1. Ch 12: Destination Marketing
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2. 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 
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3. Table 12.1 Characteristics of a destination
Source: Adapted from Lumsdon, L. (1997) Tourism Marketing. Oxford: Thomson Business Press.
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4. Table 12.2 Classifications of destinations
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5. 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
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6. 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
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7. 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.
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8. 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).
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9. Figure 12.2 Hypothetical tourist area life cycle
Source: Butler (1980) adapted by Cooper et al. (1993)
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10. 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
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11. 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
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12. Figure 12.3 The destination brand benefit pyramid
Source: Morgan et al. (2002) Destination Branding, 31.
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13. 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.
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14. 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.
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15. 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.
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