Topic: Destination Marketing

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Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
LO-1.............................................................................................................................................................4
Evaluation of principles of marketing planning to support marketing of a destination using examples. 4
LO- 2............................................................................................................................................................6
Analyzing success of campaign objectives from various destinations.....................................................6
LO-3.............................................................................................................................................................7
Different digital marketing tools London used for promoting and advertising to target audience.........7

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Introduction
Destination marketing is an activity that uses unique features of a location and promotes to sell a service
of a tour company. A promotional activity to attract customers by selling destination services. As a newly
appointed consultant at Visit Britain, a report have to be presented about marketing principles of a
destination, key elements of destination marketing campaign, role of digital marketing in promoting a
destination and role of destination marketing organizations and challenges they face.

Visit Britain is a British tourist authority established in 2003 by the tourism act of 1969 headquartered in
London. It was developed to promote and develop visitor economy of England. In 2005 it became
world’s leading Tourist and Convention Bureau in World Travel Award.

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LO-1
Evaluation of principles of marketing planning to support marketing of a destination
using examples
Marketing planning of a destination needs varied principles to make planning much effective and
successful. Marketing planning has to deal with many competitors in business market in which they
follow some principles that will ensure effectiveness of marketing planning. Basic principles of marketing
consists of four basic principles product, price, place and promotion. These are presented below;
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Figure 1: Marketing mix

Source: self-made

 Product: product can be a physical item or service intangible, such as selling items or pen-pencil
or service cleaning or showing a location. While selling a product one must consider factors such
as name, packaging, uses and safety to appeal specific market segment.
Product of a destination is the natural beauty of that destination, accommodation, food and
beverage, culture, events, festivals and information about various factor of that destination. For
example, Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia that is selling itself as the most green capital city in
the world with zero waste. Its product features are Bicycle ride in the city, traffic free, and crowd
free, unique architecture and electric transportation which is attracting many tourist now.
 Price: price is the success factor of any marketing planning and product or service selling. If the
price is too high then potential buyer will be too far and if the price is low then it will be difficult
to obtain profit and extra price must contain extra value.
If pricing is proper then it can grab huge amount of customer. For destinations price is also a
vital factor for visitors of a destination as for leisure people don’t want to spend too much or too
less while visiting. Pricing strategy can be of two types Value based and Premium based. For
example, Chicago city is selling its destinations at premium price for tourist as their target
market is business tourist who are less price sensitive than other segments of tourist. This
pricing strategy has brought them into number 1 in business tourism.
 Place: place in destination marketing refers to the way people enter into a country which
includes roads, transportation links, accessibility and ports to entry. Higher the attractions and
accessibility available in a destination richer the destination becomes for visitors.

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 If the destination has more necessary access formality for the tourist while visiting that
destination is ignored by the visitors. For example, Dubai contains higher airport immigration
formalities that takes about 1or2 hours which is very mentally tiring for tourists after flying for
several hours. On the other hand, Bhutan attracts more tourists as they get to enjoy far less
immigration formalities as it offers visa on arrival that are highly needed for tourists as no one
wants to fulfill huge amount of formalities.
 Promotion: promotion is the most vital part of marketing planning to make any destination
developed and become number one. For promotion marketing planners need to use various
booking mechanism, brochures, GDS, social media, online and offline advertising because it
provides information to tourist that says why to visit such destination and why it’s different from
other destinations.
Maldives is a very small island but it has created its market through various promotional
campaign of being “Always Natural” showing that it has the bluest water around its destinations
which has floating resorts and cottages and bazars which offers exclusive experience that is not
found in elsewhere.
Above examples show that various destinations use exclusive marketing principles that suit their
destination appeal. Where Ljubljana sells its product by promoting itself as the green capital, Maldives
promotes itself as always providing natural services and product to its tourist which increased 7% of
tourist arrival. Pricing principles also vary in various destinations as Chicago for business reasons sells its
destinations at higher price and Bhutan sells itself at very low price as it offers destinations for active
and nature loving tourists which helped it to earn $85.4 million by tourist in 2018. So it can be said that
principles of marketing supports destination according to destination’s preference.

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LO- 2
Analyzing success of campaign objectives from various destinations
Destination marketing campaign refers to the activity by which destinations are able to attract more
tourist to earn revenue for betterment of the destination and stakeholder. Three main objectives must
be present to have a successful destination marketing campaign. They are;

 To highlight destination’s characteristics and market dynamics

 Properly define target audience
 Proper definition of campaign objective

For successful tourism marketing campaign, an in depth study of the destination is to be taken. Key
components that may appeal to visitor’s cognitive and affective process that create a deep emotional or
psychological response have to be considered. Tourists like to compare destinations, features and
elements that meet their specific need that be relaxation, education, or any other. If these elements are
met it act as destination marketer’s key anchor. Then comes defining the target audience of destination
that includes the kind of tourists such as family tourist, adventure tourist, weekend tourists or many
more. Then featuring attraction of the destination according to tourist type, accommodation facilities,
special features of the destination with appropriate information and transportation facilities are the
result of successful destination campaign.

For example, Visit Britain’s wing Visit London did a campaign to increase visitors of London and raise
money for NSPCC Childline and Action Medical Research. Its aim was to promote and market London as
world’s most premier tourism destination. And for this it used ‘BeeLiked’ to create a contest around a
film named Paddington Bear which featured London’s Iconic Locations. It created Paddington themed
treasure trail consisting fifty statues across London that were close to cultural and landmark hotspots.
Many entrants got a giveaway of visiting London by Visit London to find these statues. It used Photo
Contest campaign on BeeLiked with voting functionality and data collection. These resulted in huge
success as the idea was unique and over 350,000 explorers used Visit London’s campaign page and 8000
people shared their photos. This also helped to raise over £950,000 for NSPCC Childline and Action
Medical Research.

Another success campaign story can be provided from another region in Los Angeles. The Snowbird Ski
resort got one star review from one of their visitors on their website for their risky slopes. It took it as a
challenge and made it one of their weapon to attract adventurous tourists to visit and take challenge in
2017. This campaign not only attracted local tourists also many foreign adventurous tourists too. The
resort made their destination aware of people to take challenge to ride on sweeping mountains.

In short visitors are first element of destination marketing campaign as all activities are surrounded
among them. Then target audience’s taste and destination’ features need to be balanced to create
content of campaign in a form of brochure, ads and videos to attract visitors of the destination. Content
must convey destination’s offering which will provide value for customers. Doing research of other
destination, their success stories and case study may help to create a successful campaign. Los Angeles
in the second example did research by analyzing their visitors’ review and created a content and new
customer segment. Then comes promotion and advertising to reach the content and offerings to
visitors. The destination Promoter of LA did many promotional videos to attract adventurous tourist to

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ski in the snowbird ski resort. Finally keeping follow-up about the campaign to see if it’s being successful
or not and for further development. These processes result in success of destination marketing
campaign.

LO-3
Different digital marketing tools London used for promoting and advertising to target
audience
From the perspective of Visit Britain’s wing of Visit London, there are various breathtaking attractions
present in London. From the modern London Eye to Historic Tower of London there are far other
attraction available in London. Such as Sealife London Aquarium, Science Museum, Buckingham Palace,
Warner Bros, Big Ben, the Shard and Madame Tussauds. In modern age digital marketing is essential for
promoting London as a tourist destination to all over the world because it is efficient and cost effective
than other promotional and advertising activities. There are many digital marketing tools available to
promote the destination to target audience.

As a specific destination need to be presented in this report London Eye at Lambeth in London will be
used for promoting and advertising in terms of digital marketing. It was built in 2000 by Merlin
entertainments and it is also called the Millennium Wheel. Tools used for promoting and advertising it re
describe below;

Content marketing

It is the main factor while promoting and advertising in digital marketing to tourists all over the world.
Content includes videos, blog, posts on social media that Lambeth is being promoted for its anonymous
attraction named London Eye. It is promoted as the tallest Ferris wheel in Europe with the height of
135meter with the highest viewing point of 804ft that have 3.75m visitors annually. In marketing it is
also promoted as the ‘tallest cantilevered observation wheel’.

E-mail marketing

Another popular marketing tool of digital business is e-mail marketing. It is more of a personalized
promotional method. It is used for reaching potential customers effectively and efficiently. London Eye
offers a personal email account for tourists who have any type of query about the destination before
visiting it such as ticket price, opening time, occasional decoration and other questions. Its email address
is ‘office@londoneye.org.uk’ and official website is ‘http://londoneye.org.uk/’.

Social media marketing

In this globalization era social media plays a vital role as almost 60% of the world’s population use social
media for acquiring any type of information. People are more likely to engage in media and use it to see
review of that destination. London Eye has its own webpage named “London Eye” and also has twitter
and instagram account through which it promotes its offers and views via photographs and other means
of communicating tools. Such as it promotes itself in social media that it has a royal capsule named
Coronation Capsule to mark 60 th anniversary of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II on June, 2013 which
created a huge uproar in social media.

Search engine optimization

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It’s one of the most powerful marketing tool as it makes the destination to be visible at quick manner in
popular search engine like Google, yahoo, Bing, QQQ etc. London Eye has its official SEO account
http://londoneye.org.uk/ and other than that it has created a connected link with other tour operating
organization such as Visit Britain or Visit London or even other websites that contains London’s
attractive destinations name. Just clicking the name on London Eye in any website it will directly bring
any potential visitors to it official website to promote or advertise its service though a technology called
Keyword optimization.

Online advertising

Online advertising is also a digital marketing tool which has been used by marketers from the very
beginning of internet and introduction of web in advertising. Visit London’s Lambeth advertise it by
displaying banner and photos of London Eye to other website using Google AdSense. It is a marketing
methods that displays ads to other content sites automatically based on keywords, location of the
tourist and other data. Sponsorship method also advertises destinations in online such as Coca-Cola
advertised its product in in London Eye which not only promoted products of it also the destination itself
to global customers on their website and online videos.

LO 4
The role and services of DMOs in marketing a destination.

The concept of destination marketing is wider than a product marketing or a specific service marketing.
A destination includes many tangible and intangible products which need be marketed in a way that
makes the destination attractive to its target people. So a destination marketing includes the marketing
of its products and services also. A wide range of stakeholders are related with the destination and they
make influence in marketing planning and developing. The responsibility of marketing of a specific
destination relies on destination management organizations or DMOs. DMOs are collaboration of many
organizations working to achieve the same goals regarding a destination. Marketing is one of the key
responsibility of DMOs. Some key roles and services of DMOs in marketing and destination is given
below –

 Analyze current market trends – It is a great responsibility of destination management

organizations to read current trends of tourism marketing. Analyzing different factors like
demographics, environmental issues, globalization, technology, safety and security consumer
lifestyle and marketing trends. These analysis gives them a clear idea about marketing trend and
helps decision making.
 Market Segmentation – After analysis of the destinations a particular type of DMO which
responsibility is to promote the destination named Destination Marketing Organization do
market segmentation. Because other activities of marketing depends on target market. For
example, the Canadian Tourism Commission (CTC) targeted at group of people (aged over 50) in
Germany, the so called X generation to promote Canada as a destination based on a event of
popular music in 60s and 70s.
 Applying marketing mix- DMOs are responsible to accumulating the marketing mix of products
price place and promotions. Depending on the product category of the place they set a smart
distribution channel and with attractive pricing packages they promote the destination. For
example, Rewarding Scotland is a website of Scotland which promote themes of Scotland such

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 as romantic Scotland, authentic Scotland, recreational Scotland etc. through different
promotional e-brochure of hotels. It saves a lot of money of promoting the destination.
 Planning promotion strategy – With help of other organizations involved in tourism planning
and development DMOs plan for different promotional strategy to attract the target customers
in the destination. They use different strategy like consumer advertising strategy, public
relations strategy, sales promotion, promoting events etc. For example, the promotion
department of Lyon tourist office promotes Lyon as a tourist destination and help other parties
like tour operators, travel agents to promote events and publishing promotional tools.
 Support during crisis moments – it is one of the key role of DMOs. During crisis they come up
with several ideas to save the destination from sinking and through this it also helps other
economic activities of the destination. For example, visit London, visit Britain and other
members of tourism industry played a great role during crisis because of bombing in London in
2005. With hundreds of events they introduced a campaign ‘London in September‘ and
‘everyone’s London’ they were successful to manage the crisis.
 Building synergis with other sectors – Many tourism destination build up relationship with
other sectors to boost promotion. It helps to visualize the destination in a indirect and non
commercial way. For example, New Zealand tourism promotes the country in a different way as
it took advantage of filming a movie ‘Lord of The Rings’ in the country. It helps New Zealand to
attract a global market.

As discussed above, DMOs play a great role to make a destination popular and these organizations
sometimes helps with several services which facilitates both tourists and the businesses depending on
the tourist attractions.

Challenges faced by DMOs in marketing destinations

Destination marketing has the ability to make a market unique and worthy place to visit. Destination
marketing organizations gather available resources and use them to attract tourists. These organizations
are like connecting hubs with resources and target customers. Destination marketing is always a critical
task for DMOs. With a huge number of stakeholders it is hard to take smart marketing decisions. They
influence decision making and sometimes limits the ability of DMOs. DMOs face challenges from
different sources. Some of them are internal and some are external. Some of these challenges are
discussed below-

 Financial limitations – It is faced by almost every destination marketing organizations. Because

government in most countries have little focus on tourism promotion and some governments
are financially weak to supply enough financial resources. For example, countries in Africa has a
wide range of resources which can be offered to attract tourists but they are not that much
wealthy to support DMOs with enough financial resources.
 Tourism is everyone's business – Tourism can’t be separated as a single industry because it
includes every business and local community in it. So the DMOs cannot take every possible
strategy to implement in the destination. This makes barriers. For example, cleanliness is a must
for promoting destination as a environment friendly and sustainable destination but the local

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 community in India are not that much conscious about cleanliness which makes barriers to
promote the destination.
 Differentiation challenges – Because of globalization it is hard to make differentiate tourism
products. Almost every developed cities in the world offer same category of services. So DMOs
face challenges to make destination unique. For example, cities in Europe compete with each
other with same category of offering it makes a huge turn of world tourist destinations. Now,
the Pacific Asian destinations are more popular than western cities.
 Macro environmental factors – Macro environmental factors influence the whole marketing
strategies. Sudden wars or a global pandemic change the behavior of tourists and change the
perspective of tourists toward a destination. For example, COVID-19 the global pandemic will
make a new turn in global tourism. People will travel less and cost of travel will reduce the
number of tourist in destinations.
 Cost of Marketing – Marketing is one the costly management task but because of change in
global trend of tourist behavior it hard to invest again and again in destination marketing. For
example, under developed and developing countries will struggle after the pandemic to reshape
the tourism with their struggle economic conditions.
 The new generation tourist – Tourist destinations often struggle with new generation tourists.
They have more information with the help of Internet and increased use of social media. Any
mistakes or terrorism activities can spread very quickly and negatively which make new barriers
for DMOs. For example, the bombing in London in 2005 creates new planning issue and
investment in destination promotion which increase cost and increase risk. Without these
investment in promotion the city could go bias of terrorism act.

Though there are many challenges DMO always saves a destination from bad impact of these
challenges. With proper research and market analysis they come forward to save the destinations from
extreme loss and bring benefits for the economy of the country.

Conclusion

Tourism is complex industry which is critically interrelated with other economic and social factors of a
specific destination. Destination marketing organizations makes the destinations popular to the world
although there are many challenges and drawbacks. With a proper research on market and marketing
trends and successful development of sustainable tourism can be possible. Digital marketing tool should
be used instead of traditional marketing as the world is now more interlinked with Internet and
developed travel transportation system. It is possible to make the best use of resources and bring more
tourist with a smart digitalised marketing.

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