RECONCEPTION OF MARKETING IN THE SPHERE OF TOURISM UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Abstract

The motivational component of consumer behavior in the process of obtaining tourist services during the period of pandemic threats of COVID-19 is considered. Processes of purchasing services have been studied. The marketing mechanism of the process of providing services to the target audience has been improved to stimulate potential consumers to purchase tourist services. The unprecedented impact of COVID-19 on the tourism sector of the economy has been documented by numerous studies in countries around the world. The improvement in the situation over the last year and a half is mainly due to the fact that travelers are happy to travel after a long break due to numerical restrictions. But the pandemic changed not only the attitudes and habits of consumers, but also pushed for the transformation of social norms. The decision to purchase travel services began to be based on the resolution of the internal conflict between the desire for pleasure, the safety of the trip, and the cost of the purchase. A new wave of customer dissatisfaction is likely when loyalty is on the brink of collapse. In addition, the operational capabilities of travel agencies and operators in Ukraine are limited, problems with air connections are significant, hotel services require additional coordination. Under these conditions, the key factor in the market success of tourist services is marketing tools that take into account the motivational features of the behavior of modern consumers. According to the theory of consumer choice, any consumer wants to maximize utility. But taking into account the high degree of use of the information space by the majority of members of the domestic society, it is necessary to take into account the high degree of consumer awareness when assessing the possibilities for making flexible decisions that are adequate for each current moment. In this way, the consumer's behavior corresponds to the classical approach, which takes into account the unlimited cognitive possibilities, that is, when the potential possibilities of rationality are transformed into real behavior under the influence of information technologies. However, an excessive amount of information creates a contradictory situation for the consumer, when, on the one hand, a large volume of information increases the degree of probability of receiving among it the one that is most valuable for him, and on the other hand, the large volume itself creates difficulties in finding and selection of the necessary. Thus, the prerequisites for making a suboptimal decision are created. Nowadays, representatives of the international scientific community have most deeply and thoroughly studied the socio-economic situation that was formed during the period of the beginning and unfolding of the pandemic in 2019-2021. In the same period of time, we conducted our own research of these processes on the example of the territorially limited region of the city of Dnipro. At the same time, it can be considered sufficiently representative for Ukraine in terms of consumer behavior based on the size of the sample and coverage of different social strata of the population. Research has shown the presence of a new main trend that has appeared in the behavior of consumers of tourist services. Decision-making process began to be based on resolving the internal conflict between the desire for security and comfort when receiving a service. Based on these principles, a new approach to the use of well-known marketing tools was proposed, which in its totality and taking into account the proposed features of each of them allowed to create a new protocol of traveler service.