No matter how good the planning, development and management of a place is, unless tourist know what is has to offer and believe – or can be persuaded to believe – that it is worth visiting, it will remain a place with merely the potential to become tourist
destination. It must be also considered that: Choice of
holiday destination is a significant lifestyle indicator for today’s consumers and the places they choose to spend their increasingly squeezed
holiday time and hard earned income have to be emotionally appealing with high conversation and celebrity value.
There are several requirements for successful
destination marketing:
• The right mix of features and services
• An image that is attractive to the target market
• The products and services must be delivered in an efficient and accessible way
• The destination’s values and image must be promoted effectively to ensure that potential users are aware of the place’s distinct advantages
A marketing strategy should also consider that a ‘product’ a ‘destination’ goes through the ‘destination life cycle’ and therefore the type of consumer is likely to be different at different stages. The marketing messages must therefore evolve in response to change to change in the destination and in the context of the
destination plan. Returning to the question posted at the outset, can technique and ideas developed for selling goods, and services be successfully applied to place? When the intension is purely to increase visitor numbers there is a little doubt. Today’s tourist is, however, an experience and demanding customer and more ready to complain about faulty goods or misleading claims. Destination marketing must stay within appropriate boundaries, resisting certain opportunities that modern marketing techniques offer.
The place as a product
If someone says “I didn’t enjoy that meal”, is mean that the hotel or restaurant might not see that customer again. It is in the interest of establishment to find out the reason for the dissatisfaction and do something about it. The destination is a complex of both tangible and intangible elements, any or several of which may be at fault from that particular consumer’s point of view. The
destination is where the facilities and attraction are, but is also the ‘product’ itself: and each tourist defines his/her distinct products according to their individual tastes and interests. The friendliness of local residents is a destination attribute that many tourists seek and is often referred to in promotional brochures of marketing departments. I hope this article was helpful in marketing your
holiday destination.
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