“Destination” in the context of tourism may be defined as a place having tourism as an important sustaining activity. Sometimes a single destination may be spread across a vast area or across several municipalities or divisions. The destination includes tourism-associated businesses like hotels, restaurants, transporters, guides etc. Destinations vary a lot from one another in several ways like needs, expectations and intended benefits. Perhaps the primary step in destination marketing would be to identify the attractions a community or region has got to offer tourists.
These may include anything from festivals, social gatherings, events, traditional practices or just any natural or man made attractions. Marketing efforts are then chalked up by correlating advertising and public relation campaign for each attraction. The potential of the destination is analysed through market research, which includes studying market trends, tourist motivations and expenditures involved to tourists. Previous experience and results in earlier programs would contribute a lot in developing better tourism programs.To make an effective marketing plan, it is very important to identify the market or target segments of the tourists who are likely to be interested.
This is because everyone has different requirements and interests in selecting a destination. Thus trying to promote a destination to everyone in general is a marketing mistake. Marketing of a destination should be focused only to certain identified segments. Market research would identify these segments of people who would be interested in what the region has got to offer. Here again records on profile of previous tourists can help, in identifying areas to focus.Motivational factors for tourism must be examined for advertising.
Advertising should be focused after understanding the kind of places and reasons for tourists’ travel. Destinations like historical places, resorts, social functions etc. need different motivational factors. The success in the promotion of a tourist destination is determined by measuring accomplishments against set goals. Clearly defined goals provide a better understanding of what has to be achieved and also how to determine whether it has been achieved or not.The data for evaluation is collected, based on which the success of the marketing and promotional campaign is examined.
A conversion study comparing the number of enquiries received with the number of people who actually visited, is an important aspect of evaluation. A sample is randomly generated from the list of enquiries received and a telephonic or mail survey is done to get an idea of the respondent’s profile. Details and costs of advertising and the enquiries received in response to each advertisement is also determined for evaluation of the marketing plan.Public relations can promote a destination in a big way. Public relations differ from advertising in the sense that advertising needs to be paid. In public relations message is spread through free public exposure.
Public relations helps to promote destination and also the community itself, as the local community become aware of what it’s got to offer tourists. They begin to proudly describe their places to tourists. Once marketing plan has been developed, the plan needs to be funded for implementation. A budget for the plan detailing the expenses associated should be prepared.
Funding agencies require knowing the ways in which the money would be spent from the inception of the plan. Planning is very vital in marketing and problems can be reduced by cautious and well-thought actions. For developing a strategic tourism plan, application of the situational analysis toolkit is very important. The toolkit helps local authorities to analyse the situation comprehensively and form a strategy by having access to all relevant information.
The kit has several toolboxes pertaining to various aspects of tourism like visitor demands, economic impact, tourism inventory, visitor satisfaction etc.with each having a relevant checklist. For instance, the visitor satisfaction information requirement might have a checklist asking for opinion on the quality of accommodation, quality of service received, likelihood of recommending the place to others etc. Similarly an economic impact checklist might have queries related to the number of visitors, how much they spend and for what, how much of this money stays in the area etc.
Other toolkits includes the strategic planning toolkit, implementation toolkit and performance monitoring toolkit.The strategic planning toolkit has toolboxes with checklists related to local tourism planning, working with the tourism industry, specific infrastructure planning etc. The Implementation toolkit deals with information required for making decisions related to destination management and has toolboxes on tourism partnerships, project design, appraisal and evaluation, funding etc. The performance monitoring toolkit has toolbox to monitor performance which helps local agencies to validate their planning and prioritisation.
