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On the other hand, tourism product can be defined as a service that can only be put to some use for deriving benefits. There are a number of features which are of relevance to the way in which travel and tourism products are managed and differentiated from physical goods. These include intangibility, inseparability, perishability, heterogeneity, and ownership (Evans et al. 2003:1994).
Intangibility of tourism products makes this business diversified yet accessible to all. Unlike goods, services such as accommodation in a luxury hotel and cruising to an exotic island cannot be bought in physical terms. In other words, these services can only be used by customers and service providers alike. Customers make use of them for fulfilling their purpose of travelling whereas service providers put them to use for making profits. In either way, they cannot be physically located but be experienced only. Baum (2006) argues that in a culturally diversified setup, the intangibility of tourism products enables tour operators and travel agents to adjust to the varying demands of visitors (151). They can increase the stake of services, wherever necessary, to optimise revenues. At the same time, the invisibility phenomenon associated with intangible service products poses some major challenges to overcome. Intangibility itself is an attribute that sometimes appears vague and superfluous. Unless the service itself proves its worth, potential customers may completely or partially ignore it. To take away the equivocation, tour operators usually apply tangible means to promote their services to target customers. This is why video clippings of holiday destinations or cruise ship tours are uploaded on the web to lure in customers into availing of the services. Similarly, tour organisers spend time and money to make creative and visually appealing travel brochures to minimise the uncertainty factor involved with intangibility.