With a national, state or local mandate to stimulate and influence tourism and visitor spending, destination marketers stand apart from the traditional for-profit travel intermediary. DMOs, CVBs and NTOs must partner with, empower and compete against online travel agencies, tour operators and suppliers when it comes to travel marketing.
Destination marketers face a range of challenges including tough competition with other destinations, implementing new technologies, justifying their value amidst shrinking budgets and balancing the needs of their diverse constituencies of hotels, attractions and other in-destination services. PhoCusWright’s Destination Marketing: Understanding the Role and Impact of Destination Marketers reviews the current state of destination marketers (DMOs, CVBs, NTOs) and their importance to consumers and industry partners. This soon to be released report addresses important topics such as:
- Factors influencing consumers' destination selection and travel purchasing decisions
- Percentage of overall travel influenced by destination marketers
- DMO structures, strategic priorities and best practices
- Influence of DMOs on destination choice and purchasing decisions
- Opportunities to partner with destination marketers
DMOs provide a range of services to their local travel market that no other type of travel entity is motivated to offer. By creating a unified local brand, they can stimulate travel demand to their destination by driving visitor arrival numbers. To the benefit of local governments, destination marketers increase tax revenue via room nights and local spending. For visitors, DMOs provide information on the destination, which is often viewed as being less biased than content offered by for-profit entities.
Destination marketers are well positioned to play a central role in travel promotion and distribution in the future, provided they embrace a targeted range of online consumer technologies, social media and marketing techniques. The most important indicator of a successful DMO is its ability to innovate. PhoCusWright's Destination Marketing: Understanding the Role and Impact of Destination Marketers addresses a range of innovation opportunities and recommended practices for DMOs. This soon to be released report is available at an introductory price of US$495 through June 30 (regularly $695). It will soon be available for Global Edition subscribers.
