Top 7 Steps Destinations Can Take to Prepare for Visitors

As the world re-opens, destinations and tourism organizations, at the national, region, or city level, need to be ready across all fronts. According to the World Health Organization, global travel restrictions are currently forecasted to be lifted in and around April 2021. Destinations need to be ready to go by January 2021 to take advantage of the re-opening of the travel industry. Tourism recovery and growth is critical to achieving tourism levels. Focusing efforts on comprehensive tourism planning, branding, online marketing will be key to helping destinations plan for growth. Trove Tourism Development Advisors breaks down the top ten steps all destinations should aim for before formal re-opening.

1.     Build a meaningful tourism development plan: Locations are often hesitant to invest dollars in tourism development because they lack a plan of action that demonstrates a clear ROI. Destinations and tourism organizations need to work to plan for re-opening and forward-looking growth. Stakeholders must be mobilized, programming needs to be set, company partnerships need to be re-established, and marketing must come back online.

2.     Re-segment the market: After almost a year of closing and re-opening, your destination should re-segment the market. Use data to align on what types of visitors are normally attracted to your destination (by location, preference, age, demographic), and then analyze the data to create segments. For example, a destination can have four segments: one that is guaranteed (reliable visitors that came before the pandemic and will continue to come), less reliable, and so on. Or, the segments can be by visitor type. It is important to align on who the target demographic is as that will inform who you need to focus on for marketing and what your eventual marketing campaign will be.

3.     Assess and re-invigorate your brand: Currently too many stakeholders are involved in various areas in the industry which causes a confused brand for the destination. Especially during COVID-19, tourism took the backseat as destinations focused on domestic travel, also giving destinations the opportunity to re-brand themselves for international audiences. For example, in July 2020, the Iceland Tourism Board created a new brand around “scream therapy”, opening the borders of the nation for visitors to let off steam based on stressors around lockdown. Then, using this new brand, Iceland created social media segments highlighting different visitors yelling surrounded by Iceland’s wonders and sights.

4.     Build a destination marketing campaign: A destination’s marketing campaign should not be broad. It should be focused specifically on a sub-group of visitors that the destination would like to target. Creating a marketing campaign includes a brand, a social media strategy, traditional marketing collateral, and digital marketing tactics.

5.     Implement the marketing campaign: Based on the visitor segment, different marketing tactics will reign supreme. Millennials, for example, are best targeted via influencer media or social media advertisements. A multifaceted marketing campaign must be implemented by skilled practitioners that understand how to build demand online and how to convert demand into visitors.

6.     Set up a consistent measurement framework: How does a destination better analyze their tourism and forecast for future growth? The destination needs a consistent data repository to understand metrics like “how are our visitor rates changing and from where are they coming from”, as well as other metrics like length of stay, repeat visits, types of visitors, etc. In addition, destinations must create sound partnerships with inbound and outbound tour operators to capture their data as well as provide meaningful data to them. A consistent framework and method for capturing, analyzing and visualizing data gives the destination the ability to plan for the future.

7.     Assess as-is tourism products and opportunities to innovate: Destinations should coordinate with local tourism organizations to highlight a subset of attractions, experiences, and products. Then, the destination should work to refine the experiences for visitors and ensure that the user experience is streamlined, entertaining, and gives them something to write home about.

The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed the operation of a variety of sectors, including the tourism sector. Destinations should be prepared to better target and attract visitors by completing these seven steps.

Learn more about Trove’s capabilities in supporting destinations here.

Feature written by Trove, tourism development and destination marketing agency.