In brief, the main objective of product strategies in a mature consumer market should be to achieve sales growth and a stable market share by creating new markets in one or both of two ways above: by launching new products that provide previously nonexistent consumer benefits to meet needs resulting from improvements in the consumers' living environment or lifestyles, and/or by breaking down the market into smaller segments in response to diversified consumer values.
The objective of this paper is to attempt to predict when tourism saturation will be reached in the UK; to identify the factors which are critical in determining saturation levels; finally to indicate where demand and supply may not in future be aligned.
Much of the research effort so far undertaken in the tourism field by destination countries/areas has been directed towards establishing the type of people who visit the destination and the factors which influence their choice. This information is generally used to design advertising and other promotional campaigns to persuade more visitors to come. Too little attention has been placed in tourism research on investigating whether or not a destination area has reached a "saturation" level so that appropriate steps can be taken. The paper suggests that it may be very difficult to measure precisely whether or not a tourist destination has reached "saturation" point. Nevertheless it is possible to carry out some useful research, examining the availability, during the peak summer season of various facilities used by tourists and examine the attitudes of both residents and tourists, which will enable one to form a judgement on the question.
The recent slowdown in the progression of the French vacation market prompts the hypothesis that a certain saturation point may have been reached. This hypothesis, of course, is not merely based on the evolution of a single short-term global index. It is also prompted by a configuration of related phenomena. The existence of such a saturated market is difficult to deny, even though present data are largely incomplete and lack sufficient chronological concordance in most instances. The first part of this analysis will focus on fulfilled market demands, as demonstrated by vacation statistics. However, beyond the relative stability of vacation behaviour, account should be taken of the persistence of attitudes, especially among those non-vacationing French people. This approach offers the possibility to elucidate the concept of a saturated market, and to determine its merits as a means of analysing a particularly complex and dynamic phenomenon.
The recent slowdown in the progression of the French vacation market prompts the hypothesis that a certain saturation point may have been reached. This hypothesis, of course, is not merely based on the evolution of a single short-term global index. It is also prompted by a configuration of related phenomena. The existence of such a saturated market is difficult to deny, even though present data are largely incomplete and lack sufficient chronological concordance in most instances. The first part of this analysis will focus on fulfilled market demands, as demonstrated by vacation statistics. However, beyond the relative stability of vacation behaviour, account should be taken of the persistence of attitudes, especially among those non-vacationing French people. This approach offers the possibility to elucidate the concept of a saturated market, and to determine its merits as a means of analysing a particularly complex and dynamic phenomenon.