Linking creative tourism products to markets: target marketing, promotion, commercialization, and market readiness.

Abstract This chapter presents a tourism industry perspective about key aspects of market thinking and provides tips and strategies for building a strategic marketing plan for a creative tourism initiative. The visitor profile is examined, not so much as demographic or psychographic (i.e. not what they are, which is explored earlier in this book), but to provide a collection of tools to pinpoint where they are. Market segmentation, the product/market match, and product evolution and lifecycle are then explored. Building on this, four strategies to build business opportunities through partnerships and networks are outlined. Next, key elements of the structure and requirements of the major marketing elements of the tourism industry are discussed, including the issue of market readiness and pricing structures. Bringing these elements together, the chapter closes with guidance about market planning.