The Covid-19 pandemics showed the fragility of the local tourism system. Such fragility long existed before the spread of the pandemics and was not caused by it.
As this fragility reflects the complexity of a system that almost entirely shapes Capri’s economy, we need to adopt approaches and instruments that allow us to understand such complexity. We might say that the possibility itself to solve the crisis relies upon the efficacy of these instruments and approaches.
The issue of construction of marketing and communication campaigns has been at the centre of the public debate as a solution to rejuvenate the image of the island in the eyes of the market. Thus, I will focus on tourism marketing.
Let us start by saying that communication is a marketing tool. It is not synonymous with marketing.
In fact, marketing is mainly about the ability to place goods on specific market segments through specific channels. To put it differently, once the ‘who’ is identified (the buyer), we need to construe the ‘what’ (the product we want to market). Then, we need to identify the ‘where’ (the channels through which we are going to market the product). Lastly, we need to construct the ‘how’ (the complex of the marketing strategies to enact). In order to do all this, we first need to understand the historical, social, cultural and economic context.
Failing to understand such context and identify the ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘where’ and ‘how’, means jeopardise not just the possibility to sell the product, but its own existence on the market.
We all remember what happened to Nokia, the Finnish corporation known for its phones’ reliability; and Blackberry, the Canadian company which pioneered the smartphone industry.
The cost of underestimating and ignoring the new technology that was about to take over the entire industry was enormous. As it turned out, both these companies not only lost their primacy in the market. They were forced to leave the market – which costed in turn hundreds and hundreds of jobs.
These examples demonstrate how marketing intimately implies the construction of products according to the information the market communicates – communication following, rather than preceding the product. And how the misreading of these information entails unsustainable social and economic costs.
Therefore, the inefficiency of Capri tourism system lies in the misreading of the information provided by the market. The local tourism system players failed to understand:
1. What kind of product to build on the basis of
2. A thorough understanding of specific and diversified market segments.
3. Through what channels the product was to be marketed.
Instead of addressing these issues, the public debate has been colonised by the antithesis between mass and luxury tourism; as well as by pointless discussions about the imposition of some sort of city tax and the limitation to the number of daily tourists. The question of how these two market segments might coexist remained unanswered. The same goes for the question of what model of social and economic development to pursue.
The fortuitous and rather uncontrolled cohabitation of these market segments caused the incapability of the entire system to fulfil the needs and wants of these markets’ respective audiences – thus determining the contraction of the value of Capri as a product. By value I mean the ability of Capri to answer specific needs to the extent of justifying high rates.
Deficiencies in sea and land transport system, the critical conditions of roads, the scarcity of services, the inefficiency of local health care system, pedestrian and traffic congestion (which ecologically, socially, logistically and hygienically unsustainable). All this negatively affected the capacity of Capri to appeal to a wider audience.
As we said at the beginning of the article, the Covid-19 pandemics did not caused the inefficiencies of Capri tourism system. It just revealed them to light, thus accelerating the decline of Capri as one of the major destinations in the area compared to its competitors: the towns of the Sorrento-Amalfi coast.
In conclusion, Capri does not need just communication, but marketing policies aimed at:
- Understanding what kind of product to build based on the kind of market to intercept and the kind of model of social-economic development to enact.
- Actually constructing such product and model of social-economic development.
- Enacting dynamics of growth involving the improvement of the land and sea transport system, as well as services, mobility and the health care system. All this implies the active engagement of all the social actors involved in the functioning of the industry: hoteliers, restaurateurs, business owners, transport entrepreneurs, local community.
Antonio Desiderio