This is especially crucial when one destination is competing with another for the same tourists or visitors. An example of this would be both the Caribbean and the Great Barrier Reef offering excellent diving experiences. The goal of most destination marketing is to promote your destination as superior to alternatives, by highlighting the things that make it unique, or the things that make it a desirable place to travel to. Successful destination marketing can then be of huge benefit to the local tourism industry , including hotels, restaurants, bars, airlines and related suppliers.
Responsibility for destination marketing typically falls on a dedicated destination marketing organisation DMO , or tourist board. These organisations represent the community or destination being promoted and attempt to drive interest in the region amongst travellers by using a range of different marketing techniques.
In many ways, a DMO also serves as a link between the visitor and the destination, encouraging the visit in the first place, but also providing important visitor information. A number of different marketing strategies can be used for destination marketing purposes, helping to boost overall awareness of a destination and increase the number of people who actually visit.
Below, you will find more information about 14 of these strategies and how destination marketing organisations can use them to get results.
Arguably the single most important step for any organisation engaging in destination marketing is to take the time to clearly define what makes your destination unique. There are a huge range of ways a destination can stand out, such as unique activities to offer visitors, or unique natural features, like mountains, beaches or volcanoes.
It could be that your location has a fascinating history, or unique landmarks, like the Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building, or the Great Wall of China. Perhaps the culture of the location is its unique selling point and visitors would want to travel to experience local events, museums or sports clubs. Try to identify as many USPs as possible. Another of the best destination marketing strategies involves identifying your target audiences. Think about who is likely to want to visit the destination and for what reason.
Often, you will need to break this down into several different audiences, who each may have different reasons for wanting to travel to your location. For instance, it could be that your destination appeals to youngsters on a gap year, and elderly couples enjoying their retirement. It might be that it appeals to people who enjoy outdoor sporting activities and people who want to relax on the beach.
You also need to consider the different groups, such as tourists, business travellers and students. Finally, think about whether certain markets are more likely to be interested than others. This could mean people in nearby countries, if you have excellent transport links, or people who speak the same language.
Destination marketing organisations can potentially obtain and utilise vast amounts of data, for a number of different purposes. Offline, you can find out information about existing visitors, such as the average age, whether your destination appeals more to men or women, and what methods of transport they use. Once you have gathered sufficient data, you can analyse it to identify the best people to reach out to, the best ways to reach them and the best messages to push. Branding is a technique used by businesses, in order to make them easily identifiable.
The concept of branding can include logos, colour schemes and other design principles, as well as slogans or repeated use of certain terminology.
Ultimately, branding is about being recognisable and standing out from others. This principle can be fairly easily applied to a destination. Try to come up with a coherent colour scheme, use a tagline that says something about the destination itself, create hashtags for people to use on social media, and try to be as consistent as possible with your promotional messaging, so that people become familiar with it.
A significant component of destination management involves looking out for the interests of various stakeholders, in order to establish trust and facilitate engagement.
The stakeholders might include officials from your country, city, village or state, as well as hotels, attractions, restaurants, shopping venues, travel agents and tour operators. Try to come up with destination marketing strategies that actually encourage these various parties to participate and support your destination. See if you can get stakeholders to agree to use some of your wider destination branding, and to run their own advertising or marketing campaigns, in order to maximise visitor interest.
Regardless of their reasons for travelling, the majority of travellers now use the internet to research their destination before booking. To achieve a well-balanced and sustainable development it is important to acknowledge the roles played by individual amenities and components within a destination.
While some, such as beaches and restaurants, look great on the front cover of a brochure or social media, others, such as retail or restaurants, are typically less aesthetically pleasing, but will drive forward the financial performance of a destination.
A successful destination requires a combination of those that have a strong intrinsic appeal and those that essentially help to drive the cash flow of the development. While historically destinations were often associated with a narrow end-user market, diversifying the product offer can create a destination that appeals to a broader mix of visitors and provides the opportunity to overlay peaks of demand in one market with troughs in another. When establishing a new ski destination like Arkhyz in Russia, this focus on year-round appeal was a significant consideration.
With the climate reaching up to 30 degrees Celsius in the summer, Arkhyz, has the potential to establish itself as a year-round destination. Activities such as mountain biking, hiking and water sports were all possibilities that were contemplated for Arkhyz over the summer months, along with concerts and festivals to really promote the location as a cultural summer destination as well as a winter sports hub. Allowing for flexibility and evolution is essential when designing a destination.
While the purpose built US and Canadian ski destinations generally have space to grow, the villages in the Alps have long been constricted. A resort destination should be able to respond to the different seasons and adapt to the changing needs of visitors. Creating a sustainable destination essentially comes down to giving consideration to the environment and the local community. Similarly, establishing a carefully considered landscape plan is a critical long-term investment; while buildings typically start to deteriorate over time, the landscape should grow in elegance.
Within a competitive market context, effective marketing and communications of a destination are essential to establish awareness of the offer and maintain its market position. Creating a marketing strategy for the overall destination, and gaining the buy-in of the diverse mix of stakeholder groups involved in the delivery of the concept vision may be challenging, but collaboration is key for a destination to punch above its weight and draw worldwide attention.
As we know, nothing succeeds like success. And so to develop and evolve destinations that are ultimately environmentally, economically and socially sustainable, the journey to success must begin with a great vision, and continuous innovation to meet and exceed changing expectations.
One of the lessons that the last decade has taught us is to be prepared for, and even expect, the unexpected. With this in mind, and recognising that with uncertainty and disruption come opportunity, the destinations that people will be travelling to visit in will be those that build upon these fundamental truths and look beyond the chaos of today to anticipate, plan and engage with the changing world and all of its gloriously diverse markets. This website uses cookies to improve your website experience and provide more personalized services to you.
To find out more about the cookies we use, see our Website Privacy Policy. Thrive Equity, diversity and inclusion are core to our vision - a world where infrastructure creates opportunity for everyone. The main difference between destinations can be explained by the dichotomy between the advertising strategies related to leisure and culture D1.
However, the areas related to infrastructure D2 and location near tourist sites D3 represent a significant source of differentiation. The results of this study point to the clear need to promote the city's tourist products and packages, its cultural attractions and its gastronomy in the online competition as European urban destination.
In addition, infrastructure and transport, landscape and natural resources, events and sports also seem to have a more stable presence through communication practices, although these categories are less important in the discourse than the previous ones.
Materials provided by Universitat Pompeu Fabra - Barcelona. Note: Content may be edited for style and length. Science News. Journal Reference : Sara Vinyals-Mirabent. A benchmark study of communication practices. Attractions, culture and gastronomy. ScienceDaily, 8 April Universitat Pompeu Fabra - Barcelona. What most attracts us to a tourist destination? Retrieved November 10, from www.
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