Pricing and positioning in the tourism industry : case studies of two small travel operators

Tourism plays a major role in the world economy and is expected to become even more important in the years to come. According to the European Union Conference, Agenda 2010,1998, in European tourism small and medium-sized enterprises account for 90 percent of all businesses and more than 94 percent of them are micro operators employing less than ten individuals. The purpose of this bachelor’s thesis is to study how small travel operators are pricing their products, and if there is there any connection between pricing and positioning and if that is the case how the two marketing activities effect each other. In order to achieve this purpose, case studies of two small travel operators were carried out. The required data was gathered through interviews over the telephone. The outcome of this thesis shows that pricing is mostly done based on the non-formal practises, and that there are a connection between positioning and pricing in many aspects. The study also found that smaller travel operators are aware of these connections, but they do not use the knowledge in any scientific way. Instead they use their accumulated experience and are pricing their products according to the upper limit set by the price insensitivity, which varies for each segment.Validerat; 20101217 (root