Testing of the Model of Creating a Specialized Tourist Product for Post-COVID Time

Abstract

Specialized tourists offer in the post covid time is an important reason in choosing the destination to travel to. A new perception of this offer puts new challenges to those who design such offers. Most specialized offers are the result of entrepreneurial initiative and intuition. Authors have dealt with the creation of such offers as an important destination concurrent factor in their own cross-border cooperation. Based on their findings, they have developed a model of creating specialized tourism products for post covid time by linking core, additional, and expanded contents with brand creation and the marketing strategy. In this paper authors continue their research by testing that model through two platforms: desk research of the latest cognitions related to the repercussions of Covid-19 on tourist mind, and on a convenient sample of connoisseurs. The testing of the model is connected with one case study in which authors cooperate in practice. The findings have been tested through a survey on a sample of experts (representatives of travel agencies) related to their experiences in sales for 2020 and 2021.They have also found important changes in tourist perception of specialized tourist product. The findings offer the answers as to why the basic contents of the specialized tourist offer is no longer sufficient, as well as a way for developing additional and expanded contents, on which the brand and brand management activities in the post corona period should be primarily based, i.e. on what to base the marketing strategies in the post covid time.

Customers’ Perception of the Risks Associated with the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Romanian Hospitality Industry

“…During the pandemic, the hospitality industry also made much use of the increased interest in online food delivery (Leung and Cai, 2021;Šerić et al, 2021) aiming for a certain level of performance, trust and social influence. In this case, the visual appeal, informative nature of the menu, consumer desire for food and convenience provided by online ordering indirectly influenced consumers' purchase intentions, despite their perceived risk.…”

“…In the restaurant industry, the pandemic has encouraged a preference for dining, restaurant and private rooms (Šerić et al, 2021). The pandemic has caused an increase in the amount of food ordered and a higher consumer tolerance for food waste (Šerić et al, 2021;Sharma et al, 2021). Consumers are no longer concerned about food waste resulting from increased use of food delivery apps.…”

“…Consumers are no longer concerned about food waste resulting from increased use of food delivery apps. Some papers have addressed technological innovations (Ene and Bojescu, 2020) in hotels (Kim and Lee, 2020;Šerić et al, 2021). The results indicate that in the wake of the pandemic, consumer preference tends towards robot-staffed service at the expense of human-staffed service.…”

“…Shin and Kang also associate reduced human interaction with technological innovation (e.g., mobile or kiosk check-in systems and robot cleaning systems) with increased booking intentions (Shin and Kang, 2020). At the same time, the importance of self-service technology as a factor in customers' perception of hotel safety has also been highlighted (Atadil and Lu, 2021;Šerić et al, 2021). Other factors mentioned are medical training, hygiene control and health communication.…”

Family businesses in tourism – the use of digital technologies in times of uncertainty and crisis

“…As the practice of providing online tourist services becomes more popular around the world, so does “digital tourism” in Montenegro. To be more specific, all planned activities in the global tourism market are aimed at developing new tourism services and products (Šerić et al. , 2021) through the use of digital technologies.…”