This paper explores and examines the interesting and important phenomenon of Hajj from a marketing strategy and ethnographic perspective. There has been little academic qualitative research from a marketing strategy perspective on Hajj (once a year Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca), examining the perceptions of Muslims going on this significant spiritual journey. This paper also attempts to contribute to the theory on spiritual tourism and journeys and the marketing of spiritual tourism, by focusing on Hajj as both an outstanding spiritual journey and a product/service. This paper is part of a wider research project conducted to study marketing strategies in spiritual tourism, and focuses on the outbound markets of Australia and Pakistan. The paper presents a qualitative study of the perceptions and attitudes of Muslims towards their journey of Hajj; the investigation is carried out from the perspective of two different and parallel cultures, i.e. Muslim Australians and Muslim Pakistanis. In order to gain a comparative perspective, this study concentrates on the attitudes of Pakistani Muslims residing in Pakistan and in Australia. The social surrounds of the two populations are further described within the contexts of East/West, individualism/collectivism, and free criticism/authority acceptance. The findings of the research were further dissected and analysed to segment the customers of Hajj and to propose more effective marketing strategies for Hajj in Australia and Pakistan. It was found that the use of modern marketing concepts and tools was very helpful in giving a better perspective of the enormous business aspects of Hajj. IntroductionThe Hajj is a very interesting and highly significant phenomenon for both Muslims and non-Muslims, both experientially for the former group but also academically for ethnography and marketing strategy scholars. A brief overview of the literature on the concept of spiritual tourism and journeys leads this study to a useful operational definition of spiritual tourism. The religious practice of Hajj is discussed from the literature (where available), and then Hajj is analysed with reference to this given definition of spiritual tourism. The theoretical focus of this paper lies in the discussion of the philosophy of Hajj as a spiritual journey and the expectations and experiences described by two groups notably similar as well as different.Significant literature is available on the non-business details of Hajj, its religious importance and the process and rituals involved. Some researchers have worked over the years, based on their personal understanding and experiences, and from a more sociological perspective, on the difference between the processes and logistics of Hajj.
Marketers often presume that the statement``the customer always comes first'' is an axiom. Other specialists usually do the same with their own stakeholder priorities. Other than for internal political and prestige purposes, this is helpful neither to marketing nor to stakeholder strategic management. This research did show that customers are regarded as key stakeholders generally, and also for the achieving of most corporate objectives. They were in effect regarded as a type of default priority stakeholder. However, two other stakeholder groups ± managers and employees ± were ranked as just as important or more important to the achieving of organisational success generally and several of the corporate objectives. Slogans about customers always being No. 1 need to be dismissed by professional marketers. Equally important, the research indicates that marketing might well need to give as much attention to the strategic management of managers and employees as it does to customers.
Purpose -To describe and discuss the use of educational drama in marketing education, including its relative advantages to both learners and trainers. Design/methodology/approach -The paper involves exploratory qualitative research, using sentence completion and reflective diaries. The approach was to probe in an open-ended way what students believed they had learnt and gained from the drama, and why; how did the drama affect them; how did they view marketing after the drama; and how did they compare the educational drama to traditional "chalk and talk" classes. Findings -The interpretive qualitative results of the study indicated a very high student acceptance of drama as an educational experience, a widely held view that even though it was drama it had actually enhanced the realism of the learning experience, a greater appreciation of the array and complexity of the various roles in the marketing environment and the alternative perpectives possible, an expressed enhancement of their sense of empathy through the drama, a heightened sense of personal enrichment for the experience as an individual, and expressed enthusiasm for its career simulation benefits.Research limitations/implications -The study was exploratory and educational drama needs further testing under various contexts, constraints, and controls. Practical implications -The student and instructor enthusiasm for the benefits, including the perception of enhanced realism, bodes well for practical applications. There is no obvious reason why it could not be used to good effect in commercial, industrial, public sector and not-for-profit contexts. Originality/value -The researchers were not able to locate any other study examining the use and benefits of educational drama within a marketing setting such as this one. Used effectively, educational drama is seen to be a valuable learning and experiential tool.
Product life cycle (PLC) stages and diagrams are briefly and dispassionately covered in the standard marketing textbook format with little attention to the social-psychological experiences of those actually participating. This qualitative study used process drama as a teaching tool and a research instrument to probe the PLC phenomenon in a different way. A useable sample of 27 students used the educational drama convention called Space Mission to Mars, a form of process drama, to bring first-hand contact with, and relevance to, this marketing concept and practice. Student journals were analysed through content analysis, and this was combined with lecturer observations and some semistructured probe interviewing. The study found that students clearly expressed a new, more involved, and more insightful appreciation of the actual conceptual marketing processes and emotional experiences that marketers have when directly involved in PLC activities.
This article presents a case study in the fields of marketing and business problem solving in general. The formal disciplines of structured creative problem solving were used to solve a substantial problem and simultaneously to identify ways of exploiting the opportunities that lay within it. This case was a team effort involving a select group of Examiner Newspaper Group people in Australia with the author as leader and co‐ordinator, and a Tasmanian company – Tastech Developments. A circulation increase of approximately 20 per cent was in fact achieved.
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