Why destination marketing in tourism industry is dependent on networking

Updated November 2022 – With travel finally back on the cards for many since the pandemic, people are looking to make the most of their upcoming travel experiences. However, this time, many travelers say that they’re looking to explore different travel destinations and do tours and activities they’ve never done before.

With the increase in available bookings, it’s easy to view other tour and activity providers — and even hotels — as competitors, however, there has never been a more critical time for the travel industry to band together.

In this article, we’ll go through the reasons why promoting your destination requires marketing efforts from your local tourism sector and how you can build brand awareness for your local area.

What is destination marketing?

Destination marketing in tourism is extremely beneficial for tour and activity operators who operate in non-tourist areas. Destination marketing is the act of promoting a particular destination with the aim to reel in visitors to your local destination.

Put this way, your overall destination is in competition with other notable and popular destinations around the world. Creating tourism marketing strategies will allow you to attract these travelers from nearby tourist destinations to come and visit yours.

For example, if you are located in a seaside town and most of the local travel industry attracts tourists who want to relax in the sun, you are competing with hundreds upon hundreds of similar destinations around the globe.

If you’re a tour and activity business located in an area that’s not a popular tourist destination, then creating a marketing strategy for your local area is extremely important. It allows you to promote your destination to a wider demographic and reel in potential customers.

The importance of destination marketing and building your network

As a tour operator, you want to attract the highest number of guests and provide them with a memorable tourism experience. Furthermore, you don’t want to see the visitors in your region consistently opting for brands other than your own.

On a broader scale, the real competition is actually between your destination and other destinations around the world. Destination marketing aims to bring the operators in a certain destination together to promote the local area to attract customers.

When you band together with the local travel and tourism businesses in your area, you’re increasing your ability to develop a brand for your destination. This means that networking within your local travel market is critical in creating successful marketing techniques. When you network with those in the industry in your area, you can form an alliance of sorts.

While you may be competing for the same customers, at the end of the day, you’re all part of a larger destination that is hoping to attract travelers from around the globe.

How to market your tourism business with destination marketing campaigns

Creating strategic partnerships with other local tourism companies is the key to developing value in your destination.

You can partner with local suppliers in order to create valuable packages that are attractive to travelers who are looking for a great deal. For instance, your tour and activity company can partner with a local hotel, another tour operator who offers different experiences, and a local restaurant in order to create a vacation deal that is irresistible. Travelers today love it when they can book an all-inclusive deal that gives them a well-rounded vacation for a great price.

Another great destination marketing strategy is by developing cross-promotional campaigns that encourage your customers to book with a complementary travel business in your destination. For example, you could create a promotion in which a person who is staying at a certain hotel receives 30% off one of your tours and activities. You also could work with a tour company in order to offer discounts for those who book a tour with each company. This shows that your destination is willing to work together in order to enhance the experience for all those who visit, and it also helps you to develop a brand identity for your destination as a whole.

Destination marketing ideas

Working with travel agencies around the world

Although online bookings are starting to dominate the industry, there is still a high demand for travel agents. This is due to their ability to personalize travel arrangements for people and the special prices and deals that they’re able to offer.

Travel agencies only work selected amount of travel companies, meaning that competition with other similar operators is reduced. By working with travel agencies around the world, you’re able to promote your tourism products and packages to a larger scale of potential customers internationally.

Enhance your digital marketing efforts

There’s no denying that the travel industry in the past decade has gone digital. With online bookings skyrocketing and more and more travelers gathering ideas for travel destinations via social media platforms, enhancing your digital marketing efforts is an area you shouldn’t overlook.

Enhancing your local search engine optimization (SEO) is an extremely crucial element to ensure your website ranks at the top of search engine results. With platforms like Google ranking in over 8.5b billion searches a day, ensuring that your website meets all the SEO requirements is key to being discovered online.

Incorporate social media into your tourism destination marketing techniques

With millennials and Gen Z taking over the ranking of top spenders when traveling, promoting your products to this demographic will surely help you boost your sales. Social media marketing has taken the world by storm, with many global brands utilizing these apps as one of their main marketing tools, promoting your services on social media allows you to get creative and generate great content marketing material.

Some social media marketing ideas include:

• Part taking in the latest tourism marketing trends,
• Creating an influencer marketing campaign
• Utilizing popular hashtags
• Creating video marketing content and posting them on platforms like Tiktok

All these techniques will help you amass thousands of viewers worldwide and spark interest from avid travelers.

Create a regional tourism destination website

A regional tourism website is a website that features all the local experiences within your area. A regional tourism website gives you the opportunity to promote all the local tourism businesses within your area – from hotels, transportation, restaurants, and other tour and activity businesses.

The goal of developing a regional tourism website is to use it as a resource for travelers looking to visit your destination. Furthermore, by creating a regional tourism website, you have the opportunity to create user-generated content such as email marketing tactics for your target market. By allowing people to sign up to your newsletter, you’re able to boost your marketing communication efforts. This is a great way to keep your target audience engaged and updated with the latest updates within your local area.

The web page should feature enticing photos, videos, and descriptions that promote all the elements your destination has to offer. For example, you can promote your top activities and attractions like beaches, historic monuments, restaurants, and more to spark interest with viewers. It also should include listings for top tourism businesses, such as reputable tour and activity companies in the area. You can also even go as far as promoting sustainability within your local area to lure in sustainable travelers.

Here are some examples of regional tourism websites:

• Fleurieu Peninsula
• The Palm Beaches
• Tourisme Montreal
• Visit Panama
• Tourism Fiji

Conclusion

By forming a network with your local tourism industry, you’re able to leverage your destination marketing strategies to higher levels. Incorporating software that will help you streamline your destination’s business processes and broaden the distribution network, will ensure you’re able to provide potential visitors with a smooth booking process.

Software companies such as Rezdy equip your local area with technology that will set you up for success. An online booking system allows your customers to make a booking in a matter of minutes from anywhere in the world. Rezdy’s booking software equips your business with real-time availability viewer, automatic communication, and integration to various secure payment gateways.

To add to that, as a Rezdy customer, you’ll have instant access to the industry’s widest distribution network, Rezdy Channel Manager, with over 25,000 active resellers ready to promote and resell your service to an audience of thousands. (Rezdy channel manager is available to any tour and activity operator regardless of booking software)

Curious to see how you can combine Rezdy into your destination marketing tactics? Start your FREE 21-day trial or book a demo today!

To find out more information about improving your distribution strategy and increasing the number of distribution channels that you utilize, download the Rezdy distribution ebook

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