Latent Tourists - A New Travel Segment
This is an exciting thing to know if you are in the travel and tourism sector. And it has the potential to be huge once you realize the full meaning of this. Huge, as in you will look from a very fresh angle how you can put travelers in their appropriate boxes. And the destinations managers can effectively prioritize the development components of their destinations and implement cost-effective marketing programs.
Is Latent Tourist or Travel Market Really New?
First things first, I made some indepth online research on the terminology, “Latent Market” and came up with zero returns that fit the meaning of the word. I even asked chatgpt-4 and it said that I might be the one who coined the concept. Ey, it’s a good flex! But somebody else has to write an official paper and take the journal credit. Here, we’ll discover the meaning of the term so that destination stakeholders can better plan their tourism industry.
What is LATENT TOURIST MARKET?
Before we hinge tourism with this, let us be clear first on the meaning of “Latent”
"Latent" refers to something that is hidden or not currently visible, but has the potential to become active or visible in the future.
"Latent" can mean that something is waiting for the right conditions to become active or visible. So, just like a seed that is latent in the ground until it receives enough water and sunlight to sprout, something latent is ready to come out when the necessary conditions are met.
Now, imagine that the seed is the tourist who is ready to travel to his chosen destination and just waiting for the missing requirement for him to take off. It could be in the form of money, approved vacation, OR the long-awaited flight to his destination. That is the latent market.
Is it not the same as the Potential Travel Market?
The answer is a big NO. A potential travel market, on a per unit or per person scale is somebody who has not yet made up his mind to travel to a particular destination. It will still take some convincing for him to be aware and hopefully decide to travel. A potential market is usually identified through his location and particular interest that could be matched by the destination trying to attract him (e.g. will offer golf course to golfers) so that the destination would be chosen over other possible candidates.
On the other hand, latent tourist have already made up their minds to visit their target destinations and just waiting for that “signal” for them to take off. An Example would be the ones who have plans already to go to Japan once the visa requirement is eased.
How can the travel and tourism industry look at latent tourists from a very fresh perspective?
The first people who can definitely benefit from this “new” concept would be the ones in the academe. Because the concept is not yet mainstream, this will be a very good research paper topic that can contribute to the general knowledge that is often the requirement for a thesis or journal.
But seriously, the concept is not really that new. It has been practiced in the past albeit not identifying the real character of that market (almost always, the potential markets from target source countries or regions had been mis-identified).
The concept is valuable to the travel and transportation industry because it helps destination managers and businesses identify opportunities for growth by targeting and addressing the needs of this market segment. By understanding the factors that keep these potential travelers from taking trips, businesses can create tailored marketing strategies, design new products or services, or implement policies to encourage this group to travel.
If the latent market had been identified early in the destination or marketing planning stages, huge amounts of opportunities would be realized in the shortest amount of time. People who reach out to try and convince different markets would not have to go jumping around trying to reach their target numbers. Or development efforts and investments would not be wasted in other market segments and sources that will still have to be convinced and would take time for them to start going to the destination.
What are the examples of Latent Tourist Markets?
I can give some very clear examples how the latent market made tourism literally took off when the needed improvements were introduced.
When the Mactan International AIrport and the vastly improved seaport along with the introduction of fast crafts were made in the late 1980’s to early 1990’s, tourism surged in both Cebu and Bohol provinces.
Domestic tourism used to be irrelevant in terms of volume, movements and contribution. But when peace and order improved, coupled with the introduction of holiday economics in the mid 1990’s was introduced, the domestic market started bubbling and created the initial high volume demands to travel to weekend destinations.
When the low cost carriers became mainstream at almost the same time when the holiday economics was introduced, the domestic market consistently made steep inclines reaching more than 50 million movements and spreading almost one TRILLION pesos before the pandemic happened.
What Lessons can we Learn from the Latent Tourist Market?
It seems that the major consideration for the latent tourist market to make frenzied move is to ensure that access is now possible. Of course, that should also mean reliable and convenient travel experience. That would mean airports, flights, ports and good roads in terms of infrastructure investment. Increased disposable time would also be a bigger incentive to finally travel. Then peace and the presence of facilities, services and amenities would come in next.
How can we tap the Latent Tourist Market?
Of course, the first one would be to study first the markets. Back in the early ‘90s, nobody knew how potent the Philippine domestic travel market was. The economy was in shambles, there were hardly any facilities in many destinations, and the service providers were very few. Little did we know that it would become a trillion-peso market within a little more than two decades. There was a time that the island of Mindanao was beset by negative issues that tourism was always a marginal thing because many were concerned with security issues. Then the Mindanao folks realized that they have 25 million population that can represent the base of their travel market. And with improved roads, the Mindanao people only have to discover the nature and culture diversity of their own island for tourism to become firmly established. It turned out that they themselves were eager to travel even within their island.
As regards the foreign tourists, there have been many latent markets waiting for the right signal, facilities and providers for them to finally visit the country. All they need is a way to get to the island-nation and have convenient travel experience. Meaning…. airports… and night-time navigation plus airport personnel. You know what I mean.
But it’s not just airports. Remember that one major incentive to travel is the availability of disposable time? Actually, nowadays, it should not be termed as disposable time anymore (that’s a good separate article, ah!), but total number of days available for travel. It might mean bypassing traditional international gateways and increasing the number and frequency of direct flights between the market sources and their preferred destinations. But….. if the international gateways improve and actually become ideal for visits and exploration… there could be some latency waiting to wake up within the international travelers. They just need that signal and corresponding facilities and services, so they can happily spend some time in the gateways.
Conclusion
It actually seems easier said than done considering that so much effort is poured into the conceptualization, coordination (or begging for support) from relevant agencies and private organizations, and amount of time required to implement a development program. Ey, an airport usually takes 35 years cycle before an improved facility would be planned. But knowing fully well the concept of Transient Tourists and their market sources and actual interests, stakeholders can focus the allocation of their resources and implement programs that can be realized in the shortest amount of time.