“Destination marketing is a type of marketing that promotes a destination (town, city, region, country) with a purpose to increase the number of visitors.” (Promodo, 2016).
A different approach as product marketing
Destination marketing is meant to bring travelers into a certain place. It’s different from product marketing where often the product is delivered to the consumer – through a variety of possible distribution channels. With destination marketing, you try to move the customer. This is a big difference and requires another approach.
The travelers from nowadays go online to find out where they want to go next. Or, even better: sometimes they don’t know they want to go on a journey and you are able to inspire them anyway. The internet provides hotels and hostels with the opportunity to get potential visitors interested in their destination and property before they have even touched their bags. Through social media, SEO and the many other marketing tools available you can show travelers the things they can do in and around your ho(s)tel. If you do this right, it will drive people to your destination even if they never thought about visiting before.
But how do you market a destination?Â
The things you should definitely make use of are reviews, photos, videos and blog posts. Partnerships and influencers should furthermore not be underestimated. As long as you are able to efficiently and clearly communicate your message, the rule is: the more creative and pretty, the better. Out of research we know that, especially Millennials, are very much influenced by visuals of exotic or beautiful looking places. Views they don’t encounter in their own everyday life.
When marketing your destination, you want to create the right mix between thought leadership content (content that shows you are the expert, which in destination marketing would be answers to questions travelers might have regarding your destination or property), entertainment, information (like updates regarding events happening in town, local news) and inspiration. This last one should receive the most attention according to research by Trekksoft (2017). Their research about DMOs (Destination Marketing Organisations) concluded that “there are advantages for organisations paying attention to the sharing and dreaming stages of travel, where there’s less competition and a wealth of user-generated content to creatively curate for a more inspirational destination brand.”.
Take-away
- Destination marketing is the advertising of a location with the objective to increase the amount of visitors to this place
- Use a mix of marketing tools: social media, SEO, print and so on
- Use different formats like reviews, photos, blog posts, partnerships and influencers
- Create content in the four categories: thought leadership, entertainment, information and inspiration
- Focus the most on inspirational content
Conclusion
Destination marketing is definitely something you need if you are trying to get your ho(s)tel to be considered by travelers. Not only will destination marketing increase the amount of travelers to your destination, it will also turn you into the expert, the go-to source for information. This gives you a competitive advantage over other hotels and/or hostels in the area. But don’t randomly create content and throw it online without giving it a good thought. There’s more to it than that. There are actually quite some trends that you might take into consideration. I will blog about this soon. If you want to stay updated on this, I recommend you to become a member of the 100% free Tremento Tribe. Just click here.Â
Did you enjoy this post? Then please let me know in the comments. Feel free to share your thoughts and if you come across any inspiring examples from hotels or hostels creating content, please do share.
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