marketing at major ports

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MARIT. POL. MGMT ., APRIL JUNE 2005VOL. 32, NO. 2, 6787

Marketing management at the worlds major ports

JULIA N PANDO*, ANDRES ARAUJO andFRANCISCO JAVIER MAQUEDA

Department of Finances Economy II, The University of the BasqueCountry, UPV/EHU, Bilbao, Spain

Recent technological developments in maritime transport, particularly in con-tainer shipping and larger vessels, are having major repercussions at ports theworld over. The latest wave of innovations has increased the level of competitionin maritime transport, in particular in port activities. Shippers have many morealternatives available, something that tends to increase the hinterland of each

port, precisely by reducing captive hinterlands. Ports are now generally movingtowards formulas in which private initiative has a bigger role to play. Increases incompetition combined with growth in private initiatives highlight the usefulnessof marketing tools in two ways. Externally, because they help to achieve through-puts from remote points of origin and destination, and internally, by aiding theproper coordination of business and organizational activity at a commercial port.The present paper is a transversal study of the current situation of marketing andquality tools at major ports, including the opinions of a range of port commercialand marketing managers. We have also tried to describe the differentiatedgroups to be found at ports, as a useful methodology for identifying the nearestcompetition or ports with similar characteristics.

1. Introduction and research objectivesIncreased competition between types of transport, plus the processes of liberalizationand deregulation undertaken in most countries, have helped to increase efficiency intransport and to ensure that transport services are closer to customer requirements.For most users, the range of transport alternatives has broadened considerably.

Ports have a big role to play in maritime goods transport, which is responsible formuch of international trade. Sea transport is used for 70% of the European Unionsforeign trade [1, p. 25] and for 40% of trade within the EU itself [2, p. 6].

Larger vessels and the use of containers have led to the ongoing transformation of

both ports and maritime transport. Apart from the need to improve infrastructures,the kind of services offered and actual port organization should all be analysed if new vessel and intermodal transport requirements are to be satised.

Besides being a major link in the transport chain, ports are clearly an importantfactor for shippers looking for logistics services adapted to new integral port-to-porttransport management requirements.

The needs of transport customers have changed with respect to what traditionallywas the search of a low price, to a greater development and greater complexity of the

*To whom correspondence should be addressed. e-mail: [email protected]

Maritime Policy & Management ISSN 03088839 print/ISSN 14645254 online # 2005 Taylor & Francis Group Ltdhttp://www.tandf.co.uk/journals

DOI: 10.1080/03088830500097414


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characteristics of transport services. A transport customer more and more looks fora better service and tter to his needs, with just-in-time systems, complementaryservices of transformation, or transport systems in particular conditions.

Higher levels of efficiency in road haulage and road infrastructures and connec-tions are also helping to sharpen competition between ports. Shippers have a range

of transport alternatives offering different conditions as regards time, cost and risk,which is leading to the gradual disappearance or reduction of zones of inuence orcaptive markets.

From the development of intermodal transport and the increase of competence,ports must improve their services and they should also extend them in order to havea greater relation and power within the global logistic chain.

A customer perceives a port as a unique company, and values its global perform-ance without worrying about its internal operation, in which several companiestake part. Therefore, ports must be understood as an integrated company of servicesaimed at goods and ships, since it has a common customer, and besides, he or she

assesses a port as a whole. However, several aspects have restrained commercialports from marketing development, among others, low competitiveness in sometraffic (captive traffic) and the existence of multiple companies in the port, eachone with their own objectives.

In addition to their relations with customers, ports must consider their relationswith other ports, other means of transport and different organizations, mainly withlocal administrations because of their inuence in the provision of infrastructures,accesses and logistic development zones.

As a result, ports must develop an analysis process that shows who decides in theuse of the port for each type of load that determines its needs and, from that analysis,they must try to increase the customer dependency and its commitment with thelogistic system in which the port is included. The development of ports to transportcontainers is an example of the importance of this aspect, whose growth is very fastin some cases, aspect no justied by hinterland specic. The port of Gioia Taurusin Italy grew from 16 TEUs to 2,253 TEUs, increasing 244.4% between years 1995and 1999, being placed among the main ports in containers traffic in the world[3, p. 360].

In the face of greater competition, ports have to take advantage of all the poten-tial marketing management offers. Developing an efficient marketing strategy forthe entire port community is one of the ways ports can meet the demands of thenew situation. Establishing a general port marketing frame is therefore of great

interest.Our research seeks to obtain a measure of the present situation and future

prospects for the management of marketing and quality systems at major Spanishand world ports.

2. MethodologyTo this end, we performed an empirical study based on surveys addressed to mar-keting managers and directors at the main Spanish and world ports. These surveyswere then used to evaluate how they employed quality and marketing tools.

Basically descriptive in approach, the research was designed to provide a clear

picture of port marketing, management and quality systems. It was also conceived asan exploratory report, using a series of open questions to obtain marketingmanagement opinions on systems to be used in the future and the risks they entailed.

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It is also a co-relational study employing a hypothetical, deductive methodologyseeking to identify relations between classication and survey variables. ThePrincipal Component Analysis was used to classify ports into groups with similarcharacteristics concerning the variables analysed with a view to classifying andcomparing them. Our idea was that this transversal study could be followed up by

similar reports in the future to analyse the way the main indicators studied here havedeveloped.

The principal justication for the study is the scarcity of similar initiatives in theliterature on commercial ports. Studies of ports have generally concentrated onmeasuring port performance and productivity (see [4, 5] and for Spanish ports [6]),and on specic investigations into the shippers needs, and port and transportselection criteria (see, for example, [7, p. 48]). Among the general studies lookingat management and strategy in port areas are Ojala [8] for Finnish ports (the articleis a theoretical review of the concepts of port management and strategy, with prac-tical applications focused on Finlands ports), the study published by the American

Port Authority Association [9, pp. 171193]1

, or the one produced by theInternational Association of Ports [10]. Empirical studies on port marketing includeone by Denis [11], which gathers data on the development of the commercial area atsome French ports (Le Havre, Marseilles, Dunkirk, Nantes, Bourdeaux and Rouen)through structured interviews with top commercial area management. However, asthis is really a qualitative review limited to a few ports, we believe our study llsan important gap in the studies on commercial ports throughout the world.

3. HypothesisThe activities of businesses in developed countries looking for new manufacturingzones increase international goods transport requirements. However, as we havealready noted, the more developed countries have hinterlands with more internalcompetition due to improvements in transport systems and infrastructures. We pos-ited the possibility of differences existing in the level of adoption of marketing,quality and communications strategies between ports in developed countries andthe rest. The rst hypothesis to test is:

H1: Marketing, quality and communications systems are more highly developed atEuropean and North America ports (the more developed countries) than in the rest.

Ports are differentiated by factors such as who has ultimate control, or the role

of the Port Authority in port ownership and activity. Although many authors havediscussed the variety of types of ports (landlord port, tool port or operating port) nostudies indicate any relation between these classications and management variables.However, in the described situation of increased competition, the public authoritiesare arguing for a greater level of privatization of port services, which may suggestthat private ports or ones with non-national governments are more developed asregards marketing and quality tools (ports depending on local or regional adminis-trations may have more business-like management, as such authorities manage fewerports). We therefore propose analysing the possible relations between these factorsand marketing activities.

H2: Private ports or ports with local or regional governments have more dev-eloped marketing, quality and communications activities than ports with nationalgovernments.

Marketing management at the worlds major ports 69


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Another of the trends observed is a movement towards tool port formulas, whichsuggests that marketing activities are more highly developed at these ports than atoperating or landlord ports. The hypothesis to test here therefore is:

H3: Marketing, quality and communications are more highly developed at tool portsthan at landlord or operating ports.

Changes in the location of major businesses and the ongoing march of globaliza-tion lead to growth in the number of transfers on short routes, largely as a result of the increase in the size of vessels and the centralization of goods at the main ports.This development also leads to the division of ports into different categories: hubports, transoceanic ports, feeder ports and cabotage ports. The greater geographicalscope of the rst two may well be thought to have some effect on the developmentof marketing tools. This empirical study will therefore explore the possibility of differences existing between these ports as regards their marketing activities.

H4: Marketing, quality and communications activities are more highly developed at

hub and transoceanic ports than at feeder or cabotage ports.Many ports are also becoming increasingly specialized, a development that

prompts us to ask whether higher levels of specialization lead to more developedmarketing. We also look at the hypothesis according to which the size of a portaffects marketing activities.

H5: Greater levels of specialization at a port are linked to more developed marketing,quality and communications systems.H6: Ports with greater throughput levels have more marketing, quality andcommunications resources.

As noted in the introduction, competition at ports is increasing, a developmentthat is diminishing captive hinterlands. As a result we needed to analyse the relationbetween a larger hinterland and more developed marketing systems.

H7: The larger the hinterland, the more developed the marketing, quality and commu-nications systems.

The above hypotheses are general, as the idea in each one is to analyse the relationbetween the variable identied and marketing, quality and communications systems,i.e. with each variable from the survey concerning these aspects.

The study itself was performed in several stages between March and July 2001in co-operation with the Port Authority of Bilbao. Two studies were in fact involved,

one for Spanish ports of general interest and another for the main internationalports. We used ordinary post and e-mail, looking at 27 port authorities of generalinterest Spanish ports in the rst case and the database of the 100 ports with greatestcontainer throughput in 1999 for the second [12]. All Spanish ports and 45 of the100 international ports replied. Tables 1 and 2 list the ports taking part in the studyand the main technical data for each one.

Port authorities of general interest ports in Spain are: B. Algeciras,Barcelona, Bilbao, Tarragona, Valencia, Gijo n, Huelva, Cartagena, S. C. Tenerife,Las Palmas, La Corun a, Baleares, Castello n, Almer a-Motril, Ferrol-SanCipria n, Santander, B. Cadiz, Sevilla, Pasajes, Avile s, Ma laga, Vigo, Alicante,

Ceuta, Mar n-Pontevedra, Vilagarc a and Melilla.Once the surveys had been returned, the variables were coded and the datagathered using the SPSS 10.0 statistical program for Windows.

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4. Results

4.1. Descriptive analysis4.1.1. Spanish ports The majority of ports in Spain are landlord ports specializinglargely in bulks. Most have hinterlands of less than 500 kilometres.

Table 1. Classication of the 45 ports that replied to the survey of the 100 ports in the worldwith largest container throughput (1999).

Ranking Port Country

1 Hong Kong Hong Kong2 Singapore Singapore3 Kaohsiung Taiwan4 Rotterdam Holland9 Hamburg Germany

12 Dubai United Arab Emirates13 New York/New Jersey USA16 Tokyo Japan18 Gioia Tauro Italy24 Algeciras Spain25 Laem Chabang Thailand27 Keelung Taiwan28 Oakland USA29 Nagoya Japon31 Seattle USA34 Virginia USA37 Tacoma USA38 Barcelona Spain42 Colon Panama43 Valencia Spain50 Bangkok Thailand51 Marsaxlokk Malta53 Jedddah Saudi Arabia54 Montreal Canada56 Sydney Australia57 Southampton United Kingdom

59 La Spezia Italy61 Bruges Belgium62 Savannah USA63 Haifa Israel66 Jacksonville USA69 Dalian China72 Las Palmas Spain73 Goteborg Sweden79 Johore Malaysia82 Liverpool United Kingdom83 Mumbai India87 Thamesport United Kingdom88 Veracruz Mexico90 Halifax Canada91 Dublin Ireland92 Ashdod Israel95 Dammam Saudi Arabia99 Bilbao Spain

100 Callao Peru



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Twenty-four of the 27 ports surveyed stated that their management and planningdepartments produced formal plans. Planning at these ports mainly focused oninfrastructures (85%) and port services (96%).

Nine of the 27 ports (33%) have an organization encompassing marketing as awhole: Bilbao, Algeciras, Barcelona, Tarragona, Valencia, Vigo, Ceuta, Cadiz andAlicante. The port authority coordinates this organisation in Valencia, Cadiz andVigo, while coordination is performed jointly at Barcelona, Tarragona, Bilbao andAlicante.

A commercial department exists in the port authorities at most of the 27 ports(21 out of 27). The largest percentages of the communications budget are allocatedto public relations (35.6%), press advertising (25.4%) and publications (15.1%).

Twenty-one survey answers identied commercial visits as the essential marketingtool for a port, with public relations in second place (13 of those polled) and tradefairs in third place (six of those polled). Most believed that in future all the organ-izations at a port would have to share responsibility for marketing. They identiedthe need for competition and internal co-ordination at a port as the main obstacleto the future development of marketing.

ISO 9000 (59.3%) is the most frequently implemented quality tool followed byquality models (ten refer to the EFQM excellence model) and benchmarking.

We crossed the classication variables with the questions asked. Here it was clear

that ranking, location and having a larger hinterland were positive inuences on theuse of marketing and communication tools. In this respect, the Mediterranean portswere more developed than ports in northern and southern Spain.

4.1.2. International ports Twenty-one international ports are what are known aslandlord ports, making the largest group in this category, followed by the group of 14 operating ports. As a result of the types of ports analysed, the majority were huband transoceanic ports. Specialization levels are also high, although in this case, andas a consequence of the database used, such specialization concentrates largely oncontainer traffic. This can also be seen from the fact that most of the ports studied

had quite extensive hinterlands.Forty-three of the 45 ports declared that they planned formally; 32 (71.1%)planned systematically. At the majority of these ports, executive management or

Table 2. Technical data of study.

Study Spanish ports Study world ports

Type of study Quantitative QuantitativeStudy technique Postal survey Postal surveyUniverse 27 Port Authorities at

Spanish portsof general interest

Port Authorities at the 100 portsin the world with greatest containerthroughout

Scope Spain The worldSample method Census The census, with 45 replying out of 100.Person surveyed Marketing or commercial

managerMarketing or commercial manager

Margin of error 10.89% with a levelof condence of 95% 1

Date of eld work June to August 2001 March to August 2001

Note : 1. Although not planned as a random sample, we note the error as a reference.

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the planning department were responsible for the planning function. The featuresanalysed most were infrastructures (86%) and port services (82%), although a highpercentage (73%) also look closely at competition and demand (68%), which pointsto greater external orientation than is the case at Spanish ports.

Only 33% of ports polled declared they had an organization responsible for the

common marketing of the port, a gure similar to the one obtained for Spanishports. Co-ordination is a joint concern or is performed by the port authority orsimilar body.

Seventy-nine per cent of these port authorities have a commercial department.The largest percentages of the communications budget go to press advertising(25.3%), publications (21.1%), public relations (19%) and commercial visits (18%).

Forty-nine per cent of survey answers identied commercial visits as an essentialmarketing tool for any port, with 32.6% opting for communications and 25.6% forpublic relations. According to 51.3% of the answers, port authorities should take thelead as regards the modes of organizing marketing in the future, 20.5% feel it should

be a joint process and 7.7% believe this should be an individual concern. At Spanishports, opinion is heavily weighted in favour of joint management, while at inter-national ports the majority opinion focuses on the port authority as the leader of such organization.

Commercial managers at Spanish and international ports considered that internalcompetition and internal co-ordination at the port were the main problems for thedevelopment of marketing in the future. These managers think that unit of action of all the companies within a port and a smaller positioning to the internal competencefavours the development of marketing in a commercial port.

At international ports ISO 9000 certication was the most implemented

quality tool (47.6%) followed by benchmarking (40.5%) and process analysis of re-engineering (33.3%).

Table 3 shows that 46.2% of the European or North American ports have acommon organization of the marketing of the port, whereas in the rest of portsonly 16.7%. Hypothesis test shows this difference as signicant. Therefore weconrmed H1 for the existence of common port marketing.

We also conrmed H2 in the sense that ports with national governments analysethe competition less and use client databases less than ports with other kinds of governing regimes. Table 4 shows that analysis of the competition is 55% in therst and 90.9% in the latter. On the other hand, only 38.1% use data bases of clients

in the rst while in the latter it is 72.7% (see table 5).

Table 3. Development of countries and existence of common port marketing.

Existence of common port marketing

TotalNo Yes

Europe and North America 14 12 2653.8% 46.2% 100.0%

Asia, Oceania, and Central and South America 15 3 1883.3% 16.7% 100.0%

Total 29 15 4465.9% 34.1% 100.0%



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Lack of data prevented us from contrasting hypotheses H3 and H4. We were ableto conrm H5 only for the use of SWOT analysis in management. Table 6 indicatesthe differences between ports more specialized in goods and those less specialized.These differences are signicant in hypothesis test.

Although lack of data prevented us from conrming H6, certain differences areobservable that may be analysed in future research.

Finally, the relation between classication variables and the questions askedshowed that as hinterlands become larger, analysis of political factors and demandincreases, as does the use of sector journals and intranet systems. Commercial man-

agers at ports with larger hinterlands defend a greater role for communication inmarketing. Data showing the relation between hinterland and factors described canbe seen in the following tables (tables 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11).

Table 5. Type of government * use client databases.

Use client databases

TotalNo Yes

National government 13 8 2161.9% 38.1% 100.0%

Others 6 16 2227.3% 72.7% 100.0%

Total 19 24 4344.2% 55.8% 100.0%

Table 6. Specialization*

SWOT analysis use.

SWOT analysis use

TotalNo Yes

One good less than 50% 10 8 1855.6% 44.4% 100.0%

One good more than 50% 5 16 2123.8% 76.2% 100.0%

Total 15 24 3938.5% 61.5% 100.0%

Table 4. Type of government * competence analysis.

Competence analysis

TotalNo Yes

National government 9 11 2045.0% 55.0% 100.0%

Others 2 20 229.1% 90.9% 100.0%

Total 11 31 4226.2% 73.8% 100.0%

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Table 8. Hinterland * demand analysis.

Demand analysis

TotalNo Yes

Less than 500 km 10 10 2050.0% 50.0% 100.0%

More than 500 km 4 19 2317.4% 82.6% 100.0%

Total 14 29 4332.6% 67.4% 100.0%

Table 9. Hinterland * use of sector journals.

Use of sector journals

TotalNo Yes

Less than 500 km 15 5 2075.0% 25.0% 100.0%

More than 500 km 7 15 2231.8% 68.2% 100.0%

Total 22 20 4252.4% 47.6% 100.0%

Table 7. Hinterland * analysis of political factors.

Analysis of political factors

TotalNo Yes

Less than 500 km 17 3 2085.0% 15.0% 100.0%

More than 500 km 11 12 2347.8% 52.2% 100.0%

Total 28 15 4365.1% 34.9% 100.0%

Table 10. Hinterland * intranet systems.

Intranet systems

TotalNo Yes

Less than 500 km 13 7 2065.0% 35.0% 100.0%

More than 500 km 7 14 2133.3% 66.7% 100.0%

Total 20 21 4148.8% 51.2% 100.0%



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Of ports with greater hinterland, 52.2% analyse the political factors while it isonly 15% in the rest of the ports.

With respect to the demand analysis, we can also see that in ports of greaterhinterland the proportion of those that take care of this factor is considerablygreater.

Only 25% of ports of smaller hinterland uses sectorial journals, while this

percentage is 68.2% in ports of greater hinterland.In the following table we can also see, that the intranet is a tool much more used

at ports with greater hinterland.Finally, a greater number of managers at commercial ports port with greater

hinterland grant an important role to the communication in marketing that acommercial port must develop.

Therefore we conrm H7 since, the bigger the hinterland, the greater the use madeof marketing and communication tools.

4.2. Multivariant analysis for comparing ports

4.2.1. Groups of ports From the data obtained in the study we grouped ports withsimilar features together. This analysis enables ports to study their position throughthe series of factors studied and evaluated by their own management. This approach

Table 12. Spanish ports.

1 Valencia 15 Las Palmas2 Vilagarcia 16 Melilla3 Huelva 17 Almeria Motril4 Aviles 18 Ferrol-San Ciprian5 Gijon 19 Vigo6 Castellon 20 A Coruna7 Tarragona 21 Bilbao8 Tenerife 22 Cartagena9 Pasajes 23 Ceuta

10 Barcelona 24 Sevilla11 Marin 25 Balaeres12 Cadiz 26 Malaga13 Algeciras 27 Alicante14 Santander

Table 11. Hinterland * role for communication in marketing.

Role for communication in marketing

TotalNo Yes

Less than 500 km 17 3 2085.0% 15.0% 100.0%

More than 500 km 12 10 2254.5% 45.5% 100.0%

Total 29 13 4269.0% 31.0% 100.0%

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may also help to identify ports with similar characteristics for joint benchmarkingprojects.

Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to create a summary set of vari-ables along a series of axes, thereby facilitating global comparison of the portsin question. The advantage over other techniques such as cluster analysis is that it

allows us to classify ports and compare them on the basis of the axes created[13, pp. 171177).

The ports chosen are given at the beginning of the paper. For Spain we have the27 port authorities for general interest ports and we analyse 34 of the 100 largestinternational container ports.

4.2.2. Spanish ports Table 12 shows the number assigned to the 27 port authoritiesat general interest ports. Nine variables were selected:

(1) general ranking

(2) % containers(3) % general merchandise(4) % liquid bulk(5) % solid bulk(6) specialization(7) hinterland(8) number of people in commercial department(9) people working in organization

Table 13 shows the average values and typical deviation of the variables used forthe analysis. It can be highlighted that the number of people in the commercial

department is low. The number of people who work in a common organization of port marketing is also low. In addition, in this last variable, variance is high becausethere are different types of organizations and some of recent creation.

Table 14 shows what percentage of information for each variable is gathered forthe analysis. The percentage is high, particularly in the ranking and merchandiseproportion variables. The lowest percentage is referred to specialization and hinter-land, although its value is acceptable. As we can observe, for all the variables thevalue is greater than 0.5.

Table 15 shows the percentage of variance explained for each axis or component,and the accumulated percentage of that variance. Taking the rst three variables,

Table 13. Descriptive statistics.

Media Typical deviation N of analysis

% containers 15.2296 17.48418 27% general merchandise 22.2144 16.87401 27% liquid bulk 28.6093 25.88907 27% solid bulk 35.3111 25.64233 27ESPE2 1.63 0.492 27

HINTER2 1.81 0.622 27Number of people in commercial department 244 1,928 27People working in organization 1,4815 3,26250 27



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75.7% of total variance is explained. We are going to make the analysis with these

three factors, selecting those with selfvalue greater than one.The rotated component matrix (table 16) enables us to interpret the componentsin question using the correlation with the initial variables (tables 17 and 18).

The rst component relates positively to ranking, with the number of people inthe commercial department and the percentage of liquid bulk and negatively to thepercentage of general merchandise. We could call this axis the size factor.

The second component relates positively to the percentage of containers andnegatively to the percentage of solid bulk and specialization. We might call thisaxis the specialization factor. Specialization at Spanish ports is more related tosolid bulk than containers, which in general are non-predominating traffic.

The last component, relating positively to hinterland (its main relation) may betermed the hinterland factor.

We show the rst two axes in the rst map (gure 1), which has four groupsof ports. One includes the ports of Algeciras (13), Barcelona (10), Las Palmas (15),Tenerife (8) and Valencia (1), as large ports with low specialization levels and a largepercentage of containers.

A second group of ports comprises Bilbao (21), Castello n (6), Tarragona (7),Cartagena (22), Huelva (3), La Corun a (20) and Gijo n (5), all relatively largeports specializing more in solid bulk than in containers.

Another group is formed by the ports of Almeria-Motril (17), Ferrol-San Ciprian(18), Santander (14), Seville (24), Avile s (4), Pasajes (9) and Ma laga (26), all medium

or small ports specializing in solid bulk.The fourth group of ports comprises Ceuta (23), Baleares (25), Vigo (19), Cadiz

(12), Vilagarc a (2), Alicante (27), Mar n (11) and Melilla (16), mostly smallports, but less specialized than the previous ones and with a greater proportion of containers.

The second map (gure 2) shows the rst axis or component (already analysed)and the third; the third component refers to the hinterland of ports as indicated.

Once again the ports of Algeciras (13), Barcelona (10) and Valencia (1) appear inpositions close to each other, as ports with large hinterlands. The ports of Tenerife(8) and Las Palmas (15) were displaced to the left because of their smaller hinter-

lands. The ports of Bilbao (21), Castello n (6), Tarragona (7), Cartagena (22), Huelva(3), La Corun a (20) and Gijo n (5) are once again positioned close together withsmaller hinterlands. The remaining ports are more scattered, making up two groups.

Table 14. Common points.

Initial Extraction

Ranking general 1.000 0.861% containers 1.000 0.803% general merchandise 1.000 0.790% liquid bulk 1.000 0.854% solid bulk 1,000 0.815ESPE2 1,000 0.584HINTER2 1,000 0.653Number of people in commercial department 1,000 0.715People working in organization 1,000 0.744

Extraction method: Principal Component Analysis.

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Table 15. Total variance explained.

Initial autovaluesSums of saturations

to extraction squared

Component Total % of variance accumulated % Total % of variance accumulated % Total %

1 3,133 34.807 34.807 3,133 34.807 34.807 2,2 2,336 25.960 60.766 2,336 25.960 60.766 2,3 1,351 15.009 75.776 1,351 15.009 75.776 1,4 695 7.724 83.5005 608 6.750 90.2506 413 4.594 94.8447 331 3.676 98.5208 117 1.305 99.8269 1,567E 02 0.174 100.000

Extraction method: Principal Component Analysis.


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factor 3

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Figure 2. Differentiated groups to be found at ports in Spain (factors 1 and 3).

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Figure 1. Differentiated groups to be found at ports in Spain (factors 1 and 2).

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One group has medium to medium-large hinterlands, such as the ports of Almeria-Motril (17), Santander (14), Seville (24), Avile s (4), Ma laga (26), Pasajes

(9), Vigo (19), Cadiz (12), Alicante (27) and Mar n (11); the other group has smallhinterlands and includes the ports of Melilla (16), Vilagarc a (2), Ceuta (23), Baleares(25), Ferrol-San Ciprian (18), Las Palmas (15) and Tenerife (8).

Table 16. Rotated components matrix.

Component

1 2 3

Ranking general 0.899 0.102 0.203% general merchandise 0.806 0.365 80.699E-02Number of people in commercial department 0.782 0.216 0.238% liquid bulk 0.753 4.008E-02 0.534% solid bulk 0.292 0.821 0.237% containers 2.063E-02 0.819 0.365ESPE2 0.207 0.735 3.658E-02HINTER2 5.777E-02 3.256E-02 0.806People working in organization 419 522 544

Extraction method: Principal Component Analysis. Rotation method: Varimax Standardization withKaiser.a Rotation converged in 5 iterations.

Table 17. Coefficient matrix for calculating scores in components.

Components

1 2 3

Ranking general 0.303 0.018 0.115% containers 0.034 0.326 0.153% general merchandise 0.295 0.191 0.028% liquid bulk 0.266 0.049 0.384% solid bulk 0.068 0.388 0.266

ESPE2 0.103 0.346 0.111HINTER2 0.010 0.114 0.559Number of people in commercial department 0.257 0.035 0.127People working in organization 0.114 0.153 0.306

Extraction method: Principal component analysis. Rotation method: Varimax Standardisation withKaiser. Component scores.

Table 18. Descriptive statistics.

Mean Typical deviation N of analysis

Ranking in containers 49.18 30.423 34% containers 49.75 23.50 34ESPEC2 1.21 0.479 34HINTER2 2.35 0.812 34People working in organization 4.88 16.145 34Number of people in commercial department 9.09 20.690 34



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4.2.3. International ports The same analysis was performed for the internationalports that replied to our survey. We received a response from 45 of the 100 largestports in terms of container throughput. Of these we have 34 complete survey returnsfor the variables used. In this case the variables are ranking in containers (a variable

taken to establish the population), the percentage of containers, specialization,hinterland, the people working in the joint marketing organization and the peopleworking in the Port Authority commercial department. Due to heterogeneity of theanalyzed ports, variance of these two last variables are high.

Table 19 shows what percentage of the information for each variable is gatheredby the analysis. This percentage is high for the number of people in commercialdepartment, ranking, percentage of containers and hinterland variables, with a lowerscore for the specialization and people working in organization variables. In all casesthe value is greater than 0.5.

The percentage of variance explained by the rst three axes or components is26.98%, 22.28% and 19.20% respectively (see table 20). The accumulated percentageof the variance taking the rst three variables is 68.475% of total variance. For thelater analysis we selected previously, these three rst components using the criterionof selfvalue greater than 1.

As we have pointed out, the rotated component matrix (table 21) permits aninterpretation of these components based on the correlation with the initial variables(table 22). The rst component relates negatively to ranking and positively to thepercentage of containers. The two variables do not move in the same direction, i.e.larger ports combine containers with other kinds of throughput to a greater extentthan smaller ports (in reference to those 100), where their proportion of containertraffic is higher. We may also call this axis the orientation towards container factor.

The second axis relates positively to the number of people working in commonport marketing organization and negatively to specialization. We relate this axis tothe marketing vs specialization factor. The third axis relates positively to the hinter-land and negatively to the number of people working in the commercial department.We need to remember that at many ports the number of people in Port Authoritycommercial departments is explained by the lack of a single, common port marketingorganization. This axis is the hinterland factor.

With regard to the rst factor, a certain continuity is observable in the positionthe ports occupy. However, as the chart in gure 3 shows, we distinguished threegroups of ports, A, B and C. Group A includes the ports of Oakland (6), Gioia

Tauro (9), Tokyo (33), Southampton (39), Hong Kong (3), Singapore (13), Seattle(25), Dalian (7), Hamburg (26), Dubai (42) and Tacoma (11). These ports aremost oriented towards container throughput in their general services strategy.

Table 19. Common points.

Initial Extraction

Ranking in containers 1.000 0.769% containers 1.000 0.725ESPEC2 1.000 0.506HINTER2 1.000 0.745People working in organization 1.000 0.540Number of people in commercial department 1.000 0.823

Extraction method: Principal component analysis.

82 J. Pando et al .


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Gioia Tauro (Italy), Tokyo (Japan), Oakland (US), Bangkok (Thailand) and LaemChabang (Thailand) are examples of ports where containers account for between90% and 100% of their traffic.

Group B includes the ports of Valencia (2), Rotterdam (23), Colon (40), NewYork/New Jersey (10), Algeciras (31), Jacksonville (12), La Spezia (16) and Sydney(21). Some of these ports, such as Rotterdam, New York/New Jersey and Algeciras,are among the leading world ports in containers. However, as they are in zones withmajor hinterlands, they receive high levels of goods traffic generated by the zones.So their percentages of containers are high but do not predominate within totalthroughput levels.

Finally, group C includes the ports of Montreal (18), Savannah (41), Bruges (22),Gotenburg (14), Haifa (19), Las Palmas (45), Veracruz (34), Callao (32), Halifax (4),Mumbai (8), Johore (30), Ashdod (20), Liverpool (15) and Bilbao (43). Group Cports do not focus activity on containers and usually have more general traffic, oftencoming from the demand generated by their nearest hinterland.

As regards the second factor, the majority of ports are grouped around averagevalues, in particular the ports of Montreal (18) and Savannah (41) due, in their view,to their common port marketing organizations, where a lot more people work thanis the case at other ports.

For the third factor, the port of Dubai (42) is different from the rest. One reason

is the high number of people (120) working in the commercial department incomparison to other ports. Even so the number is high precisely because of thelack of a common marketing organization at the port.

factor 2

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Figure 3. Differentiated groups to be found at ports in the world (factors 1 and 2).



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Table 20. Total variance explained.

Initial autovalues Sums of saturations to extraction squared Sums o

Component Total % of variance accumulated % Total % of variance accumulated % Total %

1 1.619 26.984 26.984 1.619 26.984 26.984 1.578

2 1.337 22.285 49.270 1.337 22.285 49.270 1.2773 1.152 19.205 68.475 1.152 19.205 68.475 1.2544 0.869 14.488 82.9635 0.604 10.064 93.0276 0.418 6.973 100.000

Extraction method: Principal component analysis.


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5. ConclusionsAs we conrmed through our rst hypothesis, a greater percentage of ports inEuropean and North American countries have a common marketing organization.Spanish ports also tend to analyse the competition and use the client databases lessthan ports with other kinds of governing systems. Greater specialization has onlybeen linked to a greater use of SWOT analysis in management. We also found thatthe larger the hinterland, the greater the use made of marketing and communicationtools.

The fact that there is a direct relationship between hinterland size and the use of marketing tools conrms the idea that marketing appears when competitionincreases, which is what happens when the hinterland grows. To the extent thatthe hinterland of most ports is increasing, competition is also on the increase,which will in turn lead to an increase in marketing activities.

The conclusions of the empirical study suggest that joint marketing at commercialports is still relatively undeveloped, as are quality systems based on the co-ordinationof all the rms involved. Nevertheless, marketing executive opinion does defendthese factors as decisive for the future of commercial ports.

The last part of the paper posits a working methodology for ports that we con-

sider particularly useful for establishing the set of ports similar to a particular portstudied, thereby facilitating subsequent monitoring, research and benchmarkingprocesses. The specic characteristics of competition between commercial ports

Table 21. Rotated component matrix.

Components

1 2 3

Ranking in containers 0.874 2.750E-02 6.299E-02% containers 0.850 3.654E-02 4.342E-02People working in organization 0.134 0.721 4.470E-02ESPEC2 0.119 0.698 6.238E-02Number of people in commercial department 0.151 0.259 0.856HINTER2 0.192 0.447 0.713

Extraction method: Principal Component Analysis. Rotation method: Varimax Standardization withKaiser.a Rotation converged in 4 iterations.

Table 22. Coefficient matrix for calculating component scores.Components

1 2 3

Ranking in containers 0.559 0.071 0.035% containers 0.541 0.025 0.047ESPEC2 0.033 0.550 0.088HINTER2 0.108 0.302 0.549People working in organization 0.129 0.577 0.008Number of people in commercial department 0.067 0.245 0.699

Extraction method: Principal xomponent Analysis. Rotation method: Varimax Standardization with

Kaiser. Component scores.



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makes benchmarking practices suitable and applicable, as ports in remote areas canbe found that do not entail mutual competition for any throughput. A commercialports identication of the set of ports with a similar multivariable prole shouldprovide the basis for the development of business co-operation.

Note1. For this study, 66 ports in the western hemisphere were consulted (North and

South Atlantic, Gulf, North and South Pacic, Great Lakes, Canada and Latin

America) to establish the most important external strategic keys facing ports.

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del Mar, September).2. P uertos del E stado , 2002, Bolet n de informacio n mensual , May, 95 , 6.3. Institute of Shipping Economics and Logistics (ISL), 2000, Shipping Statistics

Yearbook 2000 (Bremen: ISL).4. D e M onie , G., 1988, Medicio n y evaluacio n del rendimiento y de la productividad de los

puertos (New York: Monograf as de la UNCTAD sobre gestio n de puertos, no. 6).5. C asas , F., 1995, Ecacia portuaria y transporte mar timo. Informacio n Comercial

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factor 3

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Figure 4. Differentiated groups to be found at ports in the world (factors 1 and 3).

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7. M ester , B., 1991, Marketing from the Ports Point of View (Bremen: Port ManagementTextbook, vol. 3, Institute of Shipping Economics and Logistics).

8. O jala , L., 1991, Strategic Management of Port Operations (Turku: Center for MaritimeStudies University).

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13. T ongzon , J. L., 1995, Systematizing international benchmarking for ports. MaritimePolicy and Management , 22(2), 171177.


marketing at major ports

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