Segmentation Process For Orangutan Foundation Volunteer Tourism

Geographic Profile

Question:

Develop a segmentation, targeting and positioning (STP) plan targeting the Australian tourist market which the Orangutan Foundation could use to know to which Australian tourists to promote its conservation strategy.

There are various factors that the Orangutan Foundation of volunteer Tourism must focus on before proceeding with their segmentation process like demographic profile, geographic profile, psychographic profile and the behavioral profile. From the literature review discussed above, the foundation can focus on all the four different categories (Lovelock, 2011):

Geographic: While targeting using the geographic profile, the foundation need to focus on the Australian Urban Areas that are highly populated like Queensland, Victoria or NSW. This is densely populated area and has the greater access to transportation, infrastructure and mobility. However if the organization focuses on the geographic area this restricts the other people especially the foreign people or other region people to participate in. This limits the scope of volunteerism.

Demographic: Demographically the foundation can focus on two different segments one is the young people of age 18-34 and another segment is the mature segment of age 50 years and above.

Psychographic: This approach can be used to target those people who value environment and focuses on saving the natural environment and also conserve the animal kingdom. This approach requires taking conservative steps towards rehabilitating and protecting the lives of Orangutans and forest which is their habitat. This approach would encourage the likeminded people and the environmentalist to participate in volunteerism.

Behavioral: In this approach the foundation can focus on the school leavers who are seeking opportunities for leisure and adventurism to strengthen their career. Various studies show that the volunteerism is not just limited to volunteering nor pure tourism instead it is a mixture of both the types that supports to strengthen the relationship between leisure and work.

Discussing all the profiles, it is suggested that the foundation can focus on combination of demographic, psychographic and behavioral profiles. Based on three profiles, the Orangutans Foundation can divide the overall market of volunteer tourism in two different types one is the young segment of age 18-34 who are either studying in colleges or universities or school leavers and next is the mature segment who are retired people or on the verge of retiring that of age 50years who are very much interested towards conserving the environment and the lives of orangutans for career development (McGehee, 2014).

They can encourage the participants to take part in this volunteer tourism based on three factors one is the age, another is their travelling experience and lastly the motivational factors as shown below:

Target market	Age range	Travel experience	Motivation factors
Young volunteers interested in animal world or are school leavers to boost their career	18-34 years	0 to 2 international trips in wildlife sanctuaries in 1 year	communication with people develop attitude, skills and  Knowledge, Fun Developing Career or add experience
Mature volunteers	50 years and above	Atleast 4 international visits in last 1years	Supporting the foundation Contributing to the community For experiencing new cultures (Pegg, Patterson and Matsumoto, 2012)

The orangutans must focus the market from the perspective of marketers. The main motive of the organization should be to save the orangutans life and encourage the participants to improve their career and also have fun. The recent data shows that the young market segment in the volunteerism is the fast growing market in the tourism industry and also gives various scopes and opportunities for growing in future. Generally the young people are too much involved with the recreation programs and the sporting activities. However there are few young customers who are interested towards distinguishing themselves through participating in social and environmental changes. If seen from the perspective of individual level, the youngsters have the opportunity for utilizing their present skills and also develop new skills.

Demographic Profile

Recent surveys have shown that the young people of age 15-24 have responded that the volunteerism gives personal benefits like improving communication skills. Interpersonal skills, office or technical skills, managerial and organizational skills and also increase knowledge. Further advantages of targeting this segment is that it gives opportunities to link the behavior of the youngsters with the volunteering activities like the giving money, helping others and charitable (dosomething-a.akamaihd.net, 2012). However, there exist few barriers in selecting this segment. There is less chances of receiving repeat customers from this segment, as they young people are more interested towards sports and recreational activities. Further, lack of proper experience or skills, limited fund, inability of the organization to work with the young segments like they may not have proper insurance cover, less exciting opportunities and immature behavior of the young volunteers are some of the barriers of targeting this segment (Dss.gov.au, 2003).

Correspondingly, choosing the mature segment also involves few advantages and disadvantages. This segment has a high stability as they are not much fluctuating towards their interest unlike the young consumer segment. Therefore, this makes the segment as an income source for the organization as they focus on only tourism activity with one purpose like either relaxing, having fun or with the motive to support the community. Further, the older people posses more professional skills and knowledge than the younger ones. This makes the foundation to find the repeat customers from this segment (Hoffman, 2013). Older adults generally show a high desire for staying active and giving something in return to the community whether they are able to donate their money and time or not. This reports substantial improvement towards the community. They feel that volunteerism gives them the opportunity to improve their level of satisfaction towards their life, their mental health, decreasing the severity and occurrence of physical disabilities. However the major disadvantages involve issues of finding the right position that is suited for their abilities and needs due to their growing age. Further, there is lack of competence to list the requirements and needs of the older volunteers. Also there exist some restrictions related to age in tourism industry. The foundation cannot conduct various activities that might be significant for the conservation of forest for orangutans due to age limitation.

Targeting on is the second criteria keeping in mind the end goal to create their suitable customer base which would be developed by the foundation to advance their products & benefits in the context of organization. Keeping in mind the end goal to settle on choice with respect to which specific customer segment to be served by Orangutans foundation first it is essential that vision and objectives of the organization should to be assessed and these should be in close congruity with the market segment chose by the foundation(Prayag, 2007).

Researching the few preferences and impediments for the two segments characterized in the market for Orangutans foundation for volunteer tourism it has been chosen that foundation would cater to both the segments with their special product offering for every customer segment. Technique received by the foundation for catering to both the segments would be differentiated marketing strategy wherein based on the segments of customer that is present in the market there would be special product or services planned by the foundation so as to satisfy the needs of their customer base. While settling on choice for catering both the customer segments in the market sector Orangutans needs to guarantee that they have sufficient measure of assets and ability to cater to both these segments without influencing overall profitability of the foundation. Further while outlining techniques so as to cater both the customer segments Orangutans should separate two customer segments and plan for product & services that should to be carried out as per the separated peculiarities of the two market sector segments displayed in the foundation. Composed tour packages for the two segments should to be assessed for satisfying customers need.

Psychographic Profile

The primary customer segment for the foundation would be young volunteers because of quick development and expanding number of young populace being pulled in towards the volunteer tourism exercises in Australia. This would give high development chances to Orangutans alongside desires for long term relationship of these purchasers relying on the sort of experience these customers have acquired from their first visit to the volunteer travelling spots. To focus on the young volunteer tourism customers the whole service package would be composed in such a path, to the point that customers can get a decent experience from the visit so they are additionally eager to desire next time. Further the detailed information would be given to this customer segment in regards to need of preservation for the natural life with the goal that they stay connected with the endeavors of natural life conservation. Further alongside this visit to orangutans service packages for these customers would likewise incorporate visit to the adjacent spots wherein these purchasers can meander about and have a great time experience. This would give these purchasers feeling of fun and agreeable excursion not simply an outing for the protection of wild life. Further keeping in mind the end goal to catch this portion of customers’ segment tourism packages should to be composed so that young customers can go in gathering of 4-5 individuals so they can have a great time filled experience on the volunteer visit made in Vietnam (Larson and Poudyal, 2012).

With a specific end goal to tap the second segment exhibit in the market which is essentially comprised of the mature volunteer vacationers Orangutans need to receive special system for outlining the travel package by remembering necessity for these set of customers. These customers would be ready to go on trek to make a decent experience and need give back to society for their self actualization needs. To focus on this portion of customers it is vital that tour package should to be planned such that they satisfy needs of mature customers by meeting their goals for visit, for example, to create bonding with their families and to interface with other individuals going alongside them imparting common interest (Khan, 2013). Consequently, their visit to the forests of orangutans it should to be taken care that travelers can have abundant chances to connect with one another and can achieve their objective of helping towards society by profiting nearby groups in the trip by financial or preservation implies. Further it should to be taken care that exercises and span of visit should to be arranged by age of these purchasers to create a glad experience for these customers on outing.

Positioning the tourism services of Orangutans Foundation, there is a need to attract the customers and create a brand personality that would help the organization to grow ahead in future. The positioning plan for the Orangutans Foundation services need to focus on three different elements which include brand personality, emotive expression and the destination or business attributes. The brand personalities that can be attached with the services of the foundation are the fun, spirited, affable and proud. These factors would encourage the customers to give something back to their own community and broaden the conservation and economic help (Pike, 2012). The Orangutans foundation need to develop the positioning based on low-cost travelling that would help both the young and the mature volunteers to take part without much thinking of funds. Involving the low-cost travelling agencies would help the foundation to benefit the local community and also conserve the orangutans.

Then the emotive expression that can be attached with the services of the foundation can include delight feeling, supporting the local community, sharing same interests and thoughts and also creating a strong bond with the people of different cultures in the society. Young volunteers may get a feel that it is an opportunity to distinguish themselves from others tourists and also boost their career. Both the segments the young and the mature volunteer s would have the feeling of fun in the volunteer activities by gaining new experience (Paharia, Avery and Keinan, 2014).

Lastly, the main attributes that are linked with the volunteer tourism may include charity by supporting the community and distinguishing themselves from the normal tourists who come only for fun and here both fun and learning.  Both the mature and the young volunteer who are mainly looking for having fun through supporting the community, helping the orangutans, conserving the natural environment from this tour would be some of the motives of both these segments.

References

dosomething-a.akamaihd.net, (2012). YOUNG PEOPLE AND VOLUNTEERING.

Dss.gov.au, (2003). Passions, People and Appreciation: Making Volunteering Work for Young People | Australian Government Department of Social Services.

Hoffman, L. (2013). Increasing Volunteerism Among Older Adults: Benefits and Strategies for States. 

Khan, T. (2013). STP strategy for New Product Launch-a Work in Progress. International Journal of Business and Management Invention, 2(3), pp.56-64.

Larson, L. and Poudyal, N. (2012). Developing sustainable tourism through adaptive resource management: a case study of Machu Picchu, Peru. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 20(7), pp.917-938.

Lovelock, C. (2011). Services marketing. 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall.

McGehee, N. (2014). Volunteer tourism: evolution, issues and futures. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 22(6), pp.847-854.

Paharia, N., Avery, J. and Keinan, A. (2014). Positioning Brands Against Large Competitors to Increase Sales. Journal of Marketing Research, 51(6), pp.647-656.

Pegg, S., Patterson, I. and Matsumoto, Y. (2012). Understanding the Motivations of Volunteers Engaged in an Alternative Tourism Experience in Northern Australia. Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management, 21(7), pp.800-820.

Pike, S. (2012). Destination positioning opportunities using personal values: Elicited through the Repertory Test with Laddering Analysis. Tourism Management, 33(1), pp.100-107.

Prayag, G. (2007). Exploring the Relationship between Destination Image and personality of a Tourist Destination. Journal of Travel and Tourism Research, pp.111-126.

Wearing, S. and McGehee, N. (2013). Volunteer tourism: A review. Tourism Management, 38, pp.120-130.