Frontiers in Business, Economics and Management ISSN: 2766-824X | Vol. 5, No. 1, 2022 78 Marketing Strategy of Rural Tourism: A Case Study of Yim Tin Tsai, Hong Kong Miao Miao Suzhou Polytechnic Institute of Agriculture, Suzhou, China Abstract: Rural tourism, which integrates agriculture industry, folk customs, natural landscape and traditional tourism, has become one of the most popular choices for leisure activities and holidays. In the rural revitalization context in China, rural tourism is also developed to village conservation and sustainability development. However, some released projects did not achieve the expected results and finally ended with declined business or disputes. The paper took Yin Tim Tsai, a small village in Hong Kong as an example, discussing the marketing strategies and the feasibility of its tourism, and provide recommendations to promote the rural tourism marketing. Keywords: Rural tourism, Marketing Strategies, Yim Tin Tsai. 1. Introduction Rural areas are no longer interpreted as the places where only agriculture activities lie in. Changes have been taken place in China, where rural tourism industry rose in 1980s. According to statistics, China's leisure agriculture and rural tourism attracted more than three billion people in 2018, with an income of more than 800 billion yuan. In the past two decades, China has been implementing rural revitalization strategy. In Hongkong, the Special Administrative Region government promulgated New Nature Conservation Policy and other village conservation strategies since 2004 (Zhang, 2020). The supportive policies promoted the development of rural tourism. Meanwhile, rural tourism plays a vital role in promoting tourism economy, local culture preservation and village sustainable development. With the increasing number of tourists and people's enthusiasm for rural tourism, the scale of rural tourism industry continues to grow, and the industry competition is becoming increasingly fierce. Although the rural tourism market expanded some villages have already achieved rural revitalization through rural tourism, there are also cases failed attracting adequate tourists’ attention, owing to ineffective marketing strategies. Therefore, how to formulate a marketing model base on the local conditions and build influence around tourists has become an issue that cannot be ignored. 2. Background 2.1. An overview of Yim Tin Tsai Yim Tin Tsai means “Little Salt Pan” in Cantonese. It is a small island, rich in history and natural scenery, located 15 minutes by ferry from the Sai Kung pier in Hong Kong. The historical significance, biological diversity and cultural heritage makes it an idea destination for tourists. This island was once the home to 500 to 1,200 people who lived on fishing and salt-extraction in 1940s, when it was at its peak population. But as the rural life on islands gradually became more difficult, the population began to decline due to migration. By the 1960s, the only primary school faced closing as the last students left Yim Tin Tsai for higher education. The island’s salt pan also shut down because the salt product was not as competitive as the cheaper salt from mainland China and Vietnam. The last villagers left by the 1990s. This small village stayed abandoned until 2000, when descendants of the original villagers went back to Yim Tin Tsai and started revitalizing the island (Xinhua Net, 2020). 2.2. The Rural Tourism Development in Yin Tim Tsai The restoration project of Yim Tin Tsai officially started from March 17, 2013, and completed in September, achieving the goal of tourists capacity of 300 people and salt pan restoration. In 2015, Yim Tin Tsai restoration project won the UNESCO Asia Pacific Cultural Heritage Protection Award (Award of Distinction) (Takungpao, 2013). Today, the island has been revived thanks to villagers’ effort and conservation policies released by Hong Kong government. Tourism volume have grown in Yim Tin Tsai. Since it is easy to explore this island with natural scenery and distinctive Hakka culture on foot, Yin Tim Tsai attracts day trippers, nature enthusiasts, study tour groups and other different tourist groups. The Salt & Light Preservation Centre is a charitable organization on the island, responsible for promotion and conservation of Yim Tin Tsai cultural relics and the inheritance of religious culture, through planning tour services, workshops, and thematic experiences. The organization, along with the local villagers, is devoted to village development and preservation, making Yim Tin Tsai revitalization combined with culture, religion, biology, and tourism (Salt & Light Preservation Centre, 2022). 3. Ps Marketing Mix Strategy According to McCarthy (1960), the 4Ps marketing mix framework is a tool used in marketing. The mix strategy is aimed to determine the point of difference of products and brands, in other words, the only quality that distinguishes the products from competitors. The framework includes 4 elements: product, price, place and promotion. By keeping the marketing mix strategy in mind, marketing professionals can better concentrate on what are the key points so as to help organizations make tactical decisions when launching new products or updating existing products. 79 4. Marketing Strategies of Tourism in Yim Tin Tsai 4.1. Product Rural tourism products, from the perspective of entrants, are the rural tourism resources and facilities that rural tourism operators must have, providing rural tourists with all the goods and services required for the whole process of rural tourism. From the perspective of demanders, rural tourism products refer to the experience that rural tourists pay a certain amount of money, time and energy to satisfy their desire for rural tourism. Rural tourists obtain psychological and spiritual satisfaction by purchasing and consuming rural tourism products (Zhang, Liu, Xiao & Yu, 2019). Product mix refers to the complete set of products and/or services offered (Armstrong, Adam, Denize & Kotler, 2014). With the help of local conservation policies, in the past few years, 4 tourism product lines (also known as the width of product mix) were developed in Yim Tin Tsai: Yim Tin Tsai Arts Festival, the Yim Tin Tsai saltpans, Hakka village, Yim Tin Tsai exhibition centre and the mangroves (see Table 1). Length refers to the total number of programs or spots in each product lines, and depth refers to the number of variations within a product line. For example, utilizing the advantage of local salt pans, the saltpans project restored the traditional way of sea salt extraction, which was almost a lost traditional skill; The Hakka village visit recorded the unique history of this island, including St Joseph’s Chapel which built for Rev. Joseph Freinademetz, the first western missionary visiting the island, Hakka ethic architecture, Hakka cuisine and Yim Tin Tsai Heritage Exhibition Centre. The mangroves provided those who prefer natural scenery with diversified ecological resources. Tourists could go to the Jade bridge and the pavilion to enjoy the best view of the entire island. Yim Tin Tsai Arts Festival, organised by the Tourism Commission, is a three-year pilot scheme providing tourists with experience integrating arts, religion, culture, heritage and biological elements by adopting three key concepts of “Sky, Earth and Human” as the theme every year (Tourism Commission, 2021). Hulu Culture, the operator of the festival, invited local and overseas artists as well as art students to co-create with the villagers and turn the island into an “open museum” (Yang, 2020). Yim Tin Tsai Arts Festival of different concepts was held successfully with support and recognition from participants as well as the public. Now, many artworks have become permanent exhibits on the island after the festival. Table 1. Product mix of Rural Tourism in Yin Tim Tsai Tourism concepts (the width of product mix) The Yim Tin Tsai salt pans Hakka village visit The Mangroves eco-trip Yim Tin Tsai Arts Festival Contents of projects (the length of product mix)  Experience the traditional way of sea salt extraction  Sea salt extraction workshop  Hakka ethic architecture  Tasting Hakka cuisine and Sweet Steamed Buns workshop  St Joseph’s Chapel  Yim Tin Tsai Heritage Exhibition Centre  The Jade Bridge  A sea view of “Moses dividing the sea”  Mangrove ecological landscape  Centennial Camphor Tree  Art exhibitions  Video and photo competition 4.2. Price In the rural tourism marketing mix, price is the only factor that generates revenue, while other factors appear as costs. The price is determined by mutual negotiation between buyers and sellers and is the basis for the exchange of products. Buyers and sellers negotiate with each other and finally reach an acceptable and mutually satisfactory price (Zhao, 2020). The pricing of tourism in Yim Tim Tsai varies depending on different programs. According to the price list provided by Salt & Light Preservation Centre (2022), the consumption in Yin Tim Tsai has been lower since 2022 (see table 2). The discount strategy offers discount for kids and the elderly, attracting them and their guardians to visit. It also adopted the bundle price strategy. For example, a round ferry trip only costed $70, tourists could enter the Salt pan and Heritage Exhibition Centre for free by holding the ferry ticket. Therefore, with a through ticket, tourists would be more willing to stay longer and experience other projects on the island. Table 2. Price of group tour in Yin Tim Tsai Fees (transportation included) Groups appointment (book 30 days in advance) $70 On-site appointment $70 Discounted tickets (for kids aged 4-12 and the elderly aged over 65) $50 Fees (transportation not included) Group visitors with appointments $20 Independent visitors without appointments $20 for Heritage Exhibition Centre $20 for Salt pan Fees include guide service and workshop Guide service $45 for a two-hour trip $65 for a three-hour in-depth travel $65-$100 for thematic trip $100 for workshop Customized Services The program charged varies depending on the situation. 80 4.3. Place Place strategy is very important for the promotion of rural tourism products and brand image. Place strategy of rural tourism refers to the locations of tourist attractions, the distribution channels that helps transfer tourist products to tourists, the transportation and so on. When designing rural tourism distribution channels, the characteristics of the rural tourism product itself, consumers, competition, operatorsand the environment should be considered. Yim Tin Tsai can be reached by a kaito (a small ferry) from the Sai Kung Public Pier. Among the numerous kaito operators on the pier, tourists could look for those with the Yim Tin Tsai flag. The kaito only runs on Saturday, Sunday, and public holidays. Tour groups can adjust their kaito schedule if applying online. Sai Kung reception and reception on the island provided payment, consultation, visit reception and kaito arrangement services (Salt & Light Preservation Centre, 2022). In 2021, to reduce the influence brought by COVID-19 and allow local and overseas tourists enjoy the Arts Festival even at home, 360-degree virtual reality function was available on the official website of the Arts Festival to display the scenic spots and artworks in Yim Tin Tsai. Participants can further understand stories of the scenic spots of the island and the creative concept of the artworks through the audio guides on the website (Tourism Commission, 2021). 4.4. 4.4 Promotion The promotional strategy for rural tourism consists of tools such as advertising, personal selling, sales promotion and public relations. It should deliver a clear, consistent and compelling message about the rural tourism product in order to communicate effectively with consumers. As the Salt & Light Preservation Centre is a charitable group and most of conservation work still relies on community and voluntary participation, there are not much commercial advertising to promote Yin Tim Tsai rural tourism. Marketing public relations is the main promotion strategy. Marketing public relations refers to promoting a product or service by creating hypes around to occupy the earned media coverage. The first PR strategy is social responsibility. Yin Tim Tsai rural tourism was developed around three themes: Catholic culture, Hakka culture and ecology. The themes emphasize the social responsibility of culture and ecological diversity conservation that Yin Tim Tsai tourism takes. Social responsibility is embodied in campaign slogans, practices and so on. On Yin Tim Tsai owned media, Yim Tin Tsai Festival and Salt & Light Preservation Centre official website, there are often PR campaigns released, such as the “Sky, Earth and Human” annual concept, Salt and Light farming experience project. There is also a notice on island that all wastes brought by tourists should be taken away when leaving the island to protect the environment. Community engagement is also an important PR strategy in Yim Tin Tsai. The restoration and management of the village adopts the concept of "eco- museum", which means the community take the responsibility of collecting, displaying, research, education, and promotion of Yim Tin Tsai culture. At the same time, the governance process also pays attention to the joint participation of local villagers, so that local the social and cultural value can be maximized (Agapito & Chan, July 2019). 5. Problem Analysis 5.1. Product Mix Lacked in Length and Depths According to table 1, the product length of Yim Tin Tsai tourism is 12, the number of product lines is 4. It could be inferred that the average product length is 3, which indicates that each tourism project only contains three spots or programs. In addition to length, the depth of product mix is limited. Depth refers to the number of variations offered within a product line (Armstrong, Adam, Denize & Kotler, 2014). As to rural tourism in Yim Tin Tsai, most of programs tend to be fixed. Although the arts festival has different themes every year, the layout of activities has not been changed rapidly so far. In 2022, the Salt & Light Preservation Centre announced a treasure hunt games for travelers, however, the contents remained the same. This could be resulted from the governance model of local community participation. In order to keep the authenticity of village, the product design rural tourism put emphasis on the island history and the willingness of villagers. Therefore, the risks towards rural conservation and villager’s interests must be considered before new projects are developed. However, lacked in length and depths, the product mix might not satisfy the consumers’ diversified needs. Especially for those who have visited Yim Tim Tsai, they might not choose to travel again since there would be nothing new to them. 5.2. No Complete Prices Standard for Consumption on Island The charge list above (see table 2) shows some of the charged activities on island. However, some consumers complained that the consumption on island had not a clear pricing standard, such as participating different workshops, consumption on local souvenirs and customized tour guide. The bundle pricing strategy simplified the pricing process, lowering the selling costs and making consumers take less effort on travel decision-making. But if the contents in the price bundle are ambiguous or dynamic, this strategy will be counterproductive. Furthermore, the complaints from consumers could become bad publicity on social media, which would be unfavorable for the reputation of Yim Tin Tsai and visitor volumes. 5.3. Limited Transportation and Channels The only transportation to get to Yim Tin Tsai is the kaito ferry. Also, the only pier to get on board is in Sai Kung, where are no subway lines. Tourist in Hongkong downtown areas should take a 60-miniutes-bus or taxi to the pier and wait for the kaito 20 minutes in advance. There are 6 shifts departs from Sai Kung pier and 4 shifts departs from Yim Tin Tsai pier from Tuesday to Sunday. The schedule depends on whether conditions as well. This brings inconvenience for tourists especially international travelers who want to visit Sai Kung and other islands round. During Yim Tin Tsai Arts Festival, when the tourist volume reaches the peak, the transportation might be overloaded. The sells channel for Yim Tin Tsai will be another constraint. Tourists could only book tickets on site or make appointments in advance, while booking online has become popularized. Most of tourists are getting used to booking services on travel applications, such as Agoda and OpenRice for accommodation, My Hong Kong Guide for geographical 81 information and TripAdvisor for tickets and transportation. If the visitors were not Hong Kong locals and had to plan their whole trips in Hong Kong beforehand, obviously they would prefer booking on applications to making appointments by phone or e-mails. In case visitors decide to change the travel plan, they can cancel or change bookings with several clicks. It is essential for Yim Tin Tsai to increase and upgrade the sells channel, so as to bring convenience for consumers. 5.4. PR Risks Marketing public relations helps to build brand image and reputation for Yim Tin Tsai tourism in a cost-saving way. However, the PR strategy has limitations. Firstly, although there are many marketing campaigns, success is not guaranteed. If the strategy is not well-executed, the village will run the risk of getting no response from the target audience. For example, the theme of Yim Tin Tsai arts festival is “Sky, Earth and Human” , which means the target consumer group participates in the festival for the artworks of corresponding concepts. Since the artworks in Yim Tin Tsai are completed by artists local and overseas, they could fail to convey neither the concepts nor the village culture. In that way, the PR strategy will lose the effect because the consumers cannot get what they expect to see. Or sometimes the strategy was not the problem, the key message may be just not impactful enough and passes the target audience by. For rural tourism in Yim Tin Tsai, the promotion slogans often only focus on words like nature, quietness, and farming experience, while the iconic features of villages are not indicated. When travelers plan their trips and skim on websites, the homogeneous slogans will make them confused about the point-of-difference of these rural tourism projects. Secondly, managing public relations is highly dependable on the willingness of third-party endorsers to publish the content, which means that the subject of promotion has less direct influence or control over PR campaigns. It takes a lot of time to finalize the news release and photos of campaign and promotional content, but only a few of journalists and editors will read and decide to post the content. The information of Yim Tin Tsai tourism is mainly posted on their self-owned official website, while on influential travel media hardly any information could be found. Even after Yim Tin Tsai successfully held the arts festival for three years and won the UNESCO Award, the news was not widely spread on social media. Promotion is crucial for tourism before public holidays and other tourism season. however, it cannot be known exactly when the PR content will be posted as well as in what way the content will be presented. Therefore, although the PR content build the reputation for Yim Tin Tsai, it might not reach the target audience with an impressive image. 6. Recommendations 6.1. Develop the Length and Depth of Product Line Based on The Existing Projects Considering the conservation policy and the restoration progress of Yim Tin Tsai, the marketers can develop the length and depth of product line on the existing tourism projects, so that the consumer experience can be improved with least impact on the original product strategy and ecology on island. To develop the length of product mix, Yim Tin Tsai can create and add new content to the current insufficient tourism projects. At present, Yim Tin Tsai has not developed any seaside tourism project. It can take the advantage of natural landscape and ecological system, combining with Hakka traditional fishing culture, establish marine sightseeing tour projects and fishery experiencing projects. Integrating arts elements in Yim Tin Tsai Art Festival and other projects could be another effective way. Every year a number of artworks stands out in Yim Tin Tsai Art Festival, but they usually be displayed in forms of painting, architecture, and crafts. Local Hakka culture can be blended in a variety of artistic and cultural activities, such as rural landscape sketch, Hakka folk song concerts, the Hong Kong village history and culture open lectures, etc., to enrich the tourists’ experience. According to marketing segmentation, marketers can provide different segments with different tourist options in each project to improve the depth of product mix. Based on behavioural segmentation, four segments can be identified as the target consumer groups of Yim Tin Tsai, which are casual visitors, nature lovers, history seekers and arts lovers. These four groups of customers usually focus on different parts and have different preference during their trip. The Yim Tin Tsai tourism product mix gives priority to ecology sightseeing and culture exploration. Furthermore, the cultural experience is mostly in the form of education and learning, so the tourism project may be more attractive to visit study groups and researchers. While for young casual visitors and those who just visit the village to escape from the busy city life, some sectors in the tourism project often cannot offer content as what they expect most. Therefore, more options can be added. For example, there can be an interactive zone in the Heritage Exhibition Centre, which aims to held activities and interactive programs to look back in the village history. Cooking experience can also be merged into the sea salt extraction workshop. After the sea salt being extracted, visitors can try cooking with those salt. Such approaches above help improve the depth of product mix, meet more consumer demands and add enjoyment to the trip. 6.2. Build A Charge Standard Supervised by The Government and Village Committee As to the issue of no unified charging standard on island, the government, the village committee and the Salt & Light Preservation Centre should work together, analyzing the unreasonable pricing of all products and services, referring to other Hong Kong tourism’s charge standard and tourism consumption of the past few years, finally revise a integrated charge standard for Yim Tin Tsai. The revised standard should contain all the tourism projects, transportation, accommodation, and other consumption. Pricing higher than market price or dynamic pricing should be avoided. Bundle pricing can still be adopted as one of the pricing strategies, only if the bundled products and services are explained with details. Services like customized guidance, group visits and accommodation are allowed to have dynamic prices depending on peak/slack season, which should be notified with the range of price variation. Last but not least, the complete charging standard should be posted on the Salt & Light Preservation Centre official website to the public as well as other official media channels, getting ready for supervision from market administrative departments, Yim Tin Tsai village committee and tourists. In the meantime, tourists’ complaints and feedback towards pricing need to be paid attention to, as it is a vital way to supervision. 82 6.3. Improve the Transportation Conditions and Develop Multiple Marketing Channels In order to improve tourists’ satisfaction and boost the tourist volume, transportation conditions Yim Tin Tsai tourism need to be improved. First of all, there could be one more Kaito shift for early in the morning and another in the evening, for those who want to go on a deep in-depth travel the island, or those who plan their trip within half of a day. Secondly, the tourism situation of Sai kung and surrounded islands needs to be investigated to develop a kaito route starting from Sai Kung pier, via Yim Tin Tsai pier and other tourist island. The integrated route makes it convenient for tourists travelling around islands around Sai Kung as well as drive the tourism economy in other rural areas. Finally, Yim Tin Tsai needs to improve the public transportation on the island. Bike rental service can be provided on island, which will bring different travelling experience and be correspondent to the requirement of ecology conservation. Walking inconvenience problem cannot be ignored since there are the elder people, kids, and the disabled people. So it is suggested that the tourists centre prepare an electronic sightseeing car travelling between tourists sites, so that the inconvenient tourists can hop on and hop off. The sightseeing car can also play a role of safety inspection on the island in case of emergency or accidents. Yim Tin Tsai can develop multi-channel sales mode. For instance, the ticket purchase link and customized service booking should be attached on the official website. The rural tourism can also develop distribution channels by cooperating with mobile travel applications, travel websites and offline travel agencies. The different distribution channels bring convenience for travelers to book services and plan their schedule in advance, which reduces the resistance of the tourist’s consumption. 6.4. Manage digital communication for PR enhancement Promoting through public relation contributes to positive reputation and clear brand positioning of rural tourism. However, the efficiency and effect of public communication is limited. In the context of information revolution, rural tourism requires digital communications for promotion and marketing public relations if it wants to gain more market share and attract more potential customers. On social media platforms and video-sharing websites such as Facebook, TikTok and YouTube, social media account managers of Yim Tin Tsai tourism can encourage tourists to post texts, photos, and videos of their trip in Yim Tin Tsai, or share and retweet contents related to Yim Tin Tsai tourism posted by official accounts, with sales promotion or free souvenirs provided as incentives. By widely spreading information and tourists’ travelling experience, such marketing practices promote the online word-of-mouth. Besides, the account managers need to create online community groups, post rural tourism campaigns and invites people to join in and communicate over these topics. The online discussion can be conducted simultaneously with offline activities in the campaign. This makes it convenient for online and offline interaction, raising the interactivity and creating hype for the campaign. As for trending topics and posts, the marketer should keep in touch with the original posters and manage relation with them. When the new campaign is released, these posters or bloggers should be emailed with activity invitation links. Tourists are not always willing to share their tourist experiences or upload their photos and videos during their trip. Also their posts conveys more subjective factors, sometimes positive feedback towards a tourism destination can even turns into negative feedback if public opinions management and guidance are missing. To solve this problem and enhance control over public relations, Yim Tin Tsai tourism can cooperate with the countryside conservation office or village revitalization projects of NGOs, putting more efforts on public promotion. Meanwhile, a group of influencing people and organizations should be picked and be invited to Yim Tin Tsai to experience the new campaigns and tourism activities together with the influencers in the online community groups. These experiencers will become the online key opinion leaders, sharing what their feel about the tourism in Yim Tin Tsai on public media and personal social media in forms of blogs, tweets, vlogs, etc. This helps with leading positive attitude towards Yim Tin Tsai tourism, intensifying publicity to enhance the effect of PR management. 7. Conclusion Facing the problem of population loss, destruction of ethnic culture and traditional architectural heritage, the conservation and revitalization of traditional villages has become critical in China. As a significant approach to rural revitalization, promoting rural tourism needs more attention and effort. Based on 4Ps marketing mix strategy, the paper analyzed the current marketing strategy of Yin Tim Tsai tourism and the potential risks in the process of implementation, finally put forward suggestions for improvement. However, marketing rural tourism should be corresponding with Hong Kong local conservation policies as well as the collective interests of villagers. How to maintain the authenticity of traditional culture and prevent gentrification are also worth further discussion. References [1] Agapito, D., & Chan, C. S. (2019, July). The contribution of a multisensory approach to responsible management in community-based tourism: The case of Yim Tin Tsai village in Hong Kong. In 9th Advances in Hospitality and Tourism Marketing and Management Conference Proceedings (pp. 314- 322). [2] Armstrong, G., Adam, S., Denize, S., & Kotler, P. (2014). Principles of marketing. Pearson Australia. [3] McCarthy, E. J. (1964). Basic Marketing, IL: Richard D. Irwin. 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