marketing mix: participants, physical evidence and process.
Participants includes all human actors who play a part in service delivery and thus inu-
ence the buyers perceptions: namely the rms personnel, the customer, and other customers
in the service environment (Zeithaml, Bitner, & Gremler, 2006, p. 26), highlighting the
role of human resource management and the notion of the customer mix as key ingredients
in the service offering. The concept of the customer mix, important for managing service
performance outcomes for different consumers with varying needs and wants who are si-
multaneously present in a service delivery environment, such as a hotel or destination, is
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Journal of Sustainable Tourism 963
further addressed by Langeard, Bateson, Lovelock, and Eigliers (1981) Servuction Model.
The view of customers as co-producers of the tourism service (Booms & Bitner, 1981)
highlights the need for tourism consumers, as with employees, to be carefully selected,
educated and managed. Marketing traditionally undertakes these customer-management
roles through targeting appropriate consumer segments and communicating the organisa-
tions expectations through various marketing communications techniques. Although the
term People is now commonly used in Services Marketing literatures, we prefer to use
Booms and Bitners (1981) original term, Participants, in order to distinguish customers
and employees from the oft-used People to refer to the broader communities, or society at
large, of the triple bottom line.
Physical evidence consists of the environment in which the service is delivered and
where the rm and customer interact, and any tangible components that facilitate perfor-
mance or communication of the service (Zeithaml et al., 2006, p. 27). The important role of
this element on both employees and consumers is highlighted in the concept of the service-
scape. Servicescapes serve multiple functions, including providing ease for employees and
customers to move within, deliver and consume the service performance efciently, re-
spectively, and importantly to communicate with customers. In terms of sustainability, this
communication might involve the organisations sustainability values, policies and proce-
dures and what is expected of the customer, particularly as a co-producer of the service
experience. Physical evidence in the tourismcontext is important at both the individual rm
level and at the broader destination level, where the tourist gaze (Urry, 1992) processes the
sensory stimuli thrown up by what Hummon calls extraordinary tourist worlds (1988,
p. 181). Buhalis argues: the sustainability of local resources becomes one of the most im-
portant elements of destination image, as a growing section of the market is not prepared to
tolerate over-developed tourism destinations and diverts to more environmentally advanced
regions (2000, p. 101).
Process describes how the service is assembled, the actual procedures, mechanisms,
and ow of activities by which the service is delivered the service delivery and operating
systems (Zeithaml et al., 2006, p. 27). In the tourism context, process might describe
such activities as follows: a move away from paper-based to digital booking and account
management systems; production of alternative energy forms, such as solar or wind; man-
agement of the supply chain for food and beverages, and labour; the use of low-carbon
emission transportation modes, such as hybrid- or electric-engine vehicles, for moving vis-
itors to, within and from a destination; and having effective use-minimisation and recycling
systems in place, particularly in environmentally precarious locations, such as islands, na-
tional parks and protected areas. Key-activated lighting systems for accommodation and
sensor-activated public-area lighting systems can force energy reduction processes, while
signs to encourage consumers to reduce their environmental footprint by, for example,
reusing bathroom linen or minimising water usage apply a social marketing approach that
encourages behaviour change for a positive societal benet (see Bohdanowicz, Zientara, &
Novotna, 2011).
Consideration of the origin of the tangible inputs that make up the tourism experi-
ence for the consumer can go a long way to foster ecological, sociocultural and long-term
economic sustainability. Sourcing foods, beverages and other merchandise, such as sou-
venirs, from proximate rather than distant suppliers, similar to the food miles concept,
will not only reduce transportation costs and negative externalities but also build collab-
orative social capital and economic capacity with suppliers in the local community. Sup-
plying local produce and merchandise might also enhance the authenticity of the tourists
experience, thereby adding value and satisfaction. Process might be thought of as the
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964 A. Pomering et al.
glue that binds sustainable tourism together, as it speaks to how the tourism product is
produced.
With a particular focus on tourismservices, Morrison (2009) has added three additional
elements to the marketing mix: packaging, programming and partnership.
Packaging describes the combination of related and complementary hospitality and
travel services into a single-price offering (Morrison, 2009, p. 392). Bundling travel and
tourism services, such as transportation, accommodation, meals and tours, into packages
permits the tourism marketer to offer price and convenience benets to consumers, and,
importantly, differentiate the market offering fromthose of competitors, and more efciently
manage demand and capacity use. Through packaging, an organisation may collaborate with
like-minded sustainability-oriented others, enhancing credibility and image and creating
triple bottom line benets.
Programming involves developing special activities, events, or programs to increase
customer spending or give added appeal to a package or other hospitality/travel service
(Morrison, 2009, p. 392). Special events not only provide opportunities for enhancing
tourism appeal but may also bring sustainability challenges, such as waste management
and local community resentment, if the tourism load created exceeds the available carrying
capacity. McCool and Lime (2001) provide a thoughtful discussion of the carrying capacity
concept. Programming, often tied in with packaging, can serve to even out the tourism
demand curve, helping to overcome the resource-need uncertainty caused by seasonality,
providing more certainty to suppliers, including employees.
Partnership refers to cooperative promotions and other cooperative marketing efforts
by hospitality and travel organizations (Morrison, 2009, p. 352). Partnership is essential
not only to the success of packaging and programming efforts but also to achieving a
whole-systems approach to dealing with tourisms unwanted ecological and sociocultural
footprints. Partnership can be used to ensure that sustainability reverberates along the en-
tire tourism value chain. Selin (1999) provides a discussion of how, within a United States
context, partnerships can contribute to sustainable tourism development, while Buhalis
(2000) and Bastakis, Buhalis, and Butler (2004) have highlighted how the tour oper-
ator sector, due to its considerable power in tourism supply channels, might at times
breach the sense of partnership to drive costs to economically unsustainable levels for
destinations.
Together, these marketing mix ingredients succinctly reect what the tourism marketer
can manage in order to differentiate the market offering and achieve the desired brand
positioning. But, importantly, these elements also assist the management of sustainability
outcomes across the tourism organisations range of operations, as represented by the cells
of the STMM. For each cell, which highlights the interaction between the organisations
activity areas and sustainabilitys triple bottomline, indicators can be determined, objectives
developed, strategies and tactics rolled out and performance measured.
Different tourism contexts may promote different specic questions to be answered and
different indicators to be used within the STMMs cells. A destination area, for example,
may emphasise different operational dimensions to those of a transport provider. Prescribing
answers to all of these questions here is beyond the scope of this paper. Examples of best
practice indicators in these marketing mix matrix interactions might be identied in case
studies within the literature, or current industry leader practices. We argue that few if
any tourism organisations currently consider all 30 of the opportunities for checking their
sustainability performance provided within the STMM. The STMMtherefore offers tourism
managers a useful planning tool for raising sustainability consciousness and systematically
driving improved sustainability performance.
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Journal of Sustainable Tourism 965
Tourism marketing is a cooperative activity, as consumers rarely use just one brand
in consuming the overall tourism experience. Packaging permits different products and
brands to be combined synergistically to deliver clear and superior benets, or, a whole
that is greater than the sum of its parts. Alliances, or partnerships, are needed in optimally
bundling different brands ingredients, and these are often combined in ways and at times
to efciently manage demand and capacity usage. Programming and packaging at times
of low demand will not only help deal with the perishability characteristic of tourism ser-
vice products that is so important to nancial management but also allow uneven tourist
loads to be spread more consistently. A more even load will reduce the problems of over-
and under-capacity, for example, creating greater certainty for tourisms part-time work-
force. Packaging, programming and partnerships can help tourism organisations optimise
protable inventory and sustainability management.
Discussion
On the demand side, consumers expect rms to be more socially and environmen-
tally responsible (Maignan, 2001) and want organisations to inform them of their pro-
social initiatives, reporting that this information will inuence their purchase behaviour
(Dawkins, 2004). Hansen and Schrader (1997) call this consumer responsibility. However,
an attitudebehaviour gap is common in consumers actual purchase behaviour (Sen &
Bhattacharya, 2001). In corporate social responsibility research, Sen and Bhattacharya
(2001) nd that consumers are more likely to respond to rms pro-social initiatives if they
identify with those social issues. Andereck (2009) reports a similar closed loop effect in
that tourists with a stronger nature orientation have more positive views of supply-side envi-
ronmentally responsible practices by tourism businesses than less nature-oriented tourists.
While such ndings are encouraging, they suggest that consumer predisposition towards
sustainability is a necessary prerequisite for the responsible action described by Hansen
and Schrader (1997).
This closed loop is, however, far from straightforward. McDonald and Oates (2006)
found that consumers who displayed a strong sustainability orientation across a range
of behaviours were weak in one consumption activity area, which included international
ight-based travel. Insight into this paradox is provided by a study of Swedish air travellers
take-up of an airlines voluntary carbon-offset opportunity. G ossling et al. (2009) found that
only around 8% of those who knew about voluntary carbon offsets actually compensated
their ights by purchasing the airlines carbon-offset offer, around 25% of those surveyed.
In the same study, only one-third of respondents felt any personal responsibility for the
emissions caused by their travel, with the majority attributing responsibility to the aircraft
manufacturer and the airline. Such results suggest that, short of global agreements that
structurally force changes in tourist behaviour, the transformational consumer behaviour
that sustainable tourism calls for will need to be driven by the supply side. Paraphrasing
Mahatma Ghandi, tourism organisations will need to be the change they want to see in the
world. Our STMM is proposed for this purpose.
If a business concept is to be of use for scholars and practitioners, it must be
t-for-purpose. A marketing denition should strengthen marketings organisational role
(Gr onroos, 2006), and it should reect changes in the environment (Cooke et al., 1992).
The AMAs (2007) incorporation of society-at-large into marketings denition is a step
in this direction, but conceptual frameworks need to keep in step. We argue that the sus-
tainability tourism marketing model developed here, which cascades into the expanded
STMM, is a holistic approach suited to this task. It assists tourism managers to develop a
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966 A. Pomering et al.
societal marketing orientation that caters for the needs, wants and interests of target tourist
markets but simultaneously meets the needs for society-at-large: environmental integrity,
social equity and economic prosperity. We do this by reviewing the strategic marketing
planning process for achieving sustainability; by expanding the conceptualisation of the
tourism marketing mix; and by combining this marketing mix with the ecological, societal
and economic facets of sustainable development. In doing so, we develop a model for
sustainable tourism that looks beyond destination borders and accepts tourisms role as a
part of a complex system (Farrell & Twining-Ward, 2004). In doing so, we strengthen the
contemporary understanding of marketing.
The purpose of this paper was to conceptually develop a framework for developing
sustainability outcomes for all forms of tourism through the lens of marketing. We have
proposed the sustainability tourism marketing model and STMM to this end. We acknowl-
edge Lius criticism that alternative forms of tourism cannot offer a realistic general model
for tourism development (2003, p. 471). We have therefore proposed a framework that
allows sustainability to be recast from an alternative form of tourism to one that might
easily be applied by all tourism organisations, with adjustments in the marketing mix el-
ements, for context, regardless of scale. It is beyond the scope of this paper to present a
fuller spectrum of such contexts; it is argued instead that what we have provided here will
provide the scaffolding for myriad applications.
If tourism is to be managed for greater sustainability outcomes, an organisations
marketing mix, which operationalises the organisations strategic planning process, will
provide a comprehensive picture of what is to be managed, and sustainability indicators
can provide guidance on how. Future research might use the framework proposed here to
test the completeness and robustness of claimed sustainable tourism management, across
the tourism value chain. From such studies, all stakeholders might gain a truer picture of
different tourism organisations whole-systems sustainability credentials, regardless of the
scale of the tourism operation.
Research is now in progress to nd out how to operationalise the matrix. Although
tourism organisations may wish to pursue more sustainable outcomes across their decision
areas and operating activities, reected in the elements of the marketing mix presented
above, the prospect of completing a 30-cell matrix of marketing mix elementtriple bottom
line domain interactions might appear to be a daunting task. Further, the questions that
need to be asked in each of the matrixs cells, and the indicators that subsequently need
to be identied or developed, may confront the organisation with uncomfortable realities,
avoided up until that point. Sustainability initiatives that have concentrated on limited
environmental impacts, such as energy or water consumption, may have delivered immediate
and measurable benets that conspicuously went straight to the bottom line as cost savings.
Not all of the matrixs interactions will prove as responsive or deliver such obvious short-
term benets to the organisation and/or environment and sociocultural concerns. Small
tourism organisations and rms may lack the expertise to measure their environment and
sociocultural impacts, and to determine how alternative approaches to the marketing mix
may actually lead to greater protability over the long-term.
Larger organisations may also struggle with the need for the sustainability-driven busi-
ness to have just as clear a focus on achieving more sustainable outcomes and impacts as
it does now achieving any of its other more traditional metrics, such as customer satisfac-
tion, sales or prots. To do this, so that a sustainability focus might cascade through to
marketing mix decision-making, sustainability must be written into all layers of planning.
An organisation wishing to implement this model must address sustainability at the vision
and/or mission and strategic goal and objective-setting levels. Without this focus, attempts
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Journal of Sustainable Tourism 967
to deliver sustainability outcomes through the marketing mix elements may appear dis-
cordant and hollow and leave the organisation open to accusations of greenwashing. Such
wholesale changes to existing business models, and the organisational culture that is pro-
voked by these models, will not be achieved without the commitment of top management,
and, in turn, all organisation members. The current research to operationalise the STMM
is confronting and working through such challenges.
Notes on contributors
Dr Alan Pomering lectures in marketing in the School of Management and Marketing within the
Faculty of Commerce at the University of Wollongong, Australia. He is also a Co-Director of the
Schools Centre for Research in Socially Responsible Marketing.
Dr Gary Noble lectures in marketing in the School of Management and Marketing within the Faculty
of Commerce at the University of Wollongong, Australia. He is also a Co-Director of the Schools
Centre for Research in Socially Responsible Marketing.
Professor Lester W. Johnson lectures in management/marketing in the Melbourne Business School of
the University of Melbourne, Australia. He is also an Associate Member of the Centre for Research
in Socially Responsible Marketing at the University of Wollongong.
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