1 The nature of the social exchange when a purchase takes place; and
2 The functional nature of the tourism product included in the transaction.
More recently, new perspectives have been introduced including those based
upon relationships, the co-creation of value and the recognition of intangible
products. These new perspectives are based upon the concept of marketing services
rather than physical goods; they allow consideration of all market actors and
recognise that these actors will have a continuous relationship with each other.
This provides a more realistic approach to the tourism product as it integrates
both goods and services and recognises that tourists will purchase both when they
construct a trip. This approach recognises the tourism consumer as a co-creator
of goods and delivers a marketing approach that allows interaction with the customer
in a continuous process, facilitated by the use of technology. This can then
be taken a step further by viewing the tourism product as a bundle of tangible and
intangible product attributes, with all products lying on a continuum between
these types of attributes. The tourism product can also be viewed along a second
continuum: from a single component; through a composite of components that
are packaged or bundled together; to the total destination product itself. Gilbert
(1990) extends these ideas, arguing that the tourism product is in fact the total
experience. He defines the tourism product as: