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CHAPTER II. SITUATION ANALYSIS |
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To better manage the resources of the park, it is useful for park managers to understand external and internal situations, including the visitors, market environment, the park’s own capabilities, and partners. If you want to predict what types of activities and attractions may draw visitors, a good starting point is to find out who the most receptive visitors to your park are, and what they want from visiting your park. |
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| A. Park Visitors | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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As a preliminary step to developing an
effective marketing plan, you should identify existing and potential visitors to
your park. This is the process of identifying your target markets.
A target market refers to a set of visitors sharing common needs or characteristics that the park decides to serve. You should find
specific segments of people that will be most receptive to your particular
product (which are the experiences your park provides) and who coincide with
your vision and mission statements. Good target market selection creates an optimum environment for successful marketing campaigns. There are several essential characteristics that you should include in order to identify your target markets. These include socio-demographic and psychographic features. |
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| 1. Socio-demographics of target markets | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The easiest way to begin identifying target markets is to look at those visitors your park already receives in terms of their socio-demographic characteristics. Socio-demographics are a way to describe characteristics of people. Frequently used demographic features are gender, age, race/ethnicity, income, education, family size, and occupation. Visitors are not all the same, and you can use these differences to your advantage. You may identify your target market by asking yourself “who is the most important group of people that our park can successfully serve?” | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| For instance, there might be conflicting opinions or interests between different recreation groups (e.g., hikers, bikers, and climbers). You should choose specific groups that you can successfully serve. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| One way to better understand target markets is to identify both the attributes of your current visitors and the attributes of the visitors you desire for your park. Please consider the current breakdown of your visitors for each variable, and the breakdown for each that you desire. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Note: If you do not have specific information regarding your target markets, you can brainstorm with your staff to make a more educated guess about them. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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2. Psychographics of target markets |
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Psychographics refer to psychological characteristics of visitors. While socio-demographics reflect the surface descriptors of visitors, psychographics allow a substantially deeper grasp of the visitors’ psychological make up. Psychographics provide additional information above and beyond the demographic profile. That is, the analysis of visitor psychographics tends to provide a richer understanding of your target markets. Psychographic characteristics include attitudes, lifestyles, benefits, and motivations. As a park manager, it is beneficial to analyze the current psychographics of your visitors, and the psychographics that you desire from your visitors. |
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Using the
examples above as a guide, please complete worksheet 6 at the end of this
guidebook. |
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