marketing a tourism destination

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Destination Marketing Strategies that Attract Attention

Marketing is integral to any business strategy, but targeted advertising is essential in hospitality and tourism. Although repeat guests and loyal customers provide critical revenue streams for local economies, locations must continually expand their audience reach to remain competitive and capture the attention of new visitors. The right destination marketing strategies can generate more interest in travel to your region, driving valuable tourism dollars into the local economy and the businesses in it.

Discover the value of location-based marketing and how every town, regardless of landscape or population size, can profit from strategically promoting its destination. Whether you’re by the beach, in the city, or just off the highway in a small town, we’ll show you how locations everywhere can use destination marketing strategies to boost business.  

Destination marketing strategies that drive tourism dollars

What is a destination marketing strategy.

Destination marketing is a form of advertising designed to attract customers to a particular place. Instead of focusing on a distinct product or service, it centers around the unique atmosphere and experiences a specific location provides visitors.

From vacation hot spots to remote getaway locations, destination marketing strategies captivate consumers and promote travel to desirable places.

Who benefits from destination marketing?

Many businesses benefit from the revenue and tourist traffic destination marketing generates. Various hospitality and service-based companies use location-based advertising to attract the attention of potential travelers, including:

• Destination management organizations and convention and visitors bureaus
• Travel agencies
• Transportation services (e.g., airlines, car companies, bus tours)
• Entertainment and event venues (e.g., concert halls, wedding venues)
• Attractions (e.g., amusement parks, museums, recreational facilities)
• Service-based businesses (e.g., restaurants and retailers)
• Lodging partners (e.g., hotels, resorts, convention centers)
• Local and state governments (e.g., parks or historical sites)

Why do destination marketing strategies matter?

Destination marketing showcases what sets your destination apart from other enticing locations. It creates an immersive experience for consumers that enables them to imagine what it’s like to actually be in a particular place—to see the sights and smell the scents.

From corporate flyers and digital nomads to vacationers and off-the-grid adventure seekers, travelers turn to destination marketing to get an idea of what to expect from a particular location. Your marketing strategy helps lay the foundation of consumer expectations. For example, if your destination marketing focuses on luxurious tropical getaways, that’s what guests will expect.

The true power of destination tourism lies in its ability to impact every part of a local economy, attracting businesses, tourists, and other travelers to the region. By implementing various destination marketing strategies for distinct target audiences, you can measure which types of hotel guests or recreational groups are attracted to your market. The more you know about your ideal consumers, the better equipped you will be to advertise activities, amenities, and attractions that appeal to them.

How is destination marketing different from other regional marketing?

Destination marketing organizations (DMOs) are responsible for promoting their destination to tourists, travel planners, corporations, and other consumers that drive valuable revenue to the local economy. DMOs and similar organizations, like Convention and Visitors Bureaus (CVBs), employ various marketing strategies to attract visitors. They may turn to social media to advertise the opening of a new park or engage in data-driven email marketing to get the word out about upcoming events. However, destination marketing is a specific advertising strategy that builds consumers’ desire to visit your location by advertising the attractions that set it apart.

Destination marketing lets consumers know what they can expect from a visit to your region. It captures the atmosphere, energy, and essence of your locale. Does your destination offer plentiful recreational opportunities or headlining entertainment? Is your destination a peaceful, remote location offering travelers an escape or a trendy tech hub in the middle of a bustling city?

Unlike other regional marketing campaigns , destination-focused advertising promotes the overall appeal of a location instead of a particular business or attraction. It pinpoints what makes your destination unique and why others should experience it.

Destinations that nailed their marketing campaigns

To better understand what destination marketing looks like in action, let’s review some of the most powerful location-based tourism campaigns from the last decade. These four destinations understood the power of destination marketing and used it to launch wildly successful campaigns.

1. Inspired by Iceland

In 2010, a volcanic eruption led to a downturn in Iceland’s tourism, with many travelers holding misconceptions about its safety. To reinstate the country’s place as a renowned tourist destination, the Icelandic government partnered with the City of Reykjavik, Promote Iceland, and other tourism companies to launch “Inspired by Iceland” in 2020.

In addition to strengthening Iceland’s image in the global tourism market, the Inspired by Iceland tourism initiative was part of a long-term destination marketing strategy designed to increase the production of Icelandic exports through government and industry cooperation. Many Icelandic industries have benefited from the campaign , including the creative, green energy, and seafood sectors.

2. Travel Oregon

Oregon, one of America's most scenic and awe-inspiring locations, is split into seven separate tourism regions . Each locale has a Regional Destination Tourism Management Organization (RMDO) that acts as the tourism liaison for that region. Working together, the RMDOs launched Travel Oregon to drive leisure and business travel to their area.

The Travel Oregon campaign put the state on the map as a premier travel destination. It appealed to customers by combining multiple marketing strategies, including captivating videos, sponsored posts, social media content, banner ads, and print ads. The engaging approach had something for everyone, with its fish-shaped robot tour guide and satirical content quickly garnering travelers’ attention. Travel Oregon maintains a formidable reputation for its memorable, humorous messaging.

3. Doors of Thrones

If you’re familiar with Game of Thrones, you might know that many scenes from the HBO hit show were filmed in Northern Ireland. In 2014, Northern Ireland’s destination marketing organization, Tourism Ireland , took advantage of the show's popularity and formed the first Thrones-based marketing partnership with HBO to launch Doors of Thrones.

The Doors of Thrones campaign centered around ten intricately carved doors. The wood for each door came from the Dark Hedges and was sculpted to represent a different episode from the show’s sixth season. They were placed at various locations (primarily pubs) nationwide and promoted on social media. Travelers flocked from around the world to see the intricately carved pieces and explore famous sites from the show.

Tourism Ireland used the show's incredible popularity to attract travelers and superfans. ITV News, MTV, Cosmopolitan, and other major media outlets raved about the creative pub crawl, further expanding the campaign’s already broad reach. Ultimately, the massively successful campaign reached 126 million people . It also drove tourism, traffic, and revenue to Northern Ireland and its businesses, generating £17 million ($22 million) in 2016 . Overall, the destination marketing strategy resulted in a record year-over-year tourism increase of 8%.

4. Explore Georgia

Explore Georgia was a fun and easily accessible destination marketing campaign launched in 2016 . The Instagram-based photo competition excited a variety of traveler types spanning all walks of life. Participants were encouraged to post photos of Fido, the #ExporeGeorgiaPup , adventuring through the state.

From domestic tourists to overseas travelers, Fido’s family-friendly appeal helped grow Georgia's presence in online tourism spaces by promoting the state as a pet-friendly travel destination. The inexpensive social campaign reached 1.1 million Facebook impressions and drove 14,000 Instagram users to the website of Parker Whidby, Explore Georgia’s destination marketing manager.  

Industry-leading destination marketing strategies

You know how destination management organizations promote their destination, but how do individual businesses do it? From video advertising to social media marketing, there are so many content options to choose from. Here are four innovative and industry-leading destination marketing strategies from hospitality brands.

Check out 2023's top destinations

1. Feel the Beat of the City | Four Seasons Hotels

In 2022, the Four Seasons Hotel New Orleans launched an engaging new campaign: Feel the Beat of the City. The marketing campaign consisted of advertisements celebrating New Orleans’ one-of-a-kind atmosphere. In vibrant video advertisements featuring big brass bands , The Four Seasons Hotel New Orleans appealed to consumers by capturing the spirit of The Big Easy.

The campaign invited consumers to experience the city’s culture, cuisine, and music in an exciting new way—and it worked. Due to the campaign's success, Four Seasons expanded the Feel the Beat campaign to promote multiple destinations worldwide , including Austin (TX) and Dubai.

2. 30 Stays, 300 Days | Marriott Bonvoy

30 Stays, 300 Stays was a spectacularly successful social media campaign from Marriott Hotels. The TikTok branded hashtag challenge promoted the Marriott brand all over social media while attracting travelers’ attention to ten of the chain’s most stunning hotels . Participants were instructed to create an engaging video explaining why they should be chosen to become one of three official 2022 TikTok Correspondents for Marriott.

To win, contestants had to follow Marriott Bonvoy’s TikTok account and post their video with the branded hashtag #30stays300days. Thanks to the viral challenge, the brand’s account exploded— growing from 6K followers to more than 70K. In addition to driving traffic to their TikTok account, the marketing campaign introduced a whole new audience to Marriott, particularly the magnificent destination stays included in the prize package.

3. Live Hologram Bar | KLM Royal Dutch Airlines

In 2019, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines shook up destination marketing when they invited travelers to meet, chat, and exchange local tips at the Hologram Bar while waiting for their flights. Pop-up hologram bars were installed at airports in the Netherlands, Norway, and Brazil. The immersive video destination marketing campaign connected tourists and travel enthusiasts in real-time, enabling patrons to project themselves into their destination airport. KLM’s one-of-a-kind, engaging, and informational experience provided consumers with an exciting new way to explore global destinations.

4. Where do you want to go? | Melia Hotels

Melia Hotels spearheaded the industry’s approach to digital display marketing. Featuring a wide range of interactive elements and unique designs, their engaging display ads drove online traffic to specific landing pages through powerful messaging, interactive buttons, and personalized content. By asking travelers, “Where do you want to go,” Melia Hotels International launched its sprawling brand with online destination marketing.

Destination marketing strategies and best practices

Drive travel and tourism to your destination by showing consumers what makes it better than the alternative. Increase awareness about your region and strengthen its reputation with these marketing strategies:

1. Define your destination’s unique selling point (USP). Determine what sets your location apart from everywhere else in the world. What can visitors experience there and only there? What attractions, resources, or hidden gems should tourists know about? Identify what makes your location wholly unique and make it the focus of destination marketing campaigns. Maximize your destination’s USP by partnering with tourism-based businesses in the area to gain more feedback.

2. Know your target audience. Think about what travelers want from a visit to your area, and create destination-focused campaigns highlighting how you’ll give it to them. Campaigns showcasing high-tech coworking spaces, authentic international restaurants, and the town’s nightlife could help attract business travelers, remote workers, or young tourists looking for an exciting weekend away.

3. Use geotargeting. Geotargeting is a powerful form of digital marketing that utilizes location data to target consumers with relevant marketing materials. This location-based advertising strategy uses consumer data points (e.g., IP addresses or GPS coordinates) to identify their location, making it easier for DMOs to ensure their marketing materials reach the right customers at the right time. Incorporate geotargeting into your destination marketing strategy to capture consumers' attention when they’re in the area. Identify what brought them to town to learn more about your destination’s feeder cities.

4. Create experiential marketing campaigns. Engage customers’ senses with interactive marketing they’ll remember. Instead of telling travelers what to expect from your destination, create advertising that allows them to experience it for themselves. Immersive forms of experiential marketing , like augmented or virtual reality, make it easier for customers to imagine what being your destination would actually feel like. Invite prospective guests to take a virtual walk around your best local park or view the cityscape via high-definition drone footage. Sell more than the location; sell destination experiences .

5. Use star power to supercharge marketing campaigns. Partner with influencers, notable industry experts, and other recognizable faces to get the word out about your location. In addition to reaching new audience members through cross-promotion, adding star power to destination marketing can help it appear more credible to customers. With 90% of social media users admitting they’ve been influenced to buy something because of social media marketing, influencer marketing might be just what your destination needs.

6. Keep up with tourism trends. Stay ahead of travel and tourism trends so you know about shifting consumer preferences. Incorporate current trends, like wellness-focused travel and virtual tourism , into campaigns to capture the attention of trendy travelers. Hop on social media trends, like viral challenges or hashtag campaigns, subscribe to travel blogs, and watch how competing destinations connect with consumers.

Use destination marketing to generate more interest in your region

Put your knowledge of destination marketing to good use to create more compelling advertising campaigns. If your local government doesn’t provide destination marketing services, look for similar resources nearby. Keep reading to learn more about CVB marketing and how it can help hotels.

Kim Campbell

Kim is a full-time copy and content writer with many years of experience in the hospitality industry. She entered the hotel world in 2013 as a housekeeping team member and worked her way through various departments before being appointed to Director of Sales. Kim has championed numerous successful sales efforts, revenue strategies, and marketing campaigns — all of which landed her a spot on Hotel Management Magazine’s “Thirty Under 30” list.

Don’t be fooled though; she’s not all business! An avid forest forager, post-apocalyptic fiction fan, and free-sample-fiend, Kim prides herself on being well-rounded.

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What is destination marketing.

In Blog , Travel Industry .

By Tom Mcloughlin, Founder, SEO Travel .

There are plenty of different tried-and-tested marketing strategies out there in the travel industry, from email campaigns to influencer collaborations and wacky PR stunts. If you’re a travel business that offers holiday experiences or services in one specific area, likely, you may already have heard of destination marketing, which is one targeted approach that can make a big difference to business growth.

In recent years, destination marketing has occasionally fallen out of favour as certain locations have become overcrowded or saturated with tourists to the point where local people can no longer enjoy their hometowns and cities in peace.

However, when done correctly, destination marketing is a very effective marketing approach that is particularly beneficial to smaller travel companies who are looking for a way to increase visibility and carve out a space in the market.

In this article:

Destination Marketing Defined

What are the benefits of destination marketing, 8 successful destination marketing strategies.

• Summary of Destination Marketing

Destination marketing is a marketing approach in the travel industry that involves promoting a specific location and its benefits instead of the product or service that a company offers. This could be a country, a town or city, or even a specific holiday resort or attraction.

The purpose of destination marketing is to increase customer awareness of a certain destination so that they start to think about visiting, or to help them remember the location when they are ready to book a holiday. By slipping in subtle calls to action and mentions of a brand’s offering, the idea is that potential customers will decide to book a holiday to that destination through the company that is promoting it.

Destination marketing is also often used by the tourist boards of certain countries or regions as a way to try and bring more visitors to the area to boost the local economy and establish themselves as a desirable holiday destination.

The main aim of destination marketing is to make the customer aware of and interested in the target location before they arrive. You want to spark an emotional desire to see and experience the place you are offering, as this makes the likelihood of paying for a holiday much higher.

One of the key benefits of destination marketing is that it tends to use an emotional hook to engage potential customers, which leads to much higher conversion rates. The whole approach is about selling the experience and benefits of a location by showing customers what their travel experience could be like if they visit, encouraging people to imagine a holiday there and planting a seed of intrigue in their minds.

Not only does engaging your target audience’s emotions make them more likely to convert, but it is also likely to build more affinity with your brand. Techniques used in destination marketing include things like video content, offering exclusive guides and recommendations and sharing customer testimonials, all of which will make your company seem more ‘human’ and build a relationship of trust with your audience.

Another benefit of destination marketing is that it focuses on the offering of a location instead of the specific holiday packages or travel experiences that your brand sells. By producing marketing material that is not explicitly pushing a product, your target audience will trust the recommendations and advice you share and view you as a true expert for your target destination, instead of just a company trying to sell holidays.

Finally, a wider benefit of destination marketing is that it improves the reputation and increases the interest in the location that you offer travel experiences. This will encourage more tourism and boost the area’s local economy, which in turn will create more business for your company.

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Whilst the majority of marketing techniques can be used as part of a destination marketing strategy, several approaches work particularly well. Here are 8 strategies to consider if your brand decides to focus on promoting a destination as part of its marketing plan.

1. Understand Your Target Audience

This is a piece of advice that you’ll likely have heard countless times when it comes to successful marketing in the travel industry. If you want to get your target audience’s attention, you need to understand what they care about and what they want to engage with.

In destination marketing, this approach is particularly important. If you just highlight generic benefits or features of your target destination, you’re not going to appeal to anyone in particular and your advertising material is going to have much less of an impact.

Before you think about what attractions and experiences you’re going to focus on in your destination marketing strategy, first go back to the segments of the audience that your travel brand targets. Identify what they’re looking for from travel and holiday experiences, whether that’s specific activities or personal benefits.

Then, use these focal points to decide what elements of the destination you’re going to highlight in your marketing campaigns.

2. Target Pain Points

Leading on from that last point, you should also ensure that you’re using the benefits of your destination to solve your target audience’s pain points.

This is a particularly successful approach because destination marketing is a strategy that engages potential customers’ emotions by tapping into their desires and offering an experience instead of just a product. You can take this emotional response even further by targeting their pain points and offering a solution through the destination.

An example of this may be that a key pain point for your target audience is finding holidays that include meaningful experiences instead of just mindless rest and relaxation. You could target this by creating advertising content that showcases the different cultural attractions in your destination or the opportunities to learn about the area’s history, promising a holiday that is enriching and enlightening.

3. Identify USPs

The start of every destination marketing campaign should begin by listing all of the unique selling points of wherever you are focusing on. This approach is all about standing out from other popular destinations, and the only way to do this is to shout about what makes your location so special.

You don’t need to be subtle about showcasing the unique qualities of a destination either. In fact, many well-known travel marketing campaigns have been so successful because they’ve taken a specific and often bizarre quality about a location and turned it into the key attraction for visiting wherever they are promoting.

For example, the Faroe Islands tourism board capitalised on the destination’s remote quality, and the fact that it has such a high population of sheep, to create the ‘ Sheep View ’ marketing campaign, which massively boosted the islands’ popularity with travellers.

4. Analyse Your Competitors

We’re not just talking about analysing other destinations that are frequently pitted against yours when we talk about competitors, although this is something to consider when analysing the business landscape. We suggest going even more specific and identifying other travel brands that market your chosen destination, particularly ones of a similar size to your business.

If you want to stand out in the industry and build a customer base of dedicated travel enthusiasts, you need to ensure that your marketing content is advertising a totally unique experience. Before you come up with a destination marketing strategy of your own, take time to see what’s already out there and ensure that you’re not going to be targeting a niche that has already been taken care of.

5. Use Video

This is one of the most common techniques used in destination marketing, but for good reason. There’s no better way to showcase a destination and give a glimpse of the kinds of experiences on offer than through video content, whether you’re making full-length guides to a place or just adding little snippets of video to your website and social media profiles.

Sometimes, it can be enough just to shoot stunning visuals of a location, accompanied by simple captions or overlayed text, to catch potential customers’ attention and start to inspire their wanderlust. Or you can take a more direct approach and create video testimonials from previous customers, introductions to attractions or accommodation from staff, or even vlogs and short video diaries illustrating a first-hand experience of a trip to your destination.

6. Focus on Visuals

Whilst video is probably the most effective content format you can use in destination marketing, anything visual is going to have an impact. From the photos you use on your website to the images shared on social media and graphics included in press releases or email newsletters, having a strong visual identity is a key part of marketing for a specific destination.

Not only do you want to inspire and engage your audience with every piece of visual content you share, but you also want to establish a “look” that becomes synonymous with your brand. That way, potential customers are more likely to remember you and start associating your company with a particular destination, which means they’re more likely to think of you first when it comes to booking a holiday there.

7. Collaborate With Influencers

Influencer marketing has taken off in the travel industry in the last couple of years, and it’s a technique that works really well as part of a destination marketing campaign. There’s no better way to showcase what a trip to a location is really like than showing a real person’s experience, and working with an influencer is perfect for this.

The type of influencer campaign you run will depend on the kind of travel business you are part of, your brand’s offering and your target audience. Some companies offer free holidays in exchange for an influencer to share their experience across their own channels, whilst others will work with influencers to create informative, promotional content that is shared by the brand themselves.

8. Go Beyond Stereotypes

When coming up with ideas for destination marketing campaigns, it can be tempting to fall back on stereotypes of what locations in certain parts of the world are like, or what the benefits of popular holiday experiences are. Whilst these kinds of stereotypes tend to be based on truth, they are much less likely to make an impact on potential customers, as they’re likely just showcasing features that have been seen before.

Instead of relying on predictable visuals, formats, and slogans, try and offer your audience something genuinely valuable and unique with your content. Don’t fall into predictable patterns with what you advertise (eg: safaris in Africa, beach holidays on tropical islands, winter holidays in classic ski locations) and instead think about undiscovered areas of the market you can conquer.

Destination marketing is an essential part of the travel industry and is an approach used by everyone from large tourism companies to small travel brands. By focusing on the benefits and offering of a location instead of a specific holiday package or travel deal, businesses can build up more authority as an expert provider for a specific destination — also appealing to a wider audience with marketing content that inspires and engages instead of steamrolling with a hard sell.

If you need more information or help with your travel marketing strategy or want to find out more about approaches like destination marketing, get in touch with SEO Travel for a chat and to find out more about the range of marketing services that we offer.

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The 8-Step Tourism Marketing Strategy (Free Template)

By Kyla Steeves

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You should never leave your marketing up to chance. 

Sure, it’s important to be nimble to changing conditions, such as tourism marketing trends , algorithm updates, employee churn, and evolving technology. But if you’re always throwing tactics at the wall to see what sticks, you’ll likely waste resources, fall behind your competitors, and miss out on future opportunities. 

Instead, it’s far better to have a well-thought-out marketing strategy in place.

Trial and error can come afterwards. 

What is a tourism marketing strategy?

A tourism marketing strategy is a structured document that outlines your current position in the marketplace, what you hope to achieve going forward, and how you’re going to make that happen.

In other words, it provides a framework, so you’re not floundering around, wondering what to do next. All while giving you a way to track your progress so that you can be confident you’re heading in the right direction. And if things change drastically, as we witnessed in 2020, you’ll always have a foundation to build off and make adjustments.    

So, are you ready to come up with a master plan? We’ll cover what goes into marketing strategies for travel and tourism, which includes a:

• SWOT Analysis
• Value Proposition
• Guest Personas
• Competitor Profiles
• Marketing Mix
• Budget & Resources
• Goals, Metrics & Activities
• Marketing Roadmap

Follow along by downloading our free 8-Step Marketing Strategy Workbook.

How to write a tourism marketing plan, 1. run a swot analysis.

A SWOT analysis is a fun exercise that identifies your company’s S trengths, W eaknesses, O pportunities, and T hreats. 

Strengths and Weaknesses are internal factors that you can control, like your team, resources, and location. In contrast, Opportunities and Threats are external factors that come and go randomly, leaving you with no other choice but to react and adapt — such as travel trends, economic downturns, and your competitor landscape.

To help you with this step, it’s a good idea to round up key members of your team across departments. Why? Because each representative will bring a unique perspective, allowing you to get outside of your business owner bubble. For instance, your tour guides know your guests the best and can offer insight into what they’re thinking and feeling. 

Once you have everyone together — in the same room or Zoom meeting — you can start the process. First, answer a few questions that relate to each element.  

Like for Strengths, you can ask, “what does our tour company do well?” and “what do guests like about our experiences?” Weaknesses, “what areas of the business need improvement?” and “what do our competitors do better?” As for Opportunities, “is there an underserved market we can tap into?” and Threats, “ are there new regulations that impact our business?”

Try to answer at least five questions each, and then summarize what you come up with in a 2×2 SWOT grid for a visual overview. 

2. Identify your value proposition

After doing your SWOT Analysis, you should have a general idea of your value proposition — which is a simple statement that answers why someone should book with you instead of your competitors. Essentially, it’s what sets your travel business apart based on the desirable attributes you bring to the experience.

Your value prop is the most important piece in your marketing strategy, as it dictates your messaging and ultimately serves as the first thing guests look at when evaluating your brand with the “what’s in it for me?” mindset. That’s why it should be front and center on your homepage. 

But it can be difficult narrowing down all of your unique qualities into one or two sentences. So, your best bet is to compile a list of features and benefits, along with the emotional value for each, and see if there are any obvious patterns.

Looking at the example above, you can see there’s a trend towards a local experience, so the value proposition for this company could be something along the lines of: Experience Hanalei Bay the local way with a paddleboard that looks nothing like a rental.

3. Create a guest persona

If you try to appeal to everyone, you’ll wind up appealing to no one. That’s probably one of the biggest tourism branding mistakes. 

Instead, go after 20-35% of people most likely to enjoy your experiences. That way, you can be more effective with your targeting because you’ll understand what makes them tick, or better yet, what makes them book. 

How do you go about doing that? Create a guest persona!

What’s a guest persona?

A guest persona is a detailed description of a fictional character that represents your ideal guest. It answers who they are, where they’re from, what matters to them, and where they hang out online. 

Thinking of them as a real person before check-in will make it so much easier to craft personalized marketing messages they won’t be able to resist. Plus, you’ll know the best way to reach them. No more unanswered ads!

To create a guest persona:

• Start by combing through your booking data for common demographics like age, gender, geolocation, and language
• Refer to Facebook Audience Insights for psychographics, such as interests and hobbies, lifestyle, and online spending behaviour
• Send out a guest survey to get more details

Then, compile all of your information into a guest persona template with a stock image to put a face to the data. As well as a fun and fictional name — like Solo Travel Sarah , Corporate Catrina , or Vacation Dad Victor . 

Now, you might only require one guest persona, but if you offer multiple experiences that appeal to different types of people, like tourism products for senior citizens , it’s best to segment your guests into a few personas seeing as your marketing tactics will change accordingly.

4. Create a competitor profile

The travel industry is tight-knit, so much so that you can even turn your competitors into partners. But that doesn’t mean you can’t still keep tabs on them.

Knowing what your rivals are doing is the best way to gain a competitive edge. Not only does it give you valuable insight into their strengths and weaknesses so that you can see how you stack up, but it also helps you stay one step ahead since you can spot potential threats and opportunities before they happen.

Similar to a guest persona, you can create a profile for your top three competitors, which should include the following marketing information:

• Their value proposition
• The experiences they offer and what they charge
• Who their target audience appears to be
• Unique features and benefits they highlight
• Overall rating on review sites, along with what their guests say about them
• The social media channels they dominate and the type of content they post
• What distribution channels they rely on
• Their domain authority score and top ranking keywords (use a tool like Moz Keyword Explorer to get this information)

It doesn’t stop there. After you’ve built your competitor profiles, you can monitor what they get up to in real-time by:

• Setting up Google Alerts to track mentions of them online
• Following their social media accounts
• And subscribing to their newsletter if they have one

You can always use a fake email address or Instagram account (AKA a Finsta) if you don’t want them to know you’re spying.

5. Develop a tourism marketing mix

A tourism marketing mix is a combination of factors you can control to influence a guest’s decision to book with you. Think of it as a broad guideline for how to market travel and tours so that everything works together seamlessly. 

Historically, there are 7ps of tourism marketing, but since tourism operators are unique in the products and services they provide, we’ve stretched it to include eight. 

What is a tourism marketing mix?

The experiences you offer and what’s included. Take note of everything that would go into the product description, such as duration, itinerary, special features, and other important details. 

Where people can book your experiences. Traditionally, that would be your ticket office or travel agents, but there are now countless ways people can book — OTAs, email, chatbots, Facebook, your website. Figure out the number one place you want to direct prospects. 

The price guests will pay based on the perceived value. Factor in what your competitors charge, how much it costs you to provide the experience, your revenue target, and where the market is heading.  

4. Promotion

How you’re going to get the word out. Look at what has worked well in the past, where you already have some traction, new social media opportunities, and the best content format for your target audience. 

The people who facilitate the experience. What are the standout qualities your staff has that align with your brand? What skills do your guides have that make the experience memorable, entertaining, and informative?

6. Planning

The measures you take to keep guests in the loop. How do you ensure they show up prepared? How do you tell them about your flexible cancellation policy? Are there any tactics you use to prevent refunds? What if you have to make unwanted changes?

7. Processes

The processes you have in place to guarantee guests get the experience they expect. Everything should run smoothly from the get-go. Consider ways to shorten check-in, stay on schedule, and make them feel valued.

The physical evidence that proves your guests had the best time. This could be in the form of professional photos or merchandise. But it can also be online reviews you encourage them to write on popular platforms. 

6. Factor in budget and resources

Everyone wishes they could have marketing clout like the big-name online travel agencies. But the reality is you might never have the same budget and resources to run global campaigns. And that’s okay.

You don’t need deep pockets to make an impact. Thanks to the internet, you can use plenty of cheap marketing ideas to generate buzz around your brand. You just have to channel your creativity. 

That said, be sensible with what you take on. For example, if you want to start a blog but don’t have time to commit to a regular publishing schedule, see whether someone on your team has the skills and bandwidth. If not, it isn’t in the cards for you right now. 

So, check in with your budget for how much you can reasonably put towards various marketing activities while keeping in mind the software tools and staff you’ll need to execute successfully. 

7. Pinpoint goals, metrics, and activities

Now that you know all that you know, give yourself something to work towards by determining what you want to achieve this year and how you’re going to make it happen. We suggest starting with the arbitrary number of four goals and key activities. Why?

Because if you chase too many rabbits at once, you won’t get the results you want. Instead, it’s better to prioritize goals that make sense for your business right now. That way, you can focus on doing a few things well, rather than lots of things badly that’ll only hurt your brand in the long run, which you’ll end up having to fix later anyway.

When it comes to setting marketing goals , it’s important to be SMART . Don’t just put your finger to the wind and say, “I think we should go this way.” Your goals should be:

• S pecific: clearly explains what you want to achieve
• M easurable: has a metric you can objectively measure
• A ttainable: something you have to stretch for, but still within your reach
• R ealistic: relevant to your business and where you want to go
• T ime-bound: when you want to accomplish the goal by

Here’s an example using the SMART method: 

Increase organic website traffic 40% by the end of 2021 from getting 1000 visitors per month from Google.  

How are you going to track your progress? As you can see in the above example, the number of website visitors is the primary metric. Now, many people will tell you to steer clear of vanity metrics — like traffic, followers, and shares — because they don’t directly impact your bottom line. 

We couldn’t agree less. Marketing is about the long-game. While those metrics don’t always translate into transactions, they do strengthen brand equity, which in turn drives bookings over time because guests gravitate towards operators with extra oomph online.

The Content Marketing Institute puts it best : think of vanity metrics as optimization metrics. Instead of tying them to ROI, consider their overall value for better understanding your audience on specific channels.

For instance, if a particular social media post generates way more likes than average, it indicates something about that content resonates with your audience. You can pinpoint what that may be and replicate it in future posts or use it as a blueprint for creating effective Facebook ads . 

For each goal you set, figure out one key activity that’ll help you hit it. Don’t be afraid to think big here. By that, I mean, come up with a significant marketing project that you and your team can chip away at — more on that in the next step.

8. Plan your marketing roadmap

After you’ve assigned an activity per goal, break each one down into smaller, manageable tasks to complete from quarter to quarter. Using the example above, let’s say you decide to start a blog as your key activity.

In Q1, you’d get the ball rolling with a few foundation tasks. So, for building a blog, you might start with the following:

• Set up the blog on your website 
• Develop a content strategy
• Research topic and keyword opportunities
• Create an editorial calendar

Then, you’d build from there for Q2 and so on. 

Try starting with four tasks per activity. Unless you have a marketing team, it’s best not to bog yourself down with a marketing plan that will either a) pull your team away from other responsibilities or b) feel so overwhelming that you abandon it altogether. 

With a list of tasks, you can then organize everything onto a visual roadmap however you see fit — just so long as it includes a way to assign staff and track work progress. For instance, you can create a makeshift roadmap if you’re savvy with Google Sheets or use a project management tool like Trello and set-up a kanban board workflow. 

Where to go from here?

It’s time to go after it, of course! Just remember that your marketing strategy isn’t set in stone since anything can happen to derail your plans — as we learned the hard way in 2020. So check in with your marketing strategy workbook from time to time to make any necessary adjustments.

Ready to write down your marketing strategy and make it real?

Download the 8-Step Marketing Strategy Workbook

And take command of your brand with a well-thought-out marketing strategy that’s bound to get you results.

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How to Build a Tourism Marketing Strategy or Plan in 6 Easy Steps

When it comes to your tourism marketing strategy, it’s important to know exactly where you’re headed. Having a wishy-washy plan of action is where most destination marketing strategies fall a little short.

It’s important that you get very specific and granular about the goals you would like to achieve because this means you’ll be a whole lot closer to actually achieving them. But before we dive into marketing in tourism , let’s find out what destination marketing is in the first place.

What is a Tourism Marketing Plan?

Having a marketing strategy in tourism means having a specific plan that aims at promoting touristic products or services such as tours, accommodation, or concierge services.

A well-executed tourist marketing plan or strategy is ultra important to the success of your business. After all, if you fail to let potential customers know the value that your business can add to their travels, they have no reason to use your business.

6 Step Marketing Strategy for Tourism

If you’re hoping to come up with a travel and tourism marketing plan that will actually generate leads, then follow these steps closely for the best results.

1.    Identify Your Target Audience

If you are hoping to implement an effective marketing strategy, you need to know exactly who it is that your marketing needs to be geared towards. If you try to market to EVERYONE, very often, it turns out that you’re reaching NO ONE.

You’ll need to come up with a customer persona that represents your ideal audience or customer. While you’ll need to outline their general demographic, you also want to get a little more granular with their description as if they were a real person.

Having this detail will help you to market directly to your ideal audience as well as effectively manage your marketing budget. So you can spend more time focusing on developing customer loyalty.

When creating a buyer persona, include information such as the following:

• Physical location

Creating a buyer persona is often overlooked, but without this step, your marketing strategy could be completely ineffective. You want your message to come through loud and clear to the people whose attention you are trying to grab. So make sure you know exactly who that is.

2.    Create Clear Goals

Your marketing strategy should have very clear goals. This way, you’ll be able to measure whether your marketing is effective or whether you need to reassess your strategy to help reach your goals. Each goal that you come up with should be a SMART goal :

If you ensure that each of your marketing objectives is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely, then you know that you have a list of very strong goals.

3.    Analyze Your Competitors

The best way to get ahead in any industry is to learn from other companies’ mistakes so that you don’t have to go out and make them for yourself. The best way to do this is to analyze your competitors to understand their strengths and weaknesses. This allows you to excel where they excel and improve on their weaknesses.

Take at least three of your top competitors, and run them through this analysis to get a better understanding of their marketing strategy:

• What makes them attractive to their customers?
• What experiences do they offer, and at what price?
• Who is their target audience?
• What unique features and benefits do they offer?
• What is their overall rating on review sites?
• What do their guests/customers say about them?
• What type of social media platforms do they use?
• What kind of content are they posting?
• What kind of distribution channels do they rely on?
• Their domain authority score (that can be checked on Moz Keyword Explorer or Ahrefs )
• What keywords do they rank for? (can also be checked on Moz or Ahrefs)

This type of analysis will give you a better idea of where to start and how you can improve on your competitor’s marketing strategies when creating your own.

4.    Choose Your Tourism Marketing Platforms

Unless you are a big company that can outsource its marketing efforts, you’ll likely have to refine your marketing to a couple of key platforms. So how do you decide which platforms are worth the ROI?

The best place to start is by looking at which platforms the majority of your competitors are focusing their marketing efforts on. There’s probably a good reason that most of them spend a lot of time on the same platforms. While that’s a good place to start, it may also take a little trial and error until you find the platforms that are converting best for you.

It’s important to remember that tourism is a highly visual niche, so whichever platform you are using to market your products or services, make sure it can support your high-quality content. These are some of the platforms that work well for tourism marketing :

• Pinterest marketing
• SEO (search engine marketing)
• PPC (pay-per-click advertising)
• Content marketing

As you can see, there are many directions you can go in when it comes to tourism marketing. So it’s best to refine the process early on and decide on a couple of main platforms rather than half-heartedly trying to use every single one.

5.    Ensure That You Are Selling a Unique Proposition

When creating your marketing content, you want to ensure that what you are selling has a clear message and one that sets you apart from your competitors. Here’s an example of what we are referring to:

• M&M’s – “Melts in your mouth. Not in your hand.” – this slogan tells people exactly what sets M&M apart as a candy.
• Domino’s – “Fresh, hot pizza delivered in 30 minutes or less, guaranteed.” – they are not claiming to have the best pizza; they are claiming to have pizza in your hand quickly.

So what does this look like for a tourism company? Well, that is entirely up to you, but here are some examples of how you could make your offer different from industry competitors:

• Tour company: book your tours last minute, let us handle your entire trip or no person-to-person contact booking.
• Accommodation: last-minute bookings, free cancellation policy, or return visitors get a night free.

There are many different directions you can go with your USP ( unique selling proposition ), and they don’t have to come at a cost to the company. Think about how you want to set your business apart from industry competitors and make sure that message comes across loud and clear in your marketing strategy.

6.    Create Tourism Marketing Content

When creating a strategy for each of the platforms you have chosen, you need to make sure that each platform is working together as a cohesive team. For instance, you could run a competition on Instagram or Facebook that aims to collect emails for your email marketing campaign.

You should also ensure that the content being produced is not simply copied from one platform to another. The users of each platform are looking for something slightly different, so you will need to adapt your content to suit the audience of each platform.

Tips for Creating Marketing Content That Converts

Once you have chosen your marketing platforms, it’s important to understand that having a presence on those platforms is simply not enough. You need your copy to really speak to the right audience.

• Speak to your customer persona – You need to speak directly to the audience that you want to sell to, and your customer persona is a great example of your target audience. The voice present in your copy needs to speak to the values and perceptions held by your target audience. After all, if you try to speak to EVERYONE, you end up speaking to NO ONE at all.
• Use benefit-driven copy – when you are trying to entice your audience with an offer, focus on the benefits that you offer rather than just stating facts. If you are trying to sell a destination, focus on the benefits of visiting that location rather than just spewing out facts about the city or town.
• Collect emails ASAP – Having an email list that contains the emails of people interested in visiting your location or staying at your accommodation is one of the most valuable things you have. You can collect emails by having CTAs in your marketing content, offering freebies in return for emails, etc. This is important because you can send emails to people on your list, providing them with valuable content that can eventually lead to a conversion .

Implement Your Tourism Marketing Strategies

Now that you know exactly how to come up with a tourism marketing strategy, it’s time to implement it and get those bookings or sales. The marketing of tourism can seem tricky at first, but if you follow the steps provided above, you’ll be well on your way to running a successful company in the tourism industry.

We have been working with industry leaders for over 5 years. So if you would like to leave your tourism marketing strategy in safe hands, let us handle your marketing content so you can focus on building your business.

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10 Destination Marketing Strategies to Help You Grow Quickly

Table of Content

Strategy vs tactics, what to consider before developing your strategy, our pick of the best destination marketing strategies for dmos, final thoughts.

We already looked at destination marketing and the challenges ahead.

We also suggested three strategies there to deal with the changing landscape.

In this post, we’ll go deeper into the world of destination marketing strategies.

We’ll explore the difference between a strategy and a tactic. We’ll also look at the key things to consider ahead of creating your destination marketing strategy.

The main part of the post are 10 destination marketing strategies to help you win in the long run.

Ready? Let’s go.

So the first thing we need to highlight is the difference between a strategy and a tactic.

A destination marketing strategy is a plan to accomplish a key objective, usually attracting more visitors to a city, region, or country.

Strategies are based on principles and can be viewed as the overall “game plan”.

On the other hand, tactics are the specific means by which a strategy is executed.

For example, you can devise a strategy to attract more tourists. One of the tactics involved could be to create a social media campaign in a specific target country.

This illustrates the main difference in that strategies are high-level plans for accomplishing a goal, while tactics are the specific ways you can employ to reach that goal.

Now that we have this out of the way, let’s move on to the strategic considerations you should make in order to get more success as a DMO.

Before choosing a specific strategy, it’s important to do the groundwork first.

First, every DMO needs a booking system to allow your guests and visitors book your experiences and tours online. We recommend Regiondo , Europe’s best booking system that can help you get more reservations online and save your valuable time. Book a demo with us to learn how DMOs can use Regiondo to increase their profits.

The second step is researching your customers and market environment.

The idea is to end up with a simple one-page document outlining your goals, target market, and competitors.

For example, you can include customer details such as age, job, location, interests, and challenges.

You can also include details about your goals, e.g. increase the average spend per visitor from X to Y.

This is where things like KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) come into play.

Your document should include key figures you want to achieve such as number of visitors, total revenue, and annual room bookings.

To help you get started, we’ve outlined the key steps you can take below:

• Define your target market
• Identify customer needs and wants
• Match your products and marketing efforts to your target market
• Study what other DMOs are doing to attract the same customers
• Devise a set of KPIs for monitoring your progress

Now, keep in mind these are not set in stone. Depending on your situation, you can include other information in your outline.

The important thing is to know where you are now and where you want to go. Only then can you choose the best strategy to match your goals.

So now that we know the difference between a strategy and a tactic, and we have the key considerations in place, it’s time to look at our pick of the best destination marketing strategies. Here we go.

1. Go all-in with online ads

Digital advertising is replacing offline and mass media advertising . Why is that?

Well, digital ads are cheaper, more targeted, and it’s easier to track their ROI (Return on Investment).

They can also be helpful for other things, including:

• Brand building
• Testing and refining your messaging
• Reaching more people with an offer
• Retargeting – getting users who visited your site to come back

So that’s why we’d encourage you to consider paid ads as the center of your strategy.

2. Embrace the mobile experience

It’s no secret that mobile bookings and usage have skyrocketed in recent years.

So adopting a mobile-first mindset can set you apart from other DMOs.

Consider optimizing your website for smartphones (if you haven’t already) and introducing your own mobile app. To check if your website is optimized for mobile devices, use this free SEO grader tool.

You can also invest in creating a city guide app that highlights the best attractions and other things to do.

With easy to use app-builders , you can go fully mobile quickly and cheaply.

3. Become data-driven

Another approach is to go all-in with analytics.

By knowing more about your visitors (both online and offline), you can make better decisions and tailor your offerings to their needs.

From a digital standpoint, you should track key information such as the number of website visitors and how many leave their details or buy an offer.

Getting this information is easy with tools like Google Analytics.

In the offline world, there are a few other things you can track to inform your decisions:

• What’s the average age of your visitors?
• Why do they visit your country or city?
• How much do they spend on average?
• How did they arrive (e.g. sea vs air vs ground transportation)

Some of this information might be harder to get but not impossible.

For example, you can survey visitors or stay on top of official government statistics (if available for your location).

The key point for this strategy is to base all of your decisions on hard data instead of assumptions.

4. Seek out win-win partnerships

Another approach you can take is that of a networker/DMO.

This strategy is all about seeking out win-win partnerships with organizations who have similar interests to yours.

This is important if you want to reduce your dependence on government support while gaining access to new resources.

Where do you get started?

There are organizations that help DMOs grow and increase the size of your network such as:

• European Cities Marketing
• Destinations International

Plus, make sure to check out DestinationThink! to keep up with industry developments.

5. Focus on branding

It’s increasingly important to operate as a business that is self-sustainable so make sure your brand is top-notch .

This includes your messaging, logo, design and overall image.

To make your national or regional brand stand out, here are some important details to get right:

• The photos and videos you use in your marketing material
• The colors you choose to represent your destination
• Your tagline and overall messaging

The crucial thing here is to highlight what’s unique about your location.

Developing the right materials that resonate with your target market can be done with a bit of research.

For example, Visit Carlsbad (a California-based DMO) analyzed 80 Instagram images posted by popular travel influencers.

Based on the top 3 most liked images, they developed imagery and brand colors for their campaign “Colors of Carlsbad” (available in the video below).

6. Work with influencers

Another approach is focusing on promotion using influencers.

Think bloggers, vloggers, social media superstars – people with a following.

The idea here is that influencers have an engaged audience that trusts them. This is why they make good partners as you can leverage their reach in a similar way to advertising.

But choosing the right influencers to partner with is no easy task.

And keep in mind the follower count is not that important. In many cases, you will get better results when you partner with niche influencers who unite people around the reasons they travel.

Not only is it hard to find good influencers, but it can come at a significant cost. Luckily, there are ways to go around this, especially if you collaborate with smaller influencers.

For example, you can offer them free trips and accommodation in exchange for a video or article promoting your location.

Read more about why DMOs should work with bloggers .

7. Personalize the experience for your target visitors

We already hinted at the importance of niching down. That is, going where your specific target audience is and the reasons why people come to your country, region or city.

Whether it’s photography, historic landmarks or health and fitness.

Now, the 2nd crucial thing here is personalization.

Once you find where your best market is, you can tailor your propositions for them. Otherwise, you risk being ignored in a world full of online clutter.

But that doesn’t mean you should ignore everyone else.

Nowadays, you can use detailed segmentation to tailor your offers to several markets. But for practical reasons, you should try and focus on 2-3 at maximum.

Remember, the personalization strategy is about tailoring your approach to a specific market. Once you do this, decisions about your offers, messaging and branding become easier to take.

8. Start a marketplace

As a way to generate extra income, you can sell certain offers directly on your website instead of redirecting to a specific supplier.

But this approach doesn’t have to be limited to the sidelines.

Creating a marketplace amplifies your ability to unite and lead collaboration between local businesses and the public sector. In effect, you also get a bigger influence over the end customer experience.

What are the offers they see? What’s their buying experience? What’s their feedback and reflections about your location?

All this gets much easier when you start seeing yourself as a marketplace that connects stakeholders.

But how do you get local businesses online? Most tour and activity operators are still offline and it can be hard to persuade them about the benefits of going digital.

Here are 2 tips to do that:

• Create briefs on why they should go digital.
• Create a Facebook group or forum where people can connect and exchange info.

You can create your marketplace with Regiondo today. Just click on the image below to get started.

9. Focus on growing repeat visits

Repeat visits can be the bread and butter of your destination marketing strategy.

There are many places where people keep coming back again and again.

One such case is that of Aruba, with more than half of its arrivals being repeat visitors .

How did they achieve this?

First, they have a clear concept about using their local culture and citizens as their main value proposition.

Second, they focus marketing efforts on their biggest market – New Yorkers. Recently, Aruba plastered more than 150 posters around New York on which Arubians share why travelers should visit.

Using this strategy, you can achieve a critical mass for referrals and become extremely popular in one or more markets.

10. Expand from domestic to international and vice versa

Depending on your location, the majority of tourists are likely to be from the same country as yours (i.e. domestic) or from another country (i.e. international).

For example, big tourists centers like Paris attract predominantly international tourists. In contrast, if you travel to a remote village in the German Alps, you are likely to see mostly domestic visitors.

Now, this doesn’t have to be the case.

Take, for example, Saint Tropez which used to attract mostly domestic tourists up until the 1960s when it caught the attention of wealthy travelers from Europe and the US.

The idea here is to achieve a better balance in terms of where your visitors are coming from.

This way, you will be less dependent on local purchasing power in case most of your tourists are domestic.

On the other hand, growing the number of visitors from the same country as yours can provide a consistent and predictable income source for your location.

These strategies are not meant to be used in isolation. You can mix and match, implementing the things that resonate with you and your market.

But even if you adopt multiple approaches, it’s a good practice to single out one main focus.

Whether it’s going fully mobile or turning into a networking machine, you should have a clear concept in mind for how you’re going to achieve your goals as a DMO.

As a starting point, this concept should be based on hard data and facts about your customers and market environment.

So what’s next?

Grab a pen and paper and create the strategy one-pager from section 2 .

Or if you’d like to learn more about destination marketing, head over to our main article about the trends and challenges shaping the future of DMOs .

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What is destination marketing?

Firstly, let's answer the question "What is destination marketing?". Destination marketing is a type of marketing that promotes a destination (town, city, region, country) with a purpose to increase the number of visitors. In other words, destination marketing is tourism advertising for a specific location. Unlike product marketing, where the products are delivered to customers through distribution channels, accoriding to destination marketing meaning, consumers travel to the destinations. Which bring some peculiarities to the ways of promotion.

Why destination marketing?

Over the last few years, travellers have discovered the places they were going to visit, book hotels and transportation, plan trips and share their emotions and memories with friends online. The main answer to the question ‘what destination marketing is for?’ – is to stay competitive.

The primary challenge is to make your consumers interested in your location before they arrive using social media marketing and search engine optimisation . For this:

• Show the privileges of your country (region, city, town etc)
• Create and share the story about the destination you promote
• Care about customer experience (CX) – be sure your website is attractive, convenient, and fast-loading.
• Create Google Posts via Google My Business profile about the best sightseeing, magnificent places, or traditional holidays. These will appear in the top search results with images enhancing your overall SEO for free.

However, depending on the purpose and destination, you should use different online tools. For instance, to promote a country it is better to concentrate on contextual ads, search engine ads and social media (within your targeted region, i.e. the region you would like to target).

‍ To promote a town or a city , pay attention to testimonials services (as most likely, your potential customers would like to check references concerning accommodation facilities, activities, and your location accessibility).

‍ And the most useful tool to promote a region will be search engine ads and social media (pay attention to cultural and natural attractions, region peculiarities and features). Find out more about the aforementioned tools here or contact our representative .

How to succeed?

According to the Travel trends Report 2018, 9 of 10 travellers consider it essential to read online reviews . Moreover, 95% of travellers always trust tour & activity reviews on third-party sites such as TripAdvisor. However, if the destination is not that popular yet – travel consumers are looking for video and photo material to find out what to expect from the location they would like to visit. However, the first step in country promotion is to highlight a particular destination or to draw attention to it. To succeed in tourism advertising, you should analyse the ‘product’ and focus your marketing activities on:

• Identifying the right audience (in other words answer the questions “Who are those people who want to see your destination?”, “How old are they?”, “How do they travel?”, “Do they travel with their families?”, “What are their needs?”)
• Finding their motivation (“Why would they like to see the destination?”, “What are they going to do there?”, “How much are they going to spend?”, “What do they want to get?”)
• Matching your audience ‘needs’ with ‘wants’.

A piece of advice here would be to cooperate with government officials of the country you are going to promote to get the most objective data for your research and to get a better understanding of the specificity of the promoted region.

To delve deeper into destination marketing, we asked our digital marketing expert, who was involved in promoting tourism in Georgia, to answer the most common questions about destination marketing.

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GET THINGS DONE

How to start promoting a destination if the brand has not been promoted before?

To create online destination marketing campaigns, we need to segment users who plan a trip or are looking for tours at the moment. For this, we use segments of interests, related to airline tickets, tours, summer and family vacations.

To improve the quality of this audience, we need to narrow down such targeting to interests in a specific destination. It can be historical, cultural spots or even cuisine.

You should decide whether to narrow interests or use broad targeting under specific socio-demographic data, based on your primary goals. Please remember that the narrower the audience, the more expensive such a campaign can cost.

Besides, you should determine the age category of users who will be interested in a potential trip to the promoted destination. Also, consider the conditions that other destinations offer consumers, as well as options for spending time there, for example, active/passive leisure.

Since one group can be interested in a calm vacation with their children, and another one can’t imagine their life without extreme. Based on this, it may be worthwhile to exclude the audience of minor users from showing ads.

Also, depending on the goals and KPIs , you can segment the audience by gender and age. For example, select groups of men aged 18-24 years, women aged 25-36 years old, and so on.

Do not forget about ad creatives and their impact on different gender and age groups of consumers.

What are the strategies for destination marketing? And how to develop a promotion strategy?

Determine competitive aspects and advantages. You should consider that not a physical place in and of itself attracts a tourist, but what natural, cultural, historical sights they can find there. Tourists also pay special attention to infrastructure.

• Define the goals of your advertising campaigns. Understanding the benefits of your product and destination, you can set realistic goals and clear KPIs.
• Identify and analyse your audience before the campaign launch. Think over the creatives for each segment of users.
• Choose marketing tools that can solve your tasks and help you achieve initial KPIs.
• Develop a media plan according to your KPIs. If you promote the destination for the first time, this can be a difficult task. For this, you need to research the market, connect your expertise in similar projects.
• Develop creatives and textual content in all necessary formats. If we talk about media placement, then creatives can play both a decisive role in achieving your goal and be one of the reasons for advertising campaign failure. You also need to pay attention to the ad textual content. If you target your ad for several countries at once, then translation and adaptation of texts to specific regions may be required.
• Create an ad campaign. Collect semantics and configure the audience.
• Launch an ad campaign. We would highlight, that you need to check all the ad campaign settings before the launch. Especially if there are several countries in your geo settings.
• Monitor and adjust. Advertising campaigns need to be optimised during the performance. We would recommend paying attention to these stages:
• Identification of ineffective audiences, targeting.
• Work with search queries to save budget and attract more targeted traffic.
• A / B testing of creatives. You need to remember that your banners may “burnout”: at a high frequency, do not use the same creatives for more than two weeks. A marketing strategy aimed at strong memorising of one particular video or banner can be an exception.

What are the most effective channels for destination marketing?

Media channels are the most effective for destination marketing strategies. This is advertising on social networks, YouTube, native advertising. It is often better to “sell” a destination to a user and bring them to a final information resource with an image or video.

We are talking about relaxing, so a beautiful creative can take a person to a state of serenity and could potentially cause interest.

Paid search advertising can be launched, but only for narrowly targeted queries, for example, “vacation in Georgia”. The queries like “Georgia” can bring a lot of irrelevant traffic, even if you indicated negative keywords.

Be free to run remarketing campaigns in all channels, because advertising campaigns can last several months, and remarketing allows you to re-interact with an already “warm” audience.

Which ad format is best for social networks?

Instagram stories is a more engaging format. The image occupies 100% of the screen, but this does not mean that you need to refuse ads in the feed. According to Facebook insights, campaigns that use auto-placement give the best results – the ability of the system itself to determine where and at what time to show your ad. In each of these formats, we recommend testing both video and graphic creatives. Most studies suggest that users perceive video better, but it may turn out differently in your case, so you need to set aside some test period at the start to evaluate performance.

Should you promote your destination using only digital marketing tools, or enhance the strategy with offline advertising?

Offline promotion, TV or out-of-home advertising, will improve brand awareness and increase audience reach, attracting the users who might have missed online ads. It is essential to determine the places for advertising offline, which will be relevant to the portrait of the desired target audience.

How to set proper KPIs for evaluating the performance of destination marketing campaigns?

Here are the most common KPIs for destination marketing campaigns:

• Customer inquiries;
• Newsletter subscription;
• Video views;
• Other conversions actions on site

How does it work in practice?

Promodo completed a project providing destination marketing services for the Georgian National Tourism Administration to promote tourism in Georgia. Our aim was marketing the country and increase the number of tourists choosing this destination. We took the data provided by the Georgian National Tourism Administration and made a deep analysis of the target audience and their needs. ‍

The results we obtained were as follows:

We answered the question “Who is our target audience?” – and found out that tourists aged 25-54 make 75.4% of all the tourists (which meant our target audience most likely use the Internet and social networks).

With whom do they travel? According to our research, 49.1% are independent travellers and 70% of travellers organised their trips by themselves (which meant they used testimonials services and Google or Yandex search).

What are they going to do? 39.5% were supposed to come to Georgia for tourism and recreation (which meant they are either for the first time in Georgia or would like to discover more attractions, i.e. they would like to see the video or pictures of those attractions).

What do they want to receive? How much are they going to spend? (this information was helpful in order to use proper keywords for the ads). Based on the analysis we created the online marketing strategy to promote Georgia. To obtain the best results and meet the needs of our target audience, we used the Vkontakte social network, YouTube channel, and two of the most popular search engines in the targeted region(Google and Yandex).

For Google and Yandex, we used the following kinds of ads:

As for the Vkontakte social network, we targeted our ads to travellers, interested in leisure, health and culture, and those, who were the members of specific thematic communities (travels, air tickets, travel deals etc.). As a result, the campaign has shown a growth of interest in Georgia as a travel destination (see the Google Trends results).

We were also increased in the number of tourists by 14% during the campaign period (summer 2015) and received high involvement of users through the tools used.

Read the detailed case study on How we Promoted Georgia as a Tourist Country – here .

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The Most Efficient Destination Marketing Strategies and How to Implement Them

What is destination marketing?

Top 4 destination marketing strategies.

Destination marketing is not a brand new thing in the tourism industry. Many hotels, restaurants, and even OTAs saw great value in making a particular destination highly popular . Most of the challenges in the past came from technological restrictions.

Today, with a valid digital marketing plan, one can run countless campaigns to increase the popularity of specific destinations . Some other strategies still work too. Today, we bring you the most efficient destination marketing strategies and how to implement them .

Destination marketing has become an inseparable part of the modern marketing mix used by hotels, restaurants, OTAs, cities, and even countries. What does it imply?

First of all, destination marketing is just another marketing approach . However, there is one thing that makes it unique. Instead of focusing on marketing a room, service, hotel, or restaurant, destination marketing is about promoting specific locations and their benefits.

Destination marketing can advertise attractions, towns, cities, or an entire country. It focuses on advertising the object of the ad as a whole and everything it offers. The goal is to increase travelers’ awareness of certain destinations.

Destination marketing uses subtle calls to action to invite travelers to visit the location and book a venue through the company that advertises the destination in question. The content thus remains evergreen even if the old hotels and resorts close and new ones open, paving the way for sustainable tourism.

Here are four destination marketing strategies that provide incredible results.

Strategy 1: Strategic destination branding

Strategic destination branding is all about stepping up traditional destination marketing strategies. It refers to approaching a destination as a brand . This strategy focuses on building a consistent brand image for a destination in the medium or long term.

Why is it good

Strategic destination branding is good because it provides you with messaging that you can use for all your future marketing campaigns . While it can be exceptionally requiring in terms of research, planning, and execution, this type of approach is perhaps the most sustainable. It can also affect pro-poor tourism (PPT) marketing strategies because increasing the influx of tourists can create new business opportunities.

How to do it

Strategic destination branding calls for extensive research and strategic planning. First, you need to identify the destination’s products, research the target audience, and finally decide on the brand tone of voice.

Real-life example

The most noteworthy real-life example of this strategy is Hamburg’s city branding . The city became a major tourist attraction in Europe and even saw the rise of some of the most significant events. Even today, this city has one of the most elaborate tourist destination management initiatives.

Strategy 2: Focus on unique selling propositions

A unique selling proposition refers to attractions and benefits only one destination can offer . Destination marketing campaigns focused on USPs will showcase the unique selling points of a destination.

Destination marketing strategy based on USPs is good because it can help you:

• Make travelers realize why the destination stands out from other popular destinations .
• Attract more people to visit it .
• Focus more on target customers and destinations to discover more USPs.

To excel at it, you need to devote time and effort to discovering USPs in a specific destination. USPs can be specific or borderline crazy as long as they highlight the quality of a location. Once you have USPs, you need to decide the best content and channel to use. Launching a video marketing campaign or running paid ads on social media and search engines is a good option.

The best real-life example for this strategy is the marketing campaign “Sheep View” by the Faroe Islands . The goal was to put the islands on the map of tourism. The campaign helped generate 2 billion impressions and over $56 in PR value .

Strategy 3: Focused on key markets

A destination marketing strategy focused on key markets is self-explanatory. Instead of focusing on the destination’s unique values, the marketing team focuses on what travelers need and want. Once they identify a traveler’s desires and know the destination’s values, they have a conceptual framework to work with.

This strategy is good because it shifts focus from the destination to target markets. Choosing what unique offers to focus on is easier and significantly more relevant because marketers know who needs to receive the message .

A focused-on-critical-markets strategy is straightforward to plan and execute. You need to do extensive target market research to create ideal customer profiles. The key would be to discover which offers cater to target market needs to entice people to travel to your destination.

Colorado’s “Come to Life” campaign is a real-life example of a destination marketing strategy built on extensive market research. Marketers on the campaign decided not to maximize the reach but to maximize conversions. They focused on Houston, Chicago, and Dallas markets to do it. The campaign did cost $4.5 million, but it stirred $898 million in spending in the state .

Strategy 4: Influencer marketing works!

You are probably well aware of influencer marketing. It’s a marketing approach that leverages social media users with a considerable following to showcase your product , service, or, in this case, destination. It helps maximize the reach, and with a relevant influencer, one can even increase conversion rates.

Influencers in destination marketing campaigns are suitable for several reasons. First, influencer marketing works . Then, it is a shortcut to reaching a vast and relevant audience . And, finally, it’s versatile. You can use it for advertising all sorts of attractions and destinations .

There are two critical aspects of every influencer-based destination marketing campaign . First, you have to decide what you want to promote. And secondly, you need to find a relevant influencer with a big enough audience. Here is how it looks in practice.

One of the recent successful influencer-based destination marketing strategies is Sun Peak . Sun Peak is a ski resort in British Columbia. They decided to promote crowd-free ski runs, the regions’ natural beauty, and seasonal festivals. They partnered with Callum Snape, an adventure photographer, and Instagram influencer. The result – over 200,000 article views , the resort has become known as an “insider secret.”

All parties in the hospitality industry have access to various marketing strategies that work. The destination marketing strategies we went through have been put to the test and proved they deliver outstanding results . But since every destination is unique and caters to a unique market, we will leave it to you to decide which strategy to use.

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Mor is Senior Account Manager, Global Learning & Organizational Development . She holds a M.B.A. in Business and Management, Organizational Behavior and a BA in Hotel and Tourism Management Graduate from Ben Gurion University. The travel industry sparked Mor’s interest because of its endless opportunities and constantly evolving nature. She has more than a decade of experience in the hospitality and travel technology industry in Israel and United States. Mor is currently helping us grow not only with her account management abilities but also i mproving our cutting edge tool and responsible for many innovative projects that Hotelmize builds for the future, thanks to her analytical and technical skills.

Mize is the leading hotel booking optimization solution in the world. With over 170 partners using our fintech products, Mize creates new extra profit for the hotel booking industry using its fully automated proprietary technology and has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue across its suite of products for its partners. Mize was founded in 2016 with its headquarters in Tel Aviv and offices worldwide.

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What is Tourism Marketing? 15 Strategies in 2023

March 22, 2023 | By Hitesh Bhasin | Filed Under: Marketing

From hotels and other types of accommodation to car rental services, airlines , restaurants, entertainment spots, and travel agents – tourism marketing encompasses a wide range of advertising and marketing strategies often used by companies in the tourism and travel industry themselves. All these various marketing efforts are put together under one collective name – Tourism Marketing!

Tourism marketing is an essential tool for a business to ensure they are standing apart from its competitors, garnering customers, and creating brand recognition. Nowadays, various digital marketing platforms such as websites, online ads, email marketing campaigns , and social media marketing outlets have become vital components of modern tourism marketing initiatives for businesses.

Table of Contents

What is Tourism Marketing?

Tourism marketing is a type of marketing used by businesses operating in the travel and tourism industry to attract tourists to a business name or particular location which can be a state, a city, a particular heritage site or tourist destination spot, a hotel, or a convention center anything.

Achieving success in the travel and tourism industry requires thoughtful Tourism Marketing campaigns that are designed to generate brand awareness , create both, reach the most target audience or potential customers, drive traffic, foster loyalty among existing clients, and create a captivating customer experience . By utilizing these strategies, businesses can effectively engage with travelers while generating more sales opportunities.

Tourism Marketing has been profoundly impacted in recent years by digital development, as well as changes in consumer attitudes and desires. Crafting successful Tourism marketing messages today entails taking advantage of social media platforms, featuring user generated content, leveraging online reviews and search engines to your benefit, collaborating with influencers to drive traffic and expand reach, and experimenting with various channels for targeted messaging to attract travelers and optimize their customer journey in a way to convert them into loyal customers.

Why is Tourism Marketing Important?

To make a tourism business thrive, savvy marketing is an absolute must. By staying up-to-date with current trends and launching impactful campaigns, businesses can boost the recognition of their brand, gain customer loyalty and attract travellers. Moreover, tourism marketing holds promise for contributing to the economic growth of the region by driving tourists towards local enterprises.

The tourism industry is one of the biggest in the world and therefore highly competitive. To succeed, businesses must differentiate themselves from their competitors by promoting and advertising what makes them unique, showcasing why they’re the best option for tourists, and advertising and highlighting any special features that set them apart.

To allow businesses to gain a competitive advantage , marketing is essential. Many of the top tourism marketing approaches concentrate on highlighting a business’ unique selling point and broadcasting it effectively. Moreover, marketers must keep abreast with current trends to generate an effective promotional mix and deploy the most viable methods for disseminating their message across all channels.

Understanding the concept of Tourism Marketing

Tourism marketing is associated with most businesses, with marketing strategies in the field of tourism.  Today there are many countries in the world, where the tourism industry plays a major role in economic development , enhancing their GDP.

In such cases, tourism and digital marketing become important things. Many of the places are generally the hotspot for tourists like the Taj Mahal in India. Now places like these are considered the perfect areas where one can boost tourism through digital marketing.

The places which are more likely to be the major spots for attracting tourists are the places where tourism marketing flourishes the most. Now tourism marketing is all about applying several marketing techniques and strategies to create and boost the tourism industry of that place.

For successful tourism marketing to take place, the thing that is required the most is that the brands should speak for themselves in such a way that makes sense that their voices can be heard in the targeted markets.  This way they will be able to generate the cleanest successfully. Also, they need to be really careful in providing services to clients.

This is because if the customers are happy with the services chances they will spread the word and this may bring them more customers.  In the case of tourism marketing, it becomes easy to find the right audiences and create content to draw the attention of the targeted customers to the website by providing encouraging content.  Thus strategic planning , content marketing, and branding is the key to effective tourism marketing.

With it being carried out by keeping these two points in mind, chances are that the company that is involved in tourism marketing will be able to gain the advantage over their existing customers in no time and become a monopoly in the tourism industry.

What are the different ways in which Tourism Marketing Can Be Done in 2023?

Now various methods are applied for tourism marketing to flourish.  Below are some of the important ways in which the tourism marking of any place is given a boost.

1) Location marketing

In this type of marketing strategy , the main focus of tourism marketing is one bringing people’s attention to a specific location. In this strategy , no recommendations are made with respect to a particular site or any accommodation. Now some locations are already so popular all over the world that tourism marketers don’t have to make many efforts to attract their attention to such places.

All they need to do to attract customers is remind them of such locations and chances are that the consumer can easily get convinced to spend money and visit any such place. For example, Las Vegas is popular for its undying charm and full of life kind of prospects.

Now there s also a popular slogan related to Las Vegas which is ‘What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas’. This slogan has gained worldwide popularity and almost everyone wants to visit Las Vegas at least once.

So here the tourism marketers have to simply remind people of how amazing this city is and what are the different ways in which they can have the time of their lives here. Another example that can be taken in Florida.

They use a more ‘benefit-oriented’ approach. Their slogan and website are ‘The Sunshine State’.  This way they are presenting their state with a joyous and charming climate and as a perfect place for beach and football lovers.  Also with their slogan and website, they are successfully able to present their state as an ideal ‘summer vacation’ destination and are definitely a dream for many to visit this place.

Thus location marketing is one of the simplest forms of tourism marketing in which without even putting much effort, with the brand value and the popularity of some specific location, the customers can be attracted.

2) Activity marketing

Now, this type of tourism is carried out keeping in mind both the location and the activities that are performed in such places.  This type of tourism marketing strategy usually keeps in mind travelers who are adventure lovers or activity freaks.

There are many other sites and locations all over the world that are famous for some specific activities. Like Alaska is famous for snowboarding, Yellowstone national park is famous for thrilling activities like hiking, and camping and is a perfect place for all nature lovers, similarly, there is ‘Colonial Williamsburg’ which attracts all history lovers.

Thus depending on the target audience and the type of activity that a particular place is famous for, tourism marketing can be carried out. Some people may be adventure lovers, some people may be looking for art and culture some people love hunting, depending upon their area of expertise and interest, the tourism markers can segment the groups of potential visitors and customers and approach them.

Thus activity marketing is a form of tourism making and social media marketing that emphasizes the booking process and bringing the attention of a customer to particular places on the basis of the activities that are performed there.

3) Corporate marketing

This is quite an interesting approach to tourism marketing. Now it has been found that a large number of people working in corporate sectors have to travel to different places to attend a conference or a meeting.

Then according to research, it was found these locations were ideal for tourists, and a number of people came to attend those places. Also, they brought their families and their loved ones as well. Now considering these scenarios’ latest trends in mind, corporate influencer marketing can contribute a lot to tourism marketing as it has significant potential.

Here the tourism marketers take advantage of the fact that by planning the business meeting in touristy places, people come in large numbers thus they can make a lot of profit out of it.

What are the four basic pillars of Tourism Marketing?

The foundation of tourism marketing stands firmly on four of its important pillars which are the product , the price, the place, email marketing, and the promotion.

Let us understand each of these separately as to how they contribute to tourism marketing!

Marketing Mix of Tourism

1) product in tourism marketing.

One of the most important aspects of the tourism marketing strategy is to determine the effect of the selling benefits and the other types of benefits that are re-obtained by competing with their rivals in the same market .

Tourism marketers need to focus more on such destinations that provide both business advantages to travel brands and pleasure to their customers. These pleasures depend on several factors like the ease of traveling, facilities of the sites and the hotels, the nightlife of that place, activities offered, and the overall culture of that place.

Thus by considering these factors, tourism marketers will understand the areas that have to focus more on, so that marketing can be done effectively.

2) Price in Tourism Marketing

The price point is yet another important aspect of tourism marketing. Now many people avoid traveling due to money-related issues.  And this is where tourism marketing comes in to save the day.  Today so many mobile apps have been developed, on which if a person books a hotel r a transport like a flight or a train, they get discounts. This attracts a lot of customers.

Along with the free referral marketing, they also try to give value-added services to their customers. Some hotels also offer free shuttle services to their visitors. Also depending on whether it is a high season or an offseason, the prices are altered.  

3) Place in Tourism Marketing

Now for tourism marketing to earn a profit, deciding the location where they want to perform the marketing can play a key role in how far they can go. The place refers to the area where the products and services can be distributed.

Now in tourism and destination marketing, the location and the destination marketers offer their products and services to their customers through travel agents, tour operators, inside sales teas, etc.  The distribution of their products and services to visitors can be done through catalogs, online, sites, mobile devices, websites, stores, etc.

4) Promotion

In this numerous different strategies and technologies are used for the promotion of any specific area or tourist destination.  In fact, trade magazines and meeting planners are also efficient ways for promotion purposes.

These often come with many other forms of discount coupons, brochures, etc. also they try their target customers to come across the ads that pop up on the website to make them aware of the various tourist places.

15 Tourism Marketing Strategies in 2023

1. prioritising hygiene and safety via marketing communication.

Tourism marketers must now prioritize safety and hygiene to give their customers peace of mind when they travel. By highlighting the protocols that are being taken, tourists can rest assured knowing they will be protected while visiting.

2. Developing Loyalty Programmes

Loyalty programs are the ideal way to demonstrate your appreciation for existing customers and stimulate repeated patronage. Tourism marketers should construct loyalty programs that will not only retain existing customers but also appeal to fresh audiences.

3. Capitalising on Voice Search

In the age of voice search, it is essential for tourism marketers to create content that can be quickly found and accessed. Optimizing your site and content for this new technology will bolster your site for visibility and success in the long term.

4. Facilitating User-Generated Content

User-generated content, such as ratings and reviews on social media, is critical in helping customers make informed decisions. User-generated social media content is one of the key tourism marketing trends.

5. Deploying Artificial Intelligence:

AI technology is a valuable asset for Tourism marketers, allowing them to track customer behavior and create personalized brand experiences tailored to each individual. This can help customers find the brand information they need quicker and more easily than ever before.

6. Not Neglect Review Marketing

Reviews and ratings are a critical resource for Tourism companies, making them an invaluable asset in swaying potential customer decisions. Any Tourism marketer must recognize the importance of reviews if they wish to stay competitive.

7. Enhancing the Guest Experience & Satisfaction Through Chatbots

Chatbots can be a vital tool in creating an effortless, tailored experience for all customers. Chatbot technology should be a top priority for the hospitality and tourism industry to provide quick customer service and support, as well as respond promptly to any inquiries.

8. Investing in Remarketing Efforts

Maximizing your Tourism business’ potential by tapping into already engaged customers is a surefire way of increasing sales. Leverage the power of remarketing to maximize your potential and gain more qualified leads.

9. Utilising Augmented Reality Technology

Augmented reality provides the ideal platform for tourism businesses to build mesmerizing and unforgettable experiences for their customers.

10. Prioritising Personalisation

Customization is a crucial element of this form of marketing. By personalizing content and messages to the target audience’s wants and needs, Tourism marketers can engineer and create an experience that will ensure positive word-of-mouth publicity for their business or brand.

11. Exploring Metaverse

The metaverse is becoming more and more popular with tourism companies, as it allows them to give their customers an unparalleled, immersive experience.

12. Using NFTs

Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, are quickly becoming a widely recognized trend. Tourism companies can harness this technology to propel their marketing campaigns and draw in more visitors.

13. Promoting Virtual Reality (VR) Tours

Allow your customers to explore new destinations without even having to leave their homes – with VR tours, the possibilities are endless!

14. Focusing on the Customer Experience

Crafting an exceptional customer experience should be the primary focus of any Tourism promotional strategy . Optimizing customer experiences on all marketing channels is crucial.

15. Embracing content and influencer marketing

Content and influencer marketing are essential building blocks of any successful tourism strategy. It helps in optimizing the presence of a travel business in the search engine.

Thus, tourism and travel agency marketing are one of the branches of marketing that deal with the tourism and travel industry only.

It is essential to carry out efficient tourism marketing, as one can make a lot of money through this because there are so many people in this world who love traveling, and this can help the tourism marketing industry to flourish their business.

Liked this post? Check out the complete series on Marketing

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About Hitesh Bhasin

Hitesh Bhasin is the CEO of Marketing91 and has over a decade of experience in the marketing field. He is an accomplished author of thousands of insightful articles, including in-depth analyses of brands and companies. Holding an MBA in Marketing, Hitesh manages several offline ventures, where he applies all the concepts of Marketing that he writes about.

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This was a great article! Now I’m interested in a career in tourism marketing. How do I start? I already write travel content/copywriting blogs for an agency. Where would I go from there?

this article really helped me in conducting research on tourism. Thank you very much

This article helped me alot on my academic research

Hello,the article is highly assisting and I am seriously having interest in studying Tourism Marketing.

This information was very helpful

hey! This is a good and interesting article about tourism marketing. I am a second degree student in tourism business administration,the program is all about tourism as a business perspective.if you can possible,please post such relevant articles via email address that i have attached below the space provided.

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Insights & Strategies: Destination Marketing

Are you a destination marketer or someone interested in the field? If so, you've likely heard of the term "destination marketing" and the challenges that come with it. With concerns of overcrowding and "overtourism" in popular destinations, the need for effective and sustainable destination marketing has never been greater. At The Place Brand Observer, we understand the importance of staying up-to-date on the latest trends and insights in destination marketing. That's why we've compiled expert views and insights from leading place professionals around the world, answering questions such as what destination marketing is, its benefits, and future directions. As you read through the insights and perspectives of our experts, you may find yourself wanting to dive deeper into the topic and gain further knowledge from experienced professionals. That's where our service of connecting readers with experts and our information scout service comes in - providing you with the opportunity to connect with industry experts and access the latest insights and trends in destination marketing.

Destination Marketing Today

Destination marketing is confronting significant challenges, particularly with issues like overcrowding and "overtourism" in popular spots. This sector, while gaining increased attention, is facing the crucial task of reinventing its role and objectives. Essentially, destination marketing collaborates with vital stakeholders to heighten awareness about places, establish innovative communication strategies, and present compelling reasons for visits. This field isn't just about boosting tourism; it also aims to spur broader economic growth. This includes maintaining air services, introducing destinations to potential investors, and enriching the overall living quality of the locals. With the changing dynamics, destination marketing is adapting, becoming more dependent on the private sector and maximizing modern digital tools such as social media and analytics. When executed effectively, destination marketing can result in real economic perks like job creation and infrastructure advancement.

Our latest posts on destination marketing

Stay updated with the latest insights on destination marketing: Dive into the intricate strategies of showcasing unique attractions, immersive cultural experiences, and exclusive offerings of various locales to captivate tourists and visitors. Explore all posts .

Mary Harris on the Future of Place Branding: Tech, Storytelling, and Strategy

Zürich city performance, brand strength and reputation, how to use data to support place branding and location promotion, climate emergency or pandemic: how global issues impact destination branding, stuart speirs on the power of events and place branding in australia, destination marketing research.

Destination marketing research is a specialized domain focused on understanding how specific destinations can strategically position themselves in the global market. It scrutinizes the elements that create demand for a place, such as cultural attractions, unique selling propositions (USPs), and competitive advantages, while also considering supply-side factors like infrastructure, accessibility, and price points. This research is pivotal for destinations aiming to align their offerings with the 4 Ps of marketing: Product (what the destination offers), Price (costs associated with visiting), Place (the distribution or accessibility of the destination), and Promotion (how it's communicated to potential visitors). By using a mix of qualitative and quantitative techniques, destination marketing research delves into market perceptions, preferences, and behaviors, thereby shaping strategies for tourism boards and stakeholders to better attract, satisfy, and retain tourists. Use our resources to deepen your understanding of the market-driven methodologies, tactics, and success stories that are shaping modern destination marketing.

How Place Brand Credibility Impacts Place Attachment, Consumer Loyalty

How travel bloggers and influencers shake up destination marketing: research update, sustainability and marketing in tourism: paradoxes, challenges and opportunities, the evolution of destination branding: implications for tourism managers, destination marketing examples & success strategies.

Dive into insights from various cities and regions that have successfully executed destination marketing strategies, drawing lessons from their achievements and challenges.

AMAALA Destination Case Study: Reinventing Luxury Through Sustainability in Saudi Arabia

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5 Tips on How to Market a Tourist Destination

Anyone tasked with marketing a tourist destination knows it can be tough to create a winning marketing strategy that drives visitors to your area. It’s even more difficult to know that you’re targeting the right potential visitors.

In this blog post, we’ll share five tips on how to market a tourist destination to increase your visitor traffic.

1. Identify Your Best Prospective Visitors to Optimize Ad Buying

The most important aspect of developing a winning marketing strategy is to truly know who your visitors are and where they’re coming from to visit your tourist destination. Many tourist destinations use mobile GPS data to identify demographic and psychographic insights about their visitors. Beyond demographic variables—like age, income range, and gender—these analytics reveal the lifestyle characteristics (also called psychographics) of your potential visitors. To get this information, researchers typically use credit card transaction or mobile GPS data combined with household-level consumer characteristics.

Once complete, the studies provide insights into how to update your marketing strategies to better target the types of visitors that are more likely to visit your destination and the top origin markets for your destination marketing efforts.

2. Tailor Your Marketing Efforts by Traveler Type

As most marketers know, there are many different types of people who will be interested in your products or services. This is no different in the tourism industry. Millennials and seniors will likely be looking to do vastly different things when they come to your area. Identify your key visitor segments and be creative when coming up with new ideas for deals or offerings that will appeal to each target market.

A one-size-fits-all approach won’t yield the best results, so your marketing efforts will have to be tailored accordingly. As you test tactics and learn what works, you can adjust your strategy to better reach your best potential visitors.

3. Increase Exposure by Partnering with Influencers

Influencer marketing is becoming a huge strategy for brands across the tourism industry. And that’s because it works. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, influencers are people who have established a dedicated following for their own personal brands. These people are usually bloggers, YouTubers, TikTokers, and Instagram personalities. Since influencers have highly engaged audiences, Convention and Visitors Bureaus and Destination Marketing Organizations are turning to them to create content about their hotels, tourist attractions, and other points of interest.

To get started with an influencer marketing strategy, do some research about influencers who already post content about your industry. When you’ve created a list of potential influencers, reach out to set up an exchange. An example of an exchange could be an influencer visiting your area for free, and the influencer will create a YouTube video about their experience. This is a win-win for both parties. The influencer will have the opportunity to create original content for their following and your brand will be exposed to a new audience.

4. Create Destination Videos That Appeal to the Right Tourists

It’s common knowledge that videos are one of the most popular ways people like to receive information. If you’re looking to make splash on social media, begin to create exciting videos not just about a single tourist destination, but about your city as a whole.

Some additional video ideas include locals giving insight into their favorite places to dine, shop and explore; tips about getting around the city; where the best photo opportunities are; and more. These will be a natural fit for sharing on social media and will add a nice mix of photos and videos to your feed.

5. Share What’s New in Your Area

You’re a local to your area, so make sure to stay up to date on new things happening. This allows you to be a resource for helpful visitor information, rather than solely trying to sell your destination.

Try to put yourself in the visitors’ shoes and provide insight into a variety of exciting things that you would want to see if you were a tourist in your area.

Regardless of your current marketing strategy, it’s never too late to gain more insight into your past visitors as well as strengthen your approach to acquiring new visitors. By leveraging visitor analytics and adopting tourism marketing trends, you can strengthen your strategy and move past your competition.

If you’re interested in more information, learn about Buxton’s tourism analysis options.  

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13 April 2016

8 comments(s), too many destination marketers confuse “advertising,” “promotion” and “marketing.” don’t be one of them..

Getting the terminology correct will make your investments much more effective.

There has been a lot of discussion in recent years about destination marketing organizations (DMOs) morphing into destination management organizations. While managing the product is becoming increasingly important in driving tourism, misunderstanding the terminology – advertising, promotion and marketing – are often used interchangeably can create confusion about an organization’s objectives. Let’s clear up the semantics.

If you’re well-versed in marketing, you’re undoubtedly familiar with E. Jerome McCarthy’s Four Ps of Marketing , sometimes referred to as “The Marketing Mix”:

Which of the four Ps matters most to a destination marketer? Typically, a DMO has little control over pricing and place . Promotion has changed drastically as a result of technology that accelerates word-of-mouth communication and shifts control over the messaging toward the consumer. For this reason, product is becoming an increasingly critical focus for DMOs; positive word-of-mouth flows freely from visitor experiences that exceed expectations.

Historically, destination marketing organizations have invested heavily in promoting their destination through media relations and paid advertising. Now they must consider promotion through digital channels as well. It’s important to remember, however, that promotion is only one component of marketing – and that advertising is only one method of promotion.

Why is this important?

The experience that a destination delivers can be its most meaningful promotional tool. Destination marketers can no longer assume that promotion (in terms of reaching large numbers through broadcast advertising) is the best investment of their limited resources. Instead, destinations should consider shifting their marketing mix towards product , because improving the visitor experience is the most effective way to super-charge positive word-of-mouth. With the aid of digital communication, a visitor experience begins long before they arrive and can last long after the journey ends. This means that DMOs that default to advertising as their primary method of promotion are missing enormous opportunities to engage their audiences.

Since the word marketing now means something far beyond promotion or advertising, modern destination marketing organizations (with an intended emphasis on marketing) must take responsibility for leading the collaboration within the industry and all stakeholders to define, measure and provide a consistent visitor experience.

More reading related to developing a destination’s product:  Design thinking for the modern DMO

Destination Think helps destination marketers and DMOs adapt to change by pairing modern strategy and implementation services with an unmatched global expertise in destination marketing. Stay relevant; contact us to find out how we can help.

The general approach is fully appropriate but lacking since the real conditions are underestimated at large: The expression of “while managing the product is becoming increasingly important in driving tourism” is clearly showing that weare appraching to the problem from ends but not means! The clear merket mistake is: We are trying to sell whatever available in the market for the name of tourism industry and now trying to solve rhe mistakes of ‘industrial production deficiencies’ due to non existence of Destination Management. The first vital aim must be to establish proper DMO (management version) models for destinations to enable a balanced industry, covering prosperious marketing activities. Otherwise, proper macro efficiency and effectiveness cannot be ever reached!

Thanks for your thoughts, Zafer. For many destinations, the shift to a new destination management model is a long journey because different organizations are starting from a different place. Every destination and its tourism board is in a unique position. Some are already excellent at destination management. Others are well-focused on promoting the experiences that truly differentiate their destination. On the other end of the spectrum, other destinations are promoting to mass markets or simply appeasing their hotels and the noisiest stakeholders, which in the long term isn’t doing the destination any favors. One mindset for success is for the tourism board to think of themselves as leaders for their destination and the industry through exciting and collaborative processes. The industry is, afterall, the key ingredient for delivering an experience that exceeds expectations created through any promotions.

Very good point Zafer. Many destinations have certain realities based on the past, and this will continue in the future. Like Rodney said, the DMO needs to take a leadership role.

One example. A leftover from the industrial area is a mass production mindset where products need to be the same everywhere. A McDonalds hamburger is the same everywhere around the world. This is the same with many hotel chains and even smaller tourism operators try to emulate this. But consumers are looking for authenticity. What’s the local flavour of something familiar? Microbreweries, farm-to-table and boutique hotels are examples of trends where uniformity is replaced with local flavours. The same can be applied to any tourism product. Through design, storytelling, staff and more. This is the basis of turning the tourism legacy into unique assets.

Agree Rodney; and using the 4Ps model you could say DMO should just = Destination Marketing Organisation because if they are managing or taking a leadership/facilitation role in all 4 Ps they are already doing Destination Management as “Place”. That’s how I’ve tried to explain it to clients and stakeholders over the last couple of decades. However, as you note, it seems easier for many people to see Destination Management as a new phenomenon and consider marketing as a subset. Whatever helps the stakeholders understand the issues and roles I guess 🙂

I’ve fought that battle over semantics for a number of years and I’m nearly giving up. The word ‘marketing’ is so intertwined with ‘promotion’ and ‘advertising’ in our industry and others that it may not be important to split. If a new word like ‘management’ or experience development’ or ‘destination development’ enables investments in new opportunities, lets not get too hung up on semantics!

Little bit late to react on 2.5 year article buit here I go. Great and concise article, Rodney, and a relieve to again read this between all the articles lately about online marketing, storytelling, ‘place DNA’ , which unfortunately have taken over this site and DT in the last two years. I would like to see more articles like this returnign to this site!

I live in a region where the websites are terrible or non-existent, social media is not used as marketing tool, no DMOs are in place or set up with people who dogmatically think they can actually actively influence a brand by storytelling, branding campaigns etc. (which may work for fast moving concumer goods etc. but not for abstract concepts liek destinations). No products are developed based on ‘destination place DNA’ or suchlike. And still more and more people (continue to) visit this region. How come? The other Ps only: Place and Product and for centuries already (unmanipulated-forced-upon-or-selected-by-DMO) word-of-mouth (we just less and less trust anything coming from DMOs or other formal channels anymore ;)). And according to me it have been, are and will be (always) the collectivity of small and large local entrepreneurs and especially their guests/visitors who take the lead and make or break the visitor experience (here and elsewhere in the world; no DMO can influence this), supported and facilitated by the local municipalities and economic development organisations providing funding for product development (the new role of a DMO for me.

Finally also,could it be that (destination) marketing is more of a thing in Northwestern Europe and US/Canada/AUS/NZ (so the English-speaking countries)? What is your experience?

So Rodney, thanks and keep up the good work!

PS1: By the way I live in the Provence, France. Yes, great Place, beautiful Product. But then again, look at gastronomy here: they understand that it works ten times better to serve a good meal in a nice resto and have people talk about it to their friends and relatives and write about it on Internet than it is to waste money and time on promotion or own websites . Same situation in neighbouring regions in Italy and Spain, except for a city like Barcelona.

PS 2: by the way from a branding perspective ;): ‘Place DNA’ is for me one of the worst metaphors I have seen in recent times. What do we learn in school is that the DNA of humans for 99.9% is the same. This is exactly the problem destinations run into: without adding (new) Product(s) they remain for 99.9% the same, whatever amounts of promotion money, rebranding campaigns etc. you poor into them. The last thing they should do is pour resources and effort to boost the 0.1%, don’t you agree? So why usee DNA as metaphor?

You’re not late at all, this discussion is as relevant now as it has ever been. This topic is part of a solid foundation that some of the other articles that you reference are built on. But you can only write about something this fundamental in so many ways without becoming repetitive.

If more and more people are visiting your region, your experience may well be selling itself organically (through word of mouth). If this is the case, there is a risk that the experience deteriorates in the future without proper management.

I agree that the community and tourism industry delivers the experience that leads to word of mouth. But I disagree with you where you say DMOs can’t influence the experience. To the contrary, the role of the DMO is evolving to become essential in planning and managing the overall destination experience, in a way that influences the experience.

I recently learned that Germany has somewhere between 2400 and 3400 DMOs, so I’m not sure that destination marketing is restricted to English-speaking countries. I’m personally aware of destination marketing organizations all through South and Central America, the Caribbean, Africa, Asia and across the Middle East.

The entire point to the choice of the name ‘Place DNA’ is that it is difficult to change. Place DNA is different to the tourism experience that a destination offers or the products within a destination. Those can be created. Place DNA is by its definition, almost impossible to change.

Thanks for the engaging dialogue, and your support for our work.

Why is marketing mix used in destination marketing?

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Digital Marketing in Tourism

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Information and communication technologies have contributed significantly to the development and growth of the tourism industry. Tourists use the Internet in all phases of the customer journey. In 2020, the typical user spent on average 6 h and 43 min online each day, which was about 40% of their waking life. Mobile devices account for more than half of all the online time, but most Internet users still use a combination of mobiles and computers to access the Internet. Therefore, digital marketing offers great opportunities for tourism organizations and suppliers to promote and sell their offers and to establish long-lasting relationship with their customers. This chapter discusses the development of digital marketing in tourism and illustrates the evolution over various steps. A brief history of the development of digital marketing for tourism businesses and an outline of its benefits and challenges will be provided. This chapter focuses on website publishing, traffic building, and digital marketing campaign planning. Challenges and future developments of digital marketing conclude this chapter.

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Matthias Fuchs

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12 Best Marketing Agencies for Tourism Brands in 2024 [Full Review]

The digital revolution has reshaped the terrain of travel and tourism marketing, and the compass is now solidly pointing toward innovative strategies, authentic storytelling, and personalized experiences.

Choosing the right marketing agency can either propel your brand to the summit or leave it stranded in the foothills.

Whether you’re a boutique hotel, an exotic tour operator, or a regional tourism board, this article identifies the top marketing specialists to grow your tourism business and guide you to success in 2024!

Skip to What You Need

Digital Marketing for Tourism: Key Agency Services

A specialist marketing firm for the tourism, travel, and hospitality markets can leverage its unique understanding, insights, and connections in the industry to ensure brand visibility and increased bookings:

• Website Design & Development : Familiar with their client’s unique requirements, these firms can provide a tailored approach that aligns with travel and tourism clients. For example, many hospitality operators may need to include online booking solutions as part of their websites.
• Social Media Strategy & Management: Travel-focused marketers can help you collaborate with established social media influencers to promote destinations, experiences, and services, leveraging their authentic endorsements and reach to attract travelers.
• Reputation Management: Whether it’s handling negative reviews, crisis communication, or promoting positive aspects, in-depth knowledge of how the public engages with the hospitality industry online makes it easy for specialist firms to manage your reputation online .
• Content Creation: Video marketing, for example, allows hospitality brands to connect emotionally with their audience, build credibility, and create immersive experiences.
• SEO and SEM Services: Location-based SEO is key for hospitality brands, as most travelers search for accommodations using location first. 
• Sales & Trade Representation: Specialists in the sector have access to and knowledge of key players, industry events, and market dynamics, which may prove invaluable for effective sales and representation.

With the above in mind, here is our list of the best marketing experts to help you grow your tourism or travel business:

Top 12 Travel Marketing Agencies to Boost Your Bookings

1. the tourism marketing agency.

The Tourism Marketing Agency

Birmingham, Michigan, USA

Our score is based on our partner’s vetting process which includes a detailed analysis of their previous marketing campaigns, both in terms of performance data, account setup best practices and optimizations. The rigorous vetting includes an in-deep call, references and success stories from previous clients.

AGENCY SNAPSHOT

Founded: 2011

Locations: Birmingham, Michigan, USA

Number of employees: 2-10

KEY SERVICES

• SEO & Content Services
• Competitor Analysis
• Brand Development & Logo Design
• Social Media Management
• Video Production & Editing
• Consumer Research

NOTEWORTHY CLIENTS

• Overland Ireland Tours
• Alaskan Sights and Bites
• Wicked Tours
• Julia Travel

WHY CHOOSE THEM?

The Travel Marketing Agency offers a wealth of expertise and a passion for exploration that sets them apart in the industry.

They specialize in tourism destination marketing, possessing an in-depth understanding of what draws travelers and creates unforgettable experiences.

The agency offers comprehensive services, including crafting compelling narratives for destinations, harnessing social media, content marketing, and influencer collaborations, and spotlighting festivals, cultural events, and attractions.

As well as forging valuable and strategic brand partnerships with airlines, accommodations, and local businesses.

The Travel Marketing Agency combines strategic prowess, creative ingenuity, and an unwavering passion for travel, making them the perfect partner for any destination seeking to attract travelers and create a lasting impression.

Madison, Wisconsin, USA

Founded : 1997

Locations: Madison, Wisconsin, USA

Number of employees : 11-50

• Business Consulting & Branding Strategy
• SEO Services
• Web Development & Design
• Photo & Video Services
• Email marketing
• Land of Natura
• 360 Chicago
• Milwaukee Food & City Tours
• Royal Gorge Epic Adventure

The Blend travel marketing agency positions itself as a full-service agency specializing in helping tour and activity businesses grow.

This agency promotes travel destinations worldwide and fully understands the intricacies of travel and as well as tourism industry collaborations.

Blend’s track record includes boosting visitor numbers, securing media coverage, and contributing to economic growth.

The agency’s service offerings include creating captivating narratives for destinations and leveraging digital campaigns encompassing social media, content marketing, and influencer collaborations.

Needham, MA, USA

Founded: 1997

Locations: Needham, Massachusetts, USA

Number of employees: 11-50

• Branding SEO and SEM Services
• Customer Analytics
• Influencer Collaboration
• Customer Database Systems
• Vantage Deluxe World Travel
• Paul Gauguin Cruises
• Holbrook Travel
• Quest Travel Adventure

Massachusetts-based marketing agency Traktek Partners offers a portfolio of services that includes website design, digital marketing, and strategic consulting. This holistic approach makes them a stand-out choice.

Traktek Partners also strongly emphasizes technology, utilizing the latest digital tools and platforms to deliver targeted and personalized marketing efforts. This includes sophisticated AdWords campaigns, email marketing, and social media advertising.

With 15 years of experience, Traktek’s client success stories showcase their ability to achieve successful outcomes across diverse digital marketing channels.

4. The Destination Agency

The Destination Agency

Pambula, Australia

Founded: 2018

Locations: Pambula, Australia

• Brand & Digital Strategy
• SEO services
• Film & Video Production
• Content Creation
• Event Marketing

A notable strength of The Destination Agency is its emphasis on crafting tailored strategies for each destination, recognizing that every location has its unique story and appeal.

This approach reveals a keen awareness of the importance of authenticity and resonance in destination marketing, which are essential for capturing travelers’ attention and driving visitation.

Overall, The Destination Agency is a reliable partner for destinations and travel-related businesses seeking to enhance their marketing efforts and attract more visitors.

5. Propellic

Austin, Texas, USA

Founded: 2014

Locations: Austin, Texas, USA

• Media Strategy
• Social Media Management & Advertising
• Thrifty Traveler
• Visit Amarillo
• The Broke Backpacker
• GrandEuropean Travel
• Travelpass Group

Propellic’s commitment to staying at the forefront of the latest marketing trends and technologies is evident in their work. They constantly push the envelope with new campaigns, tactics, and ideas.

Their priority focus is social media marketing. They offer various services, including Google, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn advertising campaigns.

This enables them to create a buzz around their clients’ brands and generate real interest among travelers.

The Propellic marketing agency is ideal for travel brands seeking to engage with audiences, inspire travel aspirations, and drive growth.

Founded : 2014

Locations : Dorset, UK

• Digital Strategy
• Content Marketing
• Social Media Advertising
• Web Design & Development
• Email Marketing
• Freedom Leisure
• Livewell Dorset
• Not Just Travel
• Condor Ferries
• Hoburne Holidays

Adido’s team brings a unique blend of expertise, creativity, and passion to their work. Their experience spans various marketing mediums, including digital, print, and events, ensuring they can effectively devise holistic strategies that reach and engage travel audiences.

The agency’s diverse portfolio showcases various projects catering to a broad range of travel-related businesses, from tour operators to destinations, hotels, and airlines.

Adido has a strong and strategic social media focus with creative campaigns and advertising on all platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

Like some of the other agencies we have mentioned, Adido emphasizes building strong relationships with its clients.

Their personalized approach to client service ensures that they provide tailored recommendations, regular communication, and openness to feedback and collaboration.

Founded : 1988

Locations : London, UK

Number of employees : 51-200

• Social Media Marketing
• PR & Communications
• Data Analytics
• Ramble Worldwide
• Ambassador Cruise Line
• Leger Holidays
• Neckermann Travel
• Canadian Affair

Accord’s team is dedicated to understanding clients’ unique needs and objectives, allowing them to craft campaigns that resonate with travel audiences and catalyze growth.

Accord’s core strengths lie in its expertise, creative flair, and strategic marketing approach.

Their multidisciplinary team consists of experienced marketing professionals, allowing them to master various marketing mediums – including digital, print, events, and content marketing.

Brooklyn, New York

Founded : 2019

Locations : Brooklyn, New York

Number of employees : 2-10

• Brand Strategy
• Tenon Tours
• Nature World Kenya Safaris
• Czech Tourism

One of Dune 7’s main strengths is its strategic focus. The team goes above and beyond to ensure its marketing strategies are grounded in data and insights, empowering its clients to make informed decisions and optimize their marketing efforts.

Creativity is another area where Dune 7 edges out the competition. Their innovative and compelling campaigns have earned them a reputation for excellence in the travel marketing industry.

In summary, Dune 7 Travel Marketing Agency is a top-tier choice for travel brands seeking fresh, strategic marketing solutions that make a difference.

Halifax, Nova Scotia

Founded : 2004

Locations : Halifax, Nova Scotia

Number of employees : 200-500

• Custom Booking Platform Solutions
• Royal Caribbean International
• Destination Canada
• Nassau Paradise Island
• Northumberland Ferries
• Pebble Beach Resorts

Verb is a firm that brings its own blend of creativity, expertise, and strategic thinking to its projects.

This marketing company’s work is diverse and showcases its ability to cater to various players within the travel industry, including tour operators, destinations, hotels, and travel tech companies.

Creativity is at the heart of Verb’s marketing strategies. Verb crafts campaigns that captivate travelers and inspire people to take advantage of unique travel experiences.

10. Digital Coconut

Digital Coconut

Toronto, Canada

Locations : Toronto, Canada

• Influencer Marketing
• Reputation Management
• Port Ferdinand Luxury Resort
• Whitelake Cabins
• Tobago Tourism
• Hotel Du Fort
• Enchanting Barcelona Tours

DigitalCoconut’s impressive portfolio highlights their versatility and ability to cater to various travel industry players, from DMOs (Destination Marketing Organizations), airlines, and tour operators to accommodation providers.

This agency’s area of expertise encompasses digital marketing services, including social media marketing, content marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), web design, and video production.

With a focus on social engagement, open collaboration, and creative flair, Digital Coconut delivers media campaigns that inspire, engage, and contribute to its clients’ long-term success.

11. MMGY Global

MMGY Global

Kansas, USA

Founded : 1981

Locations: Toronto, Canada

Number of employees : 501-1000

• Rhode Island Commerce
• Destination Cleveland
• Eliot Park Hotel
• Cruise Lines International Association

MMGY Global is one of the world’s largest integrated marketing firms, specializing in the travel, tourism, and hospitality industry.

With multiple agency brands under its umbrella, MMGY Global’s goal is to inspire people to explore new destinations and experiences.

Their comprehensive services cover various aspects of travel marketing. They are well known for their tourism industry partnerships and tourism promotion campaigns.

This agency crafts forward-thinking approaches that produce tangible marketing results by conducting thorough tourism market research.

MMGY Global’s ultimate goal is to motivate inspiration into action and guide global travel enterprises toward achieving remarkable and measurable results.

12. Ginger Juice

Ginger Juice

Liverpool, UK

Founded : 2018

Locations : London and Liverpool, UK

• Travel Trade Marketing
• World Travel Market
• Visit England
• Holiday Taxis
• Advantage Travel Centres

Ginger Juice is an award-winning social media agency specializing in travel & tourism with offices in London and Liverpool.

This agency uses the latest marketing trends and technologies to integrate cutting-edge strategies and tactics into clients’ campaigns.

With a focus on social media marketing and content creation, Ginger Juice is ideal for travel brands seeking creative, data-driven marketing solutions to boost their internet presence, capture the interest of travelers, and foster growth.

Final Thoughts: Finding the Best Agency for Your Tourism Business

With increasing competition and marketing’s evolving nature, the ability to find specialist agencies with specific industry knowledge and a unique understanding of your core business is crucial.

A travel and tourism specialized agency can tailor strategies that ensure effective campaigns.

Check out this short video by Easy Marketing to learn more about some of the essential strategies needed to promote brands in the tourism sector:

Effective communication and collaboration are also essential. Be sure to opt for an agency that offers personalized service and is committed to working closely with you to develop campaigns that reflect your brand and meet your objectives.

Frequently Asked Questions

What makes a top travel marketing agency stand out from the rest.

With a deep understanding of the travel industry and a team of passionate experts, a leading tourism agency can craft compelling campaigns that inspire travelers and drive bookings for their clients. They should employ innovative and data-driven marketing strategies that tap into consumers' wanderlust, leveraging cutting-edge technologies, creative storytelling, and industry partnerships. Check out this list of the top marketing agencies for your travel, tourism or hospitality business.

How can travel & tourism advertising agencies help with brand development?

A specialist marketing and advertising agency for the tourism market sector leverages its unique understanding, insights, and connections to optimize results and return on investment for its clients. By genuinely capturing the essence of the destination or experience, a good marketing agency can leverage storytelling, visual branding, and strategic positioning to establish a strong brand presence. Check out the full review to find the best experts to build your brand and set you apart as a top choice in your sector.

What strategies can marketing agencies use to boost bookings?

Travel marketing agencies can leverage tactics like search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, social media marketing, email campaigns, content marketing, influencer collaborations, expertly optimized website development, and personalized user experiences to increase visibility and drive more bookings. Check out our list of the top marketing firms to find the perfect match for your business.

Combining multiple digital marketing channels and tailoring strategies to target audiences throughout the entire decision-making journey is key to boosting conversions effectively.

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America’s Best-Paid Tourism Marketers

Dawit Habtemariam , Skift

May 6th, 2024 at 9:49 AM EDT

Many tourism board CEOs command high compensation. Here's Skift's first major look at the pay packages of U.S. destination marketing executives.

Dawit Habtemariam

Many American tourism marketers are well-paid. Visit California CEO Caroline Beteta recently collected more than $1.5 million in compensation. Brand USA CEO Chris Thompson recently took home over $700,000.

These were some of the findings when Skift reviewed the the pay for U.S. tourism marketers at city, state, and national levels. Here’s how we approached it:

• We used the 2022 fiscal year because those records were the most comprehensively up-to-date.
• We focused on the top 20 cities, based on those with the highest inbound visitation from overseas . Many are non-profits, and we were able to review their Form 990s filed with the IRS. In some cases, we got pay data from government agencies.
• At the state level, we were interested in heavily touristed states with large, non-profit destination marketing organizations (DMOs), such as California, Hawaii, and Florida. We left out states like New York that didn’t have them.
• At the national level, we added  Brand USA , America’s destination marketing organization, and Destinations International , the association for destination marketers.

Pay for High-Profile U.S. Tourism Marketers in Fiscal Year 2022

Source: Official filings and Skift reporting. CauseIQ made it easier to find filings . The “total compensation” figure includes bonuses and non-taxable benefits, such as healthcare. * Miami’s William Talbert, a CEO for 16 years, was only a consultant in 2022. **Houston doesn’t disclose the pay of its tourism executives.

Some Smaller Destinations Offer Big Pay

Some tourism marketing executives had high compensation, but because of their city’s relatively small inbound international visitation, they didn’t make our above list.

Exhibit A: In Indianapolis, Visit Indy CEO and President Leonard Hoops made $921,470 and is under contract. Visit Indy’s executive committee has twice renewed his contract, most recently in 2018 with a 12-year extension.

“The Visit Indy Board Executive Committee decided years ago that it wanted Leonard to continue elevating Indy into a top national and international destination,” said Chris Gahl, Visit Indy executive vice president and chief marketing officer. “Leonard is regularly a target of recruiters for other CEO searches but the Visit Indy Board has proactively worked to ensure that Leonard will be in Indy for years to come.”

Destinations typically justify high pay packages based on performance.

Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp’s Christopher “Butch” Spyridon made $1,393,273 in fiscal year 2022 before his retirement last year. Spyridon led the organization for over three decades and has been credited for playing a big role in turning Nashville into one of America’s most-visited cities.

Factors in DMO Pay

There’s a gray area regarding how much of a destination’s performance is due to the CEO.

“It’s always hard to determine if the performance is based solely on the work of the CEO or the organization or whether that performance is just momentum,” said Greg Klassen, a former CEO of Destination Canada and senior director of Skift Advisory .

Pay is usually determined by the board of directors, which might consider performance indicators, such as hotel occupancy, visitor spending, overnight stays, and convention bookings.

“Any incentive beyond my base bonus was tied to the overall strategic plan and the KPIs against that plan,” said Don Welsh, who is currently the CEO and president of Destinations International and who recalls his experiences serving as the top boss at Visit Seattle, Choose Chicago, and Visit Indy.

Why Tourism Bosses Are Paid What They’re Paid

The scope of the organization’s size, the complexity of the destination, and the CEO’s expected economic impact are big influences on compensation, said Mike Gamble, president and CEO of SearchWide Global , an executive recruiting firm.

Different boards may also have different priorities. Some boards, for example, may place greater weight on resident sentiment and community relations.

“Between my current job and previous jobs, anywhere between 15 and 50 KPIs were used in my reviews, and those vary from one to the next,” said Brad Dean, CEO and president of Discover Puerto Rico .

Larger Organizations, Larger Challenges

Another factor in pay: State-level destination marketing organizations often come with oversight of massive budgets.

Exhibit A: Visit California’s Caroline Beteta earned $1,562,141 in the 2022 fiscal year. The state’s destination marketing organization received around $100 million in a one-time investment from its state government.

Beteta has been credited for helping California’s tourism and meeting industries recover from the pandemic .

In some states, how much those budgets can go toward executive pay is limited by organizational constraints. Visit Florida’s Dana Young made $214,876, but only up to $120,000 can come from state funds. “All amounts in excess of $120,000 are paid for with private (non-state) funds,” said Visit Florida’s page on executive compensation . Visit Florida is a public-private partnership.

Skift Advisory’s Klassen said the tourism board CEO position has become more complicated over the past decade. These executives must manage destination marketing and development, attract visitors and new investors, obtain funding to build hotels, convention facilities, attractions, and other tourism assets, and manage relations with politicians and residents.

“There’s a number of pretty charismatic CEOs who perhaps tried to convince their boards that they’re the reason why the performance is happening within their destination,” Klassen said.

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Tags: brand usa , ceo pay , ceos , destination marketing , destination marketing organizations , dmos , executive compensation , executives , marketing , tourism , tourism boards , us travel , US Travel Association

Photo credit: A view of the Golden Gate Bridge in 2020 in San Francisco, California. David Yu / Flickr / Creative Commons

164 episodes

Business Class is a podcast for those looking to make a living in tourism and traveling well. We host smart conversations with interesting people who built satisfying careers in the tourism workplace. 

Business Class: The Tourism Industry's Podcast Stephen Ekstrom

• Society & Culture
• 5.0 • 1 Rating
• MAY 7, 2024

Navigating Conservation and Commerce with Domenic Bravo & Stephen Ekstrom

In this captivating episode of the Business Class Podcast, host Stephen Ekstrom sits down with the esteemed guest, Domenic Bravo, CEO of Visit Cheyenne, for an insightful conversation on destination marketing and navigating the complexities of environmental conservation and economic impact in a politically charged landscape. Domenic Bravo shares his remarkable background and journey in destination marketing, shedding light on the intricate balance between environmental ethics and economic growth in his home state. He underscores the importance of a comprehensive approach that integrates environmental considerations with sound business strategy and cultural resonance. Highlighting Visit Cheyenne's innovative response to the pandemic, Bravo delves into the creation of the Hell on Wheels rodeo series and the organization's unwavering support for local businesses. He also discusses the challenges of fostering a cohesive team environment and the intricacies of recruitment in the industry. Stephen Ekstrom, the seasoned host and co-founder of the Tourism Academy, offers valuable insights into the genesis and evolution of the academy, with a keen focus on instructional design, organizational psychology, and deep-rooted tourism expertise. Ekstrom shares his heartfelt motivation behind establishing the academy, driven by a steadfast commitment to doing what's right for the industry. Both Ekstrom and Bravo underscore the enduring importance of lifelong learning and reflect on the profound impact of politics on their professional trajectories, with Bravo acknowledging the profound influence of mentors in his journey. In a thought-provoking exchange, the two industry leaders address the misconception surrounding their organizations' effectiveness in promoting tourism and travel initiatives. They stress the imperative of continuous advocacy to showcase their contributions to the travel economy and dispel the myth that their organizations are not actively engaged in promoting their vital work. Through their candid dialogue, Ekstrom and Bravo offer invaluable insights into the dynamic landscape of destination marketing and the enduring quest for sustainable tourism practices. Business Class is brought to you by The Tourism Academy - harnessing the power of science, business psychology and adult education to advance the tourism industry and build sustainable economies. Learn how to engage your community, win over stakeholders and get more visitors at tourismacademy.org.  Support the Show.

• APR 30, 2024

How well do you know Fred Dixon, the next CEO of Brand USA?

In this podcast episode, Fred Dixon, the newly appointed CEO of Brand USA, shares insights into his journey in the tourism industry and his vision for the future. Growing up in the hospitality business, Fred initially wanted to be a lawyer but found his passion in tourism, particularly in destination marketing organizations (DMOs). He reflects on the meaningful moments and challenges of his career, highlighting the importance of compassion, empathy, and strength of character for a successful CEO. Fred discusses the complexities of balancing stakeholder groups and navigating challenges such as political divisiveness and environmental sustainability. He emphasizes the role of advocacy and community building in creating a resilient tourism industry. Fred also shares his admiration for mentors in the industry and values kindness and fairness in leadership. The episode concludes with a warm exchange between Fred and the host, Stephen Ekstrom, expressing mutual respect and admiration for each other's work in the industry.  Business Class is brought to you by The Tourism Academy - harnessing the power of science, business psychology and adult education to advance the tourism industry and build sustainable economies. Learn how to engage your community, win over stakeholders and get more visitors at tourismacademy.org.  Support the Show.

• DEC 12, 2023

The Heart of Tourism with Tammy Canavan, CEO of Visit Seattle

Welcome to another episode of the Tourism Academy Podcast! I'm your host, Stephen Ekstrom, the CEO and co-founder of Tourism Academy. Today, we have a fascinating interview with Tammy Canavan, President & CEO of Visit Seattle, a seasoned professional with over 35 years of experience in the Destination Marketing Organization (DMO) space. In this enlightening conversation, Tammy shares her deep love for Seattle and how it aligns with her values. Living right downtown, she enjoys the vibrant atmosphere and the myriad of things to do and see. What surprised her most about Seattle, despite her extensive experience, was the incredible number of stakeholders invested in leaving a positive legacy for the community. Tammy opens up about her personal and professional legacy, expressing her desire to have a positive impact on people's lives, both personally and professionally. As she nears retirement, her goal is to make this role at Visit Seattle her final stop on the adventure before she can travel freely. We delve into the importance of tourism in contributing to the economic vibrancy of the community. Tammy emphasizes that tourism is not just about visitors; it's about community and legacy. She highlights vital projects on Seattle's waterfront, creating open and accessible spaces for the public and hosting events like the NHL Winter Classic that enhance the community's experience. We explore the challenges of resident sentiment and the extra effort needed to engage the local community. Tammy shares anecdotes about misconceptions residents may have about the tourism industry, emphasizing the importance of telling a deeper story and building community pride through partnerships with local media. Drawing from her extensive travels, Tammy reflects on the concept of a "sense of place and welcome." She discusses how the perception of welcoming evolves with maturity and experience, emphasizing the importance of connecting on a deeper level through shared commonalities. Tammy sheds light on the diverse nature of the tourism industry, describing it as a lifestyle and a way of life. From her early days as a hotel dishwasher and reservation agent to her current role as CEO, she underscores the passion required to thrive in the industry. She encourages aspiring professionals to explore what excites them. As the conversation unfolds, Tammy shares insights on the magical aspects of the tourism industry, where welcoming newcomers is a shared passion. She encourages those curious about the industry to reach out to professionals and emphasizes the willingness of the community to share experiences. Tammy reflects on her inspirations in the industry, expressing gratitude for mentors like Rick Antonson and Maura Gast, who have provided guidance and support throughout her journey. She acknowledges the challenges of leadership in the DMO space, where opportunities abound, but the need for sleep and family attention limits capacity. In a candid moment, Tammy reveals her desire to continue evolving as a leader, inspiring others, and prioritizing what's truly important. She acknowledges the difficulty of saying "no" and emphasizes the importance of expressing love, appreciation, and pride to those around her. As we wrap up this insightful conversation, Tammy reflects on her wish list, and I share my thought Business Class is brought to you by The Tourism Academy - harnessing the power of science, business psychology and adult education to advance the tourism industry and build sustainable economies. Learn how to engage your community, win over stakeholders and get more visitors at tourismacademy.org.  Support the Show.

• DEC 5, 2023

Journey Through Tourism with Tony Lyle of Visit Galveston

In this captivating episode of the Tourism Academy's Business Class Podcast, your host, Stephen Ekstrom, sits down with Tony Lyle, the Executive Director of Visit Galveston. Join them as they explore Tony's remarkable trajectory from a ski rep in Vermont and Tahoe to leading tourism efforts in the charming town of Galveston. Tony shares insights into the dynamic nature of the tourism industry, emphasizing the importance of selling dreams and creating emotional connections. Reflecting on his earliest travel memories, Tony takes us back to skiing in Austria and family holidays in Ibiza, highlighting the enduring power of sensory experiences in shaping our recollections. The conversation delves into Tony's unexpected entry into the Destination Marketing Organization (DMO) world, where he discovered the intricate art of not just selling a resort but an entire destination. Discover what surprised him the most about Galveston and why he believes it's one of the friendliest places in the U.S. As a seasoned professional, Tony provides valuable advice for those starting their careers in this "hidden industry," stressing the importance of networking and genuine curiosity about others' stories. Uncover surprising facts about Tony, from his past as a radio presenter to solo travels in North Korea. Learn about Tony's continuous pursuit of learning, both professionally and personally, as he navigates the complexities of leadership in a medium-sized DMO. From his love for exploring diverse cultures, especially in Africa, to the spiritual connection he finds in the natural beauty of Galveston, Tony's passion for his work shines through. Tune in to discover Tony's perspective on luxury experiences and the unique charm of Galveston, a place where the island's dimensions stretch far beyond its physical size. Finally, explore the most rewarding aspects of Tony's work, where team collaboration, partnerships, and the art of storytelling take center stage. For more insights and to explore Galveston's wonders, check out visitgalveston.com. Join Stephen and Tony on this enlightening journey through the world of tourism, where every destination has a unique story waiting to be told. Business Class is brought to you by The Tourism Academy - harnessing the power of science, business psychology and adult education to advance the tourism industry and build sustainable economies. Learn how to engage your community, win over stakeholders and get more visitors at tourismacademy.org.  Support the Show.

• NOV 28, 2023

30 Under 30 With Karly Dwenger, Travel Butler County

Welcome to a new episode of the Tourism Academy's Business Class Podcast, where we connect with inspiring individuals in the tourism industry. In this episode, we had the honor of speaking with Karly, the Senior Marketing Manager of Travel Butler County and a proud member of Destination International's prestigious "30 under 30." Karly shared her incredible experience attending the annual convention in Dallas, where she had the opportunity to meet fellow 30 under 30 members and other industry professionals. She emphasized her love for connecting with people from all over the world and sharing her passion for tourism and travel, underscoring the power of travel in connecting people and places. What sets Karly apart is her journey into the tourism and Destination Marketing Organization (DMO) space, which she fell into by accident. However, the longer she works in this field, the more passionate and inspired she becomes to get more involved. Karly's childhood memories of visiting Gatlinburg, Tennessee, with her parents every year, despite financial constraints, showed her the lasting impact of travel experiences. Karly's colleagues describe her as reliable, up for new challenges, creative, innovative, and a self-starter. She spoke highly of her mentor and boss, Tracy, who transitioned from VP of Marketing to CEO and President and continues to provide outstanding leadership, compassion, and creative ideas. One of the surprises Karly encountered in her journey was the competitive nature of the 30 under 30 group, with over 80 applicants vying for just 30 spots. Despite the competition, she found that they shared similar interests and faced similar challenges in their work. Karly expressed her desire to learn to play the guitar, even though she claims not to have a "musical bone in her body." She also hinted at having various interesting hobbies and hidden talents. As someone who grew up near Butler County in southwest Ohio, Karly, a University of Cincinnati alum, admitted she wasn't familiar with all the local attractions before working with Travel Butler County. She now loves exploring the fun and exciting activities within 30-45 minutes of her location, emphasizing the sense of community and the philosophy that "we is greater than me." Karly also highlighted some unique attractions in Butler County, such as an adrenaline-pumping skydiving experience and Jungle Jim's International Market, a 6-acre grocery store that's an amusement park of food, featuring products from around the world. She shared a piece of advice from the renowned Maya Angelou: "My mission in life is not to simply survive but to thrive." This quote reminds her of the importance of thriving in life, even amidst the daily grind. For new professionals, Karly encourages them not to be afraid to say "yes" to opportunities that take them out of their comfort zone. She believes these experiences help them meet people, explore new places, and encounter unexpected things. In a lighthearted note, Karly discussed the "Donut Trail" in Butler County, featuring 13 mom & pop donut shops. An astonishing 37,000 people have embarked on this delightful trail, and Karly's personal favorite is the strawberry glazed donut. She also recommended Oxford Donuts for the best cake donut. To plan a visit to Butler County, mak Business Class is brought to you by The Tourism Academy - harnessing the power of science, business psychology and adult education to advance the tourism industry and build sustainable economies. Learn how to engage your community, win over stakeholders and get more visitors at tourismacademy.org.  Support the Show.

• NOV 14, 2023

From Art History to Destination Marketing: Kristin McGrath's Journey

Welcome to another exciting episode of "Business Class," the podcast that delves into the hidden stories and insights of the tourism industry. I'm your host, Stephen Ekstrom, CEO of Tourism Academy, and today, we have a remarkable guest, Kristin McGrath, the Executive Director of Visit Pasadena, the Pasadena Convention & Visitors Bureau. Kristin has had a fascinating journey, from studying art history to becoming a leader in destination marketing. Join us as we explore her path, her love for the West Coast, and the heart of her work in tourism. Kristin shares her transition from Providence to the West Coast. She spent nine years in Providence and now can't get enough of the West Coast weather. However, she confesses missing certain East Coast delicacies like clam chowder, mussels, and oysters. Her journey to becoming an Executive Director, complete with supportive bosses, is truly inspiring. Kristin's career in destination marketing began as a graduate with an art history degree. She had a chance encounter with someone from a CVB; the rest is history. She emphasizes the importance of making visitors feel welcome and having a memorable experience. Kristin discusses the challenges she faces in staffing and operational decisions. She also reveals the greatest misconception about destination marketing. It's not just about fun and travel; it's about economic development and positively impacting the community. Kristin shares her childhood aspirations of becoming a flight attendant or cruise director, inspired by "The Love Boat." She emphasizes the importance of laughter and enjoying the work while taking it seriously. She believes in sharing the unique aspects of a destination with pride. In a lighthearted moment, Kristin shares an embarrassing professional story and reminds us to laugh at ourselves. She discusses her recent professional achievements and hints at the exciting adventures on her horizon. Kristin reveals her quirky juggling talent and the humorous backstory behind it. This talent is a testament to her competitive spirit and willingness to embrace challenges. Kristin's journey in destination marketing is a testament to the unexpected paths that life can take. Her passion for her work, dedication to welcoming visitors, and love for laughter make her a true asset to the industry. We're excited to see what her next big adventure holds. Business Class is brought to you by The Tourism Academy - harnessing the power of science, business psychology and adult education to advance the tourism industry and build sustainable economies. Learn how to engage your community, win over stakeholders and get more visitors at tourismacademy.org.  Support the Show.

• © 2024 Business Class: The Tourism Industry's Podcast

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California is replacing its ‘Dream Big’ marketing slogan

F or over a decade, California was painted as a place for dreamers through commercials showcasing the state’s famous beaches, vineyards and national parks.

But all dreams must come to an end as the state’s tourist agency, Visit California , announced a new slogan for the state.

The nonprofit organization tasked with developing and maintaining marketing programs to help foster tourism in the state announced its “Dream Big” slogan would be replaced with the new slogan: “Ultimate Playground.”

The scenes of the new ad campaign are like those of its predecessor, showcasing California’s iconic landmarks and destinations up and down the coast, but they no longer mention dreams.

Caroline Beteta, the chief executive of Visit California, told the New York Times that there are numerous reasons for the change, including that phrases like “Dream Big” tend to lose weight over time, could be viewed as political, and are being used more frequently by companies.  

According to Beteta, “Ultimate Playground” is a safer and less politically charged message.

The new message is also meant to tap into one’s need for fun.

“California’s playful lifestyle, paired with our abundance of experiences, create something no other destination can claim – California is the Ultimate Playground,” Beteta said in a statement. “The power of play is scientifically proven, and majorities of every generation aren’t satisfied with the amount of time they spend playing. It’s time for that to change.”

The slogan change, which rolled out in March, comes as Gov. Gavin Newsom shared on Sunday that California’s tourism is at “an all-time high. ”

The governor posted a video on X from the top of the Golden Gate Bridge, declaring an unprecedented “record-breaking tourism numbers” occurred in 2023.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to YourCentralValley.com | KSEE24 and CBS47.