Destination Management and Marketing

The UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO)

has defined sustainable tourism as an enterprise that achieves a balance between the environmental, economic, and sociocultural aspects of tourism development so as to guarantee long-term benefits to recipient communities.

The triple bottom line

environmental, economic, and cultural returns on investment. Some identify a fourth benefit of well-managed tourism.

Gateway Communities

When an attraction such as a popular national park or renowned cultural monument is involved, impacts depend a lot on tourist interaction with neighboring towns are called?

Double Edged Sword

At best, tourism creates an economic incentive to protect destination assets — characteristics that attract tourists in the first place.

Granada

is a gateway community for the Alhambra.

Geotourism Mapping

uses regional character to bring together — often for the first time — representatives from every endemic facet of the destination.

Tourism Product

is a combination of tangible and intangible elements, such as natural, cultural and man-made resources, attractions, facilities, services, and activities around a specific center of interest which represents the core of the destination marketing mix and creates an overall visitor experience including emotional aspects for the potential customers. 

Tourism Supply Inventory

This unit provides several survey instruments for gathering information from accommodations providers, tour operators, transportation providers, attractions (natural and cultural), and other components of the tourism supply chain in order to summarize destination supply strengths and gaps.

Accommodations

An inventory of considers all existing providers in the destination including hotels, guesthouses, resorts, B & Bs, self-catering rentals, and RV/camping sites.

Sustainability Efforts

Describe hotel efforts to preserve their natural environment, implement renewable energy sources, encourage sustainable tourism practices, and support local communities.

Tour operators

are vital to the destination value chain, and in many cases manage the majority of the visitor's experiences.

Attractions

outstanding geological features, significant cultural monuments, important historical events, famous sites—motivate people to become tourists.

Environmental and socio-cultural

aspects of the attraction should also be considered in order to gain an idea of how sensitive the attraction might be to touristic disturbances. Intangible attractions should also be considered. Local food and beverages often identify a place, along with arts, and social ambiance. Tuscany is a prime example with its Chianti wine and quintessential Italian cuisine.

Vision

is an exciting picture of a destination's desired future intended to motivate stakeholders to work together to achieve this future.

Visioning

is most successful when it is participatory and creates an image that integrates all the separate visions of stakeholders.

Destination Management System

What is DMS?

Reckless development

harms the environment, degrades scenery, disrupts local culture, and channels tourism revenues away from local communities. Delicate historic, archaeological, and natural sites suffer physical wear and tear.

People

Social variables dealing with community, education, equity, social resources, health, well-bring, and quality of life

Profit

Economic variables dealing with the bottom line & cash flow.

Planet

Environmental variables relating to natural resources, water & air quality, energy conservation & land use.

Double edged sword

Many agree that this phrase came from the Arabic phrase sayf zou hadayn. It was first used as an English metaphor in the 15th century. This Arabic phrase translated to English mean?

Art Pedersen

For 11 years, he served as UNESCO's point person on tourism at World Heritage sites. He notes how countries may vigorously promote the attributes of a site proposed for World Heritage, seeking the prestige of inscription and the tourism windfall it might bring.

System of Measuring Excellence for Destinations

(SMED)

Mexico City

what city has begun using SMED recommendations. In the congested old downtown area, for instance, a new bicycle rental system has given great results both for tourists and locals?

Portugal's Douro Valley

famed for its terraced hillsides of port wine vineyards, used its SMED report to obtain 30 million euros from the European Union to implement the recommendations, including creation of DMO, official adoption of National Geographic's Geo-tourism Charter principles, and development of a network of tourism information booths.

Scientific research

Ecosystems are under pressure almost everywhere. Protecting them requires understanding how they work. At Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, for instance, marine ecology findings led to the politically difficult but scientifically defendable decision to increase “no take" fishing zones from 14% to 33%.

Monitoring

In China, Yangshuo's karst landscape and constituent towns are a major Chinese tourist attraction.

public use plan

PUP

PUP

It proposes how best to manage visitation — volume of traffic, fees, protection of sensitive areas, interpretation (process of provoking deeper appreciations of the site), and so on.

David Sheppard

he spent ten years heading up the protected areas program of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. He witnessed the tourism explosion firsthand. The woods, waterfalls, and jagged karst formations of China's Jiuzhaigou Valley, Sheppard reports, is the site of just such an explosion.

Belize

The World Heritage Barrier Reef's Half Moon Caye and Blue Hole National Monuments attract divers and snorkelers.

Spain

The Alhambra's notably high stewardship score in the face of heavy visitation is due in part to the palace's healthy relationship with its host city, Granada.

Georges Zoudin

A Tourism consultant who worked on some policies that have made a difference in Alhambra, Spain.

The Moorish palace had been suffering from day trippers coming by busloads from coastal resorts. Granada residents received no benefits, and visitors had an inferior, overcrowded quick dip experience into the site.

James Dion

As the Center's head of field operations, he has helped numerous councils invite resident participation. The process adds value to geotourism assets.

Catalytic Project

T-Shirted student team helped residents in Peru make nominations for Geotourism map. 

Dr. Donald Hawkins

of The George Washington University in Washington, DC, has been involved with efforts to improve the situation around Petra, Jordan, a popular but challenged destination that rated 60 — the “so-so” range — on the National Geographic stewardship survey in 2006

Tourists

are a barely tapped resource. Alert, mindful tourists can help, if properly involved.

Brian Mullis

of Sustainable Travel International provides an example from the Dogon country of Mali.

Lindblad Expeditions

takes a different tack. For many years, the expedition cruise line persuaded clients on its Galapagos cruises to donate two millions US dollars toward local conservation projects.

Voluntourism

is another route. The Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Miami, for instance, runs a volunteer day trip into Florida's ecologically troubled Everglades. Volunteers help with tree planting, pest plant removal, and recycling. The help such programs provide varies widely, from a few hours to many months.

Michael Levett

a Washington's CDC Development Solutions, senior director that aims to recruit hands-on practitioners delivering real world expertise focusing on tourism development in Nigeria.

Communication counts

Residents need to understand why the historic site or natural landscape they see every day represents a potentially important economic benefit for them.

Planning counts

Without planning and public education, the incentive to protect can easily degenerate into mere exploitation.

Management counts

Just letting tourism happen likely leads to trouble, especially when visitation soars. Dispersing tourists and timing their access can mitigate crowding.

Individuals count

Behind institutional reports and government memos hides a key reality: individuals make huge differences. Success or failure easily depends on a dedicated local person working tirelessly to inspire others, organize them, and keep the process moving.

Communities count

People who live in gateways hold the key to create a “virtuous circle,” whereby tourism's contribution to the economy generates incentives to conserve the resources that keep tourists coming.

Art Pedersen

he sums it up this way: “There are no success stories. It's a process. The more arrows in the quiver, the better.” He pauses. “Nobody's carrying a full quiver.”

Tourism visions

involve the elaboration of the style of tourism the destination would like to host (ecotourism, culinary, cruise port, allowable ship size, voluntourism, etc.), and who the target market is for the destination.

Ideally visioning

is an on-going effort since both individual and collective visions continually evolve and the process must capture that evolution in order to avoid turning sterile (Senge, 2006) the following process incorporates one destination-wide meeting and a month to gather local responses to a draft vision revised and adopted at a final meeting, as a means to get started. The process, though short, is an essential element in establishing tourism development goals. 

A visitor profile (or market segment)

describes a variety of characteristics about a certain type of visitor, often including demographic information (age, mode of travel, group size, nationality), psychographic information (values, benefits pursued, desired experience, beliefs), and spending patterns (daily expenditures, types of purchases made, even form of payment).

Visitor data

is often gathered through visitor questionnaires, although other sources may be even more apt for following visitation trends such as immigration statistics, economic studies, and statistics submitted by hotels and other service providers.

The government of Thailand

encourages its local population to visit natural and cultural attractions by making entrance fees to all attractions affordable for all Thai citizens.

Thai belief

it is that all historic and sacred sites are part of the national heritage and therefore belonging to all Thais equally.

DMS

is a database for the collection, manipulation, and distribution of information in all its forms.

In its simplest format, DMS information can be compiled into a catalogue of destination services and other information.

Phase 1 — Dreaming of Travel

Tourists anticipate their holidays and begin to research for travel information, plan when they willtake their holidays and beginto dream and fantasize the range of destinations they would like to travel to.

Phase 2 - Choosing the Destination

Influencing by factors include: cost, packaging, atmosphere and first contacts with the chosen destination

Phase 3 - Taking the trip

Here, visitors will experience a range of ti satisfaction and dissatisfaction, feelings and transformation.

Phase 4 - Reviewing the trip

The last phase is the post-trip: where the visitors share photos and stories with their relatives and friends and if they would go back or recommend the destination to others.