engleski

Sustainable Demand Management in National Parks: Example of Plitvice Lakes National Park

Demand management is usually associated with supply chain management process that balances customers’ requirements with the capabilities of the supply chain. Within the paradigm of the sustainable demand management in the case of national parks and services industry it differentiates from the traditional concept by adding factors of natural environment protection and services characteristics such as intangibility, inability to be stored and so on. Creation of specific experiences becomes a key output of the marketing strategy as a means of satisfying customer expectations. However, “ production capacities” of national parks are often limited by national resources and need for the preservation of the biodiversity. As a non-profit institutions National parks in Croatia should adopt forecasting of the future revenues based on the demand management. However, revenue management does not include only extrapolation of trends but rather active sales and marketing measures for the realization of revenue plans. Managing customer demand from the marketing perspective encompass various measures aimed at increasing sales through increased number of customers or the increased value of consumption. However, in the case of national parks, increase of demand or sales is not the only goal of the business strategy. In the framework of the sustainable demand management it could sometimes be expressed through conscious actions aimed at decreasing demand for the certain products, services or experiences due to certain limitations. This is especially true in case of the products that pose as health hazards, socially unwanted behavior, or increased use and endangerment of natural resources. When national parks’ management is concerned demand management might go both ways depending on the specific situation and current needs. Creating higher revenues ensures needed financial resources for the functioning and preservation of Parks but at the same time increased demand and overwhelming number of visitors in some periods of the year can cause different problems connected with environment and biodiversity preservation, equity, access rights and similar. It is therefore necessary to find a delicate balance between those two, at first sight, conflicting goals. This paper conceptualizes problems and solutions of the marketing demand management of national parks in Croatia using Plitvice Lakes National Park as illustrative example.

demand management; sales; environment preservation; Croatia; Plitvice Lakes; national parks

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