Ch 12: Destination Marketing Copyright © SAGE Publications

Topics Covered International attractions Objectives and benefits of destination marketing    The role of Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs)    Tourism development  Destination branding  Destination promotion Marketing events, festivals and conferences Marketing all-inclusive resorts  Copyright © SAGE Publications

Table 12.1 Characteristics of a destination Source: Adapted from Lumsdon, L. (1997) Tourism Marketing. Oxford: Thomson Business Press. Copyright © SAGE Publications

Table 12.2 Classifications of destinations Copyright © SAGE Publications

International Attractions Attractions are increasingly polarized between a few large attractions and thousands of small and micro-sized enterprises. Tourist attractions can also be classified as natural or human-made. Factors that influence the marketing of visitor attractions: the marketing objectives of attractions they are often marketed by other agencies as well as by themselves the level of competition will vary drastically between different types of attractions the attraction market is particularly volatile and fashion-led visitor usage rates vary dramatically some attractions are extremely fragile and therefore need to be protected and not exploited Copyright © SAGE Publications

The Objectives and Benefits of Destination Marketing Attract tourists Improving the image of an area Provide jobs for local residents Increase the range of facilities that are available for the local community Give local residents more pride in their local area Provide a rationale and funding for improvements to the local environment Try to make the destination politically more acceptable Copyright © SAGE Publications

The Role of Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) DMOs are government agencies, convention and visitors bureaus, travel associations and other bodies that market travel to their respective destination areas. Nearly every state, province, and territory now has a separate body responsible for marketing, e.g. Australian Tourist Commission, the British Tourist Authority, and the Canadian Tourism Commission At a regional or city level convention and visitor bureaus (CVBs) have been created to deal with destination marketing. Copyright © SAGE Publications

Tourism Development Techniques have been developed to monitor other impacts of tourism development, such as the environmental and social impacts of tourism, e.g.: environmental audit, environmental impact analysis, carrying capacity and community assessment techniques. The nature of the marketing strategy adopted by a destination is often dictated by the tourism destination life cycle, otherwise known as the tourism area life cycle (TALC). Copyright © SAGE Publications

Figure 12.2 Hypothetical tourist area life cycle Source: Butler (1980) adapted by Cooper et al. (1993) Copyright © SAGE Publications

Destination Branding Destination branding - creating a superior proposition that is distinctive from competitors’ and imparts meaning above and beyond the functional aspects of the destination Five key challenges: Limited budgets Politics External environment Destination product Creating differentiation Copyright © SAGE Publications

Five Stages in the Process of Building a Destination Brand Market investigation, analysis and strategic recommendations Brand identity development Brand launch and introduction Brand implementation Monitoring, evaluation and review Copyright © SAGE Publications

Figure 12.3 The destination brand benefit pyramid Source: Morgan et al. (2002) Destination Branding, 31. Copyright © SAGE Publications

Destination Promotion Strategy Most DMOs are involved in a range of promotional activities. These include the following six types: brochures advertisements the press and public relations personal selling sales promotions trade fairs and exhibitions DMOs will often cooperate with other members of the tourism industry. These cooperative strategies create marketing bridges between a DMO and individual operators in the tourism industry. Copyright © SAGE Publications

Marketing Events, Festivals and Conferences For business and leisure travellers, events, festivals and conferences often play a key role in bringing people to destinations. From the destination’s perspective, event tourism is the development and marketing of events to obtain economic and community benefits. To the consumer, it is travel for the purpose of participating in or viewing an event. Events are often introduced to cope with seasonality and to boost tourism receipts during normally quiet times of year. The convention and exhibition market is another lucrative market for destinations, and has experienced unparalleled growth during the past 20 years. Copyright © SAGE Publications

Marketing All-inclusive Resorts Over the past few decades, there has been a huge increase in the development of new all-inclusive resorts, as well as an adaptation of a number of older traditional hotels into all-inclusive properties. The market has become increasingly competitive. Resorts are not just competing on price, and continue to add new services and components to provide more choices. Despite the success of all-inclusives, they have been criticized on a number of fronts in terms of their social, economic and environmental impacts. Copyright © SAGE Publications