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Wherever we look in the tourism industry, we see countries, regions or cities competing for the tourist dollar. While some visitors are loyal to one or two destinations, the vast majority switch from one to another and there is everything to play for.
An increasing number of destinations have turned to brand and image consultants to give them a competitive edge, and here are just a few examples.
In Europe, the Spain Marks campaign of the Spanish Tourist Office uses a wide range of images from Picasso to the beach to show how the experience of visiting the country “marks” visitors. Maison de la France runs a campaign headlined “In France, the smile comes from the heart” – and used this for a major advertising campaign in New York’s Times Square at a time of strained Franco-American relations.
Australia has recently launched a branding and advertising campaign catch-lined “Australia, a different light”, using a singer, a poet and media personalities to “tell their own stories” about the country. The new Uniquely Singapore branding uses bold images of the city state and replaces the New Asia slogan used by the Singapore Tourism Board since 1996.
South Africa will launch a new branding with the slogan, “It’s Possible” in the autumn, using action images captioned with the exact latitude and longitude of where they were shot.
Destination marketing was the subject of a World Tourism Organisation seminar held during the Moscow International Travel and Tourism Exhibition (MITT) in March. Speakers from Germany, France and Barcelona explained how they approached the subject, with Barcelona being associated with special events such as the International Years of Gaudi and Picasso, and this year’s Universal Forum of Cultures.
Also taking part was Frederique Maurell, senior event sales manager of MITT organiser ITE Travel Exhibitions, who was particularly impressed with the French campaign in Times Square.
“The new edge is communication and promotion, and getting your marketing mix right,” she says. “There is a wide choice of media available, both traditional and high tech, and although people ask about the cost of marketing, they should ask about the cost of not marketing.
“Exhibitions are vital because they are the only medium allowing people to fully use the human touch. A recent survey told us that 87% of people said face-to-face marketing was important, and it is true that ‘people buy from people’. Exhibitions are a unique platform for this.”
Stanislava Blagoeva-Duschell, president of ETTFA, points out that countries do not necessarily need a massive budget to market effectively. She is impressed by the 100% Pure New Zealand campaign introduced in 1999.
“The creative and innovative campaign of New Zealand involved not only launching and establishing a whole new image in epic proportions, but using the power of the movie industry through the trilogy Lord of the Rings – The Fellowship of the Ring, released in December 2001,” she says.
“It then successfully repeated the campaign through all the marketing channels – websites, sales campaigns in different markets, exhibitions and road-shows, using comprehensive and up-to-date research following each campaign.
“It proved to all of us that it doesn’t really matter if you are large or small, geographically remote or in close proximity to the main tourism generating markets. You can still target trade and consumer alike with positive results.”
Since Lord of the Rings – filmed in New Zealand – was released, international visitor arrivals have increased from 1.9 million to over 2.1 million, during what has been a very challenging period for tourism worldwide.
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
