Legitimate Green Marketing Communication: A Case Study on the Tour Operator TUI
(2020) SKOM12 20201Department of Strategic Communication
- Abstract
- Green marketing communication in the tour operating business is an emerging field
of research. In recognition of green marketing communication researchers’ and practitioners’ within the tour operating business need to achieve a more profound
understanding of legitimate green marketing communication. This is because of societies and especially millennials increasing sensitivity and scepticism towards
businesses implementation of green efforts. Further because of tourism industry’s
image of being environmentally unfriendly, which poses a challenge for tour operators adopting a green approach, since the risk of being perceived as contradictory or as a greenwasher is high. Thereupon, this thesis provides a case study examining one of the... (More) - Green marketing communication in the tour operating business is an emerging field
of research. In recognition of green marketing communication researchers’ and practitioners’ within the tour operating business need to achieve a more profound
understanding of legitimate green marketing communication. This is because of societies and especially millennials increasing sensitivity and scepticism towards
businesses implementation of green efforts. Further because of tourism industry’s
image of being environmentally unfriendly, which poses a challenge for tour operators adopting a green approach, since the risk of being perceived as contradictory or as a greenwasher is high. Thereupon, this thesis provides a case study examining one of the biggest European tour operator, hence TUI’s green marketing communication’s legitimacy. More specifically this study explores if and
how TUI legitimately communicates their green marketing efforts and how millenial recipients perceive and interpret TUI’s green marketing communication efforts. By conducting qualitative interviews, hence by applying a social constructivist perspective, and using data analysis as a supplementary data retrieval method this research identified five themes. Those five themes, namely taking responsibility, establish differentiation, being transparent, communicate realistically and being approachable, were examined as having an influence on the understanding of a tour operators green marketing communication’s legitimacy.
Further, this study shows that TUI largely fulfils communicator’s and recipient’s expectations on their green marketing communication, hence is acknowledge as legitimate. Yet, recipients perceived a lack in TUI taking on responsibility selflessly, in TUI communicating radically transparent and in TUI communicating realistically. Overall, this study’s ambition is to enhance knowledge within the field of strategic communications by exploring the purposeful use of green marketing communication by the tour operator TUI to examine if and how they fulfill their mission of becoming more environmentally friendly. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9028273
- author
- Merten, Janina LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- SKOM12 20201
- year
- 2020
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- language
- English
- id
- 9028273
- date added to LUP
- 2021-02-01 09:10:41
- date last changed
- 2021-02-01 09:10:41
@misc{9028273, abstract = {{Green marketing communication in the tour operating business is an emerging field of research. In recognition of green marketing communication researchers’ and practitioners’ within the tour operating business need to achieve a more profound understanding of legitimate green marketing communication. This is because of societies and especially millennials increasing sensitivity and scepticism towards businesses implementation of green efforts. Further because of tourism industry’s image of being environmentally unfriendly, which poses a challenge for tour operators adopting a green approach, since the risk of being perceived as contradictory or as a greenwasher is high. Thereupon, this thesis provides a case study examining one of the biggest European tour operator, hence TUI’s green marketing communication’s legitimacy. More specifically this study explores if and how TUI legitimately communicates their green marketing efforts and how millenial recipients perceive and interpret TUI’s green marketing communication efforts. By conducting qualitative interviews, hence by applying a social constructivist perspective, and using data analysis as a supplementary data retrieval method this research identified five themes. Those five themes, namely taking responsibility, establish differentiation, being transparent, communicate realistically and being approachable, were examined as having an influence on the understanding of a tour operators green marketing communication’s legitimacy. Further, this study shows that TUI largely fulfils communicator’s and recipient’s expectations on their green marketing communication, hence is acknowledge as legitimate. Yet, recipients perceived a lack in TUI taking on responsibility selflessly, in TUI communicating radically transparent and in TUI communicating realistically. Overall, this study’s ambition is to enhance knowledge within the field of strategic communications by exploring the purposeful use of green marketing communication by the tour operator TUI to examine if and how they fulfill their mission of becoming more environmentally friendly.}}, author = {{Merten, Janina}}, language = {{eng}}, note = {{Student Paper}}, title = {{Legitimate Green Marketing Communication: A Case Study on the Tour Operator TUI}}, year = {{2020}}, }