Marketing Sustainable Beach Holidays: A Tropical Agenda

Abstract

The beach is one of the idyllic tropical attractions requiring and receiving attention from all those who partake in it. As a tourism resource, the issue of preserving its awe and beauty proves challenging for stakeholders in the tropics. Existing academic frameworks of sustainability primarily focus on the triple bottom line, community-based tourism and tourist management strategies to mitigate tourist activities that are detrimental to the beach as a generational resource. This paper proposes a marketing-activities approach to offer policy options when promoting beaches in the tropics. In this approach, we analyse ways natural settings and accompanying activities produce sustainable results if the marketing programmes are in sync with activities at the beach as a perceived valuable resource. The model attempts to understand the beach as a marketable resource commensurate with escalation of activities. A comparative descriptive study was conducted on Singapore’s Sentosa Island, Thailand’s Phuket and India’s Goa beaches to draw a conceptual framework. This framework presents principal stakeholders practical management strategies vis-à-vis marketing and beach activities. Tropical destinations are limited natural resources and face increasing development pressures. A marketing-activities approach can address issues of sustainability alongside experiences of quintessential tropical vacations for tourists.