DESTINATION MANAGEMENT AND MARKETING 4.
Access – convenience of getting to and from the destination as
Chapter 1
Destination Management – coordinated Management of all
elements that make up a tourism destination. It takes a strategic
approach to link up for better management of the destination.
You need first to understand destinations before you can grasp their
management.
Tourists Destination – place or area where a collection of tourism
related products and attractions are offered which deliver a tourism
experience for individuals or groups traveling away from their home
or place.
7 Characteristics of Tourism Destination
1. Geographic area that has an administrative boundary
2. A place where tourists can find overnight accommodation
3. A place or destination products is available for visitors
4. Tourism marketing export exists
5. Image exists in tourists’ minds.
6. Government agencies have introduced laws and regulations
7. There is a mixture of tourism stakeholders.
Destination Marketing – it is a form of marketing, in which a
destination is promoted to potential visitors, to increase the
number of people that travel to that location.
6 Destination Management Roles
1. Leadership and Coordination – setting the agenda for tourism
and coordinating all stakeholders’ efforts towards achieving the
agenda.
2. Planning and Research – needed to attain the destination vision
and tourism goals.
3. Product and Development – planning and ensuring the
appropriate development of physical products and services for
destinations.
4. Marketing and Promotion – creating the destination & branding,
selecting the most appropriate markets & promoting destination.
5. Partnership and Team Building – fostering cooperation among
gov’t agencies and private sector and building partnership teams to
reach specific goals.
6. Community Relations – involving local community leaders,
residents in tourism, and monitoring resident attitudes toward
tourism.
10 A’s of Successful Destinations
1. Awareness – tourist level of knowledge about destination
influenced by the amount and nature of information they received.
2. Attractiveness – number and geographic scope of appeal of
destinations attractions.
3. Availability – ease with bookings and reservations channels
available.
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well as moving around within the destination constitutes these
attributes.
5. Appearance – measures the impressions that the destination
makes on tourists.
6. Activities – extent of array of activities available.
7. Assurance – safety and security of destination for tourists
8. Appreciation – the feeling of the levels of welcome and
hospitality contribute to this attribute.
9. Action – availability of long-term tourism plan and marketing plan
for tourism,
10. Accountability - evaluation of performance by the Destination
Management Organization (DMO)
DMO – backbone of tourism destinations.
Chapter 2: Destination Marketing Planning
Contemporary destination marketing is founded on four key
professional principles that apply to all DMOs.
Destination Marketing Plan - A destination marketing plan outlines
the advertising and overall marketing approach that will be used to
promote a destination.
It represents a strategy and is a combination of techniques, tools
and resources designed to achieve commercial and social objectives
of the destination
I. Marketing concept and customer orientation
The first principle of modern destination marketing is that success is
based mainly on the continuing satisfaction of the customer’s needs
and wants.
For a DMO, this principle raises an important question – Who are
the DMO’s customers?
The first and most instinctive answer would be the people who
travel to the destination for business or pleasure reasons.
II. Destination Life Cycle
The product life cycle is another widely accepted principle of
marketing.
The notion here is that every product in time goes through the four
stages of introduction, growth, maturity and decline.
The overall product life cycle model has been converted into a
destination life cycle concept.
Product Life Cycle
Development stage
The first stage of the product life cycle is the development stage.
This is the process of figuring out what type of product you want to
introduce to the market.
Growth stage
After you have introduced the market to your product for the first
time, he will watch the product become more popular. You need to
focus on your promotional strategy and growth marketing to
generate as much interest in your product as possible.
Maturity stage
As the industry begins to reach market saturation, you will arrive at
the maturity stage. This is a sign that it is becoming more
competitive in the market, particularly as you spend more time
fending off competition.
Decline stage
When a product has reached this stage, your market share begins to
drop, and competition begins to deteriorate. You may also realize
that there is a change in consumer behavior, and not as many
people are interested in the product anymore.
Butler (1980) described a tourism area life cycle (TALC) with seven
stages, consisting of exploration, involvement, development,
consolidation, stagnation, decline and rejuvenation.
1.Exploration – a small number of tourists visit the area. The area is
unspoilt and few tourist facilities exist.
2.Involvement – local people start to provide some facilities for
tourists. There starts to become a recognized tourist season.
3.Development – the host country starts to develop and advertise
the area. The area becomes recognized as a tourist destination.
4.Consolidation – the area continues to attract tourists. The growth
in tourist numbers may not be a fast as before. Some tensions
develop between the host and the tourists.
5.Stagnation – the facilities for the tourists may decline as they
become old and run down. The numbers of tourists may decline
too.
6.Rejuvenation – investment and modernization may occur which
leads to improvements and visitor numbers may increase again.
7.Decline – if the resort is not rejuvenated (stage 6) then it will go
into decline. People lose their jobs related to tourism. The image of
the area
III. Market segmentation
Greater marketing success follows from pursuing specific groups of
tourists (target markets) rather than trying to appeal to the mass
market. Moreover, it is wasteful for a DMO to go after everyone in
the market. The DMO needs to decide how it will divide pleasure
and business tourists into groups (market segmentation analysis)
and select target markets from among these available groups.
IV. Marketing mix
A marketing mix includes multiple areas of focus as part of a
comprehensive marketing plan. The term often refers to a common
classification that began as the four Ps: product, price, placement,
and promotion.
Destination Marketing Planning is not haphazard but rather
requires a systematic, step by step approach. The destination
marketing planning process is one template that can be used. This is
a tried and-tested process and has been used extensively over the
past 20 years with DMOs in several countries.
Destination Vision
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The destination vision statement creates a pathway for future
marketing action. However, the prime responsibility and
accountability for achieving the destination vision are given to the
officially recognized DMO. The next step is for the DMO to define its
own vision for the future that will set it on the right course to
achieving the destination vision in cooperation with its internal and
external stakeholders.
Destination Mission
The destination mission statement is not a goal or objective, but
rather it is a clear description of what the DMO does and whom it
serves. DMO mission statements are sometimes confused with
vision statements and goals, but these are three quite different
concepts.
Destination Marketing Objectives are short-term (usually one to
two years) measurable results that the DMO wants to achieve.
These objectives must be based on the marketing goals and be
interim steps toward achieving these goals. As with the goals,
marketing objectives should if possible be target market and time
specific and indicate a quantified result.
The PRICE Models
The PRICE model suggested by Morrison (2010) provides a logical
sequence for the remaining elements of the destination marketing
planning process.
The PRICE model is derived from the destination marketing system
(DMS)
 PRICE
 PLANNING
 RESEARCH
 IMPLEMENTATION
 CONTROL
 EVALUATION
Chapter 3: Destination Analysis
Destination Analysis
A destination analysis is a careful assessment of the strengths and
weaknesses of the destination, ideally based on input from a variety
of sources within and outside the destination.
Destination Audits analyze the current situation of tourism in a
destination, evaluate the development potential and identify the
most useful short-term actions.
A Competitive Analysis is another important element in destination
marketing planning and research, but surprisingly is not something
that DMOs tend to do well.
Often, this is a result of inadequate or inaccurate definitions of the
destination’s competitive set or sets.
Most destinations’ competitors vary by target market, and therefore
it is best to divide the competitive analysis in that way.
Visitor Market Analysis
Every DMO should have a detailed visitor market profile at its
disposal. Some DMOs do this research on a monthly or quarterly
basis every year, whereas others conduct visitor profile studies only
once every two or three years.
Unfortunately, there are many DMOs that have never developed a
detailed profile of their visitors through a research study.
 The categories of information that should be provided by a visitor
profile analysis are highlighted in the information captured in a
profile of visitors.
Marketing Plan Analysis
The marketing plan analysis involves an objective assessment of the
DMO’s past marketing plans. This is done mainly by evaluating and
measuring the effectiveness and results for the previous marketing
plan.
RAN FRAMEWORK
Results -How effective was the marketing plan?
Activities -What activities and programmes worked and did not
work?
Next plan -What will we do differently in the next marketing plan?
The following seven sets of segmentation criteria may be used to
divide up overall markets:
 Trip purpose
 Geography
 Socio-demographics
 Psychographics
 Behavior
 Product related
 Channel of distribution (business to business, or B2B.
Trip purpose: Defining the market segment by the visitor’s main
purpose of the trip, with four main divisions: business meetings and
conventions; pleasure, vacation or leisure; visiting friends or
relatives (VFR); and personal.
Geography: Describing markets by place of residence.
Socio-demographics: Profiling tourists according to census-style
characteristics, such as age, education, occupation, income, and
household composition.
Psychographics: Dividing up visitors by their psychological
orientations; lifestyles; or activities, interests, and opinions (AIOs).
Behavior: Differentiating among groups of visitors based on past
purchasing and travel behaviors or future travel purchase
intentions.
Product related: Using some aspect of the product to define the
market segment, such as ski slopes and alpine skiers, golf courses
and golfers, reefs and scuba divers, or spa-goers.
Channel of distribution (business to business, or B2B): Applying
different criteria, specific travel trade intermediaries are divided
into sub-groups. For example, this might include defining travel
agent markets by geographic area or commission volume level. Tour
operators might also be defined geographically or by specialty or
destinations served.
Positioning starts with the destination. But positioning is not what is
done to the destination. Positioning is what the DMO attempts to
do to the mind of the prospective visitor. That is, the DMO positions
the destination in the mind of the prospective visitor.
5 Ds of positioning:
1. Documenting: This step involves doing research with past and
potential visitors to determine which benefits they are seeking in
visiting the destination.
2. Deciding: The second step is accomplished in two stages: (1)
determining what images past visitors and non-visitors have of the
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destination (perceived image) and (2) deciding what image the DMO
wants visitors to have of the destination (desired image).
3. Differentiating: Positioning communicates the differences
between the destination and competitors.
4. Designing: Fourth, the DMO must decide how it is going to
communicate the select positioning or image to potential visitors
within its target markets. The DMO must also make sure the
destination product supports the selected approach to positioning.
5. Delivering: The DMO must implement and monitor the chosen
approach to positioning. In, this was referred to a Chapter 1 s
‘delivering on the ground’
Destination branding
The concepts of destination positioning, image and branding are
closely linked, with branding being used to support the selected
positioning approach in communicating the desired destination
image.
Destination brand
A name, symbol, logo, word mark or other graphic that both
identifies and differentiates the destination.
Marketing mix
The marketing mix is one of the key professional principles of
marketing. The DMO has eight principal weapons within its
marketing mix for achieving the marketing objectives for each target
market (product, price, place, promotion, packaging, programming,
partnership and people).
Each of the 8 Ps are described below.
1. Product A DMO does not have a specific product or service to sell
to potential visitors. However, there can be no doubt that the DMO
represents the destination as a whole and the destination is what it
markets.
The five components of the destination product are:
 Attractions and events
 Built facilities (hotels, resorts, other lodging; food and
beverages; convention and exhibition centers; shopping;
and other)
 Transportation
 Infrastructure
 Service quality and friendliness
2. Price With respect to price, the DMO can act more as a ‘price
influencer’ than a ‘price setter’. Above all the DMO must recognize
that price is a multifaceted concept. In the private sector, it is a
major determinant of profitability. Prices also tend to attract certain
markets and repel others.
3. Place In destination marketing, place represents distribution and
the online and traditional travel trade channels the DMO uses to
draw visitors to the destination. The DMO can market directly to
potential visitors (direct distribution) or indirectly through travel
trade intermediaries (indirect distribution). The 1990s brought
electronic or digital distribution to tourism through the use of the
Internet.
4. Promotion has been a traditional activity of DMOs, with most
organizations placing the greatest emphasis on advertising and sales
(personal selling). Other elements of the promotional mix include
public relations, sales promotion and merchandising. Now, DMOs
are heavily involved with digital marketing techniques and especially
with promotion through websites, e-mail, smartphones and social
media. All promotions are types of communications, and it is
essential that a DMO integrates promotions so that they are
consistent.
5. Packaging in tourism is very different from product packaging and
is a key tool for the DMO in customizing the destination product for
specific target markets. Additionally, packaging is important in
helping the destination to smooth out seasonal (peak and valley)
patterns of visitor volumes. Packaging is the combination of related
and complementary hospitality and tourism services and facilities
into a single-price offering (Morrison, 2010).
6. Programming There are many opportunities for destinations to
arrange special activities or programmes that are attractive to
visitors. A festival is one of the best examples of programming in
tourism. Packaging and programming when combined can be very
powerful in convincing people to visit a destination or a tourism
business.
7. Partnership DMOs have been involved in building marketing
partnerships for many years, but the past two decades have seen an
increasing emphasis on tapping into the power of combining forces
with other players. A great example of a DMO partnership was Visit
ASEAN@50, which involved tourism in the 10 countries of Southeast
Asia.
8. People There is no question that tourism is a people-intensive
business and that personal service encounters within a destination
have a great impact on the visitor’s experience and satisfaction.
How do we make sure we get there? (Control or formative
evaluation)
The last two DMS steps are both types of marketing evaluation:
 Control or formative evaluation: measuring progress while
the marketing plan is being implemented.
 Evaluation or summative evaluation: measuring after the
marketing plan has been completed.

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