Tourism Marketing II: The P's of Tourism Marketing (Product, Place, Price, Promotion, Physical Evidence, People, Process and Packaging), Designing, Branding and Packaging the Tourism Product, the Product Life Cycle, Pricing Strategies, the Promotion Mix, Distribution Channels and Channel Conflict, and Global, Direct, Digital and Green Marketing, CSR, Marketing Ethics and Consumerism

The first four were set out by E. Jerome McCarthy in 1960 for goods. Bernard Booms and Mary Jo Bitner added people, process and physical evidence for services in 1981, making the seven Ps, and tourism writers such as Alastair Morrison added packaging, programming and partnership, because tourism is sold as bundles, animated by events and activities, and delivered by many cooperating suppliers. The syllabus's list, ending with packaging, follows that tradition.

A tourism product is designed in layers. The core product is the essential benefit the customer seeks (rest, adventure, business connection); the facilitating products are the services without which the core cannot be delivered (check-in, a restaurant); the supporting products add value and differentiate (a spa, a business centre); and the augmented product includes access, atmosphere, customer interaction and participation. Stephen Smith (1994) described the tourism product as five concentric elements: the physical plant at the centre, then service, hospitality, freedom of choice and involvement. Branding gives the product a name, a symbol and a promise that customers recognise and trust, which matters doubly for intangible services; a destination brand such as Incredible India (launched in 2002) or a hotel brand carries expectations of quality. Packaging combines complementary components into a single offer, which gives the buyer convenience and value and gives the seller a way to spread demand and sell weaker components with stronger ones.

Product development in tourism means creating new products or renewing existing ones: new circuits, themed packages, heritage hotels in restored buildings, events that fill the off-season, or adding activities to a beach resort. It follows idea generation, screening, concept testing, business analysis, development, test marketing and launch, and it is how a destination avoids the decline stage of Butler's cycle, which is the product life cycle applied to places.

Break-even analysis tells an operator how many passengers a departure needs before it makes a profit. The break-even point in passengers is the fixed costs of the departure divided by the contribution per passenger, which is the price minus the variable cost per passenger. If a departure's fixed costs (coach, guide, escort, marketing) are ₹1,20,000, the price is ₹30,000 and the variable cost per passenger is ₹22,000, each passenger contributes ₹8,000, and the tour breaks even at 1,20,000 ÷ 8,000 = 15 passengers; the sixteenth passenger earns the first profit. Operators set a minimum group size near the break-even point and reserve the right to cancel below it.

Promotion aims to move the customer through the stages of the AIDA model, attention, interest, desire and action, and the mix is chosen for each stage: advertising and publicity build attention and interest, sales promotion and personal selling close the sale. Tourism distribution channels link suppliers with customers. A zero-level (direct) channel sells straight to the traveller through the supplier's website, app, call centre or counter; a one-level channel uses a retail travel agent or OTA; a two-level channel uses a tour operator or wholesaler and a retailer; and most suppliers now use many channels at once. Channels need cooperation, since each member depends on the others, but they also produce conflict: vertical conflict between levels, as when a hotel undercuts on its own website the rate it gives an online agency, or an airline cuts agents' commissions to sell directly; and horizontal conflict among members at the same level, such as agents undercutting one another. It is managed by clear contracts and roles, rate parity or agreed differentials, fair commissions and incentives, communication, and a channel leader strong enough to set rules.

Global marketing sells across many countries and must decide between standardisation (one brand and message everywhere, cheaper and consistent) and adaptation (messages, products and prices tailored to each market's culture, language and season); national tourism organisations combine a global brand with market-specific campaigns run through their overseas offices. Direct marketing reaches identified customers individually, by e-mail, mail, telephone or messaging, using a customer database, and measures their response. Social media and digital marketing now dominate tourism promotion: search engine optimisation and paid search, content and video marketing, social media platforms, influencers and bloggers, user-generated content and online reviews, metasearch and OTA listings, mobile apps and personalised offers driven by data. Green marketing promotes products on their environmental merits, energy-efficient hotels, eco-certified tours, plastic-free destinations, and is credible only when the claims are true; claiming an environmental benefit that is not real is "greenwashing".

Corporate social responsibility is a firm's commitment to act for the benefit of society and the environment beyond profit. In India it is also a legal duty: under section 135 of the Companies Act 2013, a company with a net worth of ₹500 crore or more, a turnover of ₹1,000 crore or more, or a net profit of ₹5 crore or more in a financial year must spend at least 2 per cent of its average net profit of the preceding three years on CSR activities listed in the Act, which include the protection of national heritage, art and culture and environmental sustainability, areas where hotel and travel companies are active. Marketing ethics requires honest advertising and pricing without hidden charges, truthful descriptions in brochures and on websites, respect for customer data and privacy, and fair treatment of intermediaries. Consumerism is the organised movement to protect buyers' rights, often traced to President John F. Kennedy's statement of four consumer rights in 1962: to safety, to be informed, to choose and to be heard. In India it is backed by the Consumer Protection Act 2019, in force from 20 July 2020, which created the Central Consumer Protection Authority to act against unfair trade practices and misleading advertisements, and under which rules for e-commerce, including online travel bookings, were made in 2020.