ıt´s amazing how much money tourism organizations are wasting on inoperative marketing. Ads and Train station girlsbrochures that´s actually read by just a fraction of the estimated target group. Swedish municipalities, for example, are printing 4-colored brochures to an amount of SEK 800 millions a year (~US$ 100 Mn). Most of these fancy brochures are dropped in the waste bin after a quick glance at some nice photos.

Not to talk about advertising. H-U-G-E amounts are spent on traditional ads. Sure, you´ll probably reach some interested clients. But at least 3 out of four readers are not.

The same goes for measuring the results of tourism marketing efforts. Old methods like counting guest nights and passenger figures are still widely in use. I would say that businessmen coming to your town for a meeting with their local supplier or distant-living relatives returning home for a wedding party,  is not a result of tourism marketing just because they spend a night or two the local hotel. They would have come anyway.  “We can´t change measuring methods. If we do, we can´t compare it to previous years or other destinations”, is a common explanation. Stone age, I say. Give it up.

Before they travel to a destination, tourists search for information, evaluating the options. Will it be your place or somewhere else? People likes to know where they´re heading. Some of them will choose you, most of them will not. 

Like any company, tourism organizations measures their “products” performance. A customer satisfaction survey or similar questionnaires.  But what about those who considered your place, but choosed not to come? If you´re marketing by ads and brochures, or collecting surveys at the hotel or tourism centre, you´ll never know who these people are or why they didn´t show up. 

Todays E-marketing tools allows you to communicate with them, but I´m not talking about a simple newsletter. I mean dialogue. Questions. Answers. Problemsolving. They´ve already expressed an interest in your place, but for some reason they choosed some other destination this time. It´s your job to find out why and then change peoples attitude. Next time, or after a while, you´ve turned a lot of them into real customers by caring for their needs.

There are a number of ways to gather and save information about potential customers that are explicitly interested in your tours or destination, without having to spend a lot of money on those that are not.

One way is to build a society, club or community. Social marketing with a specified topic. In it´s simpliest form it might be a blog with registered users. Or running travel clubs for different tourism niches, like fishing, local culture, ancient architecture or whatever your destination has to offer certain target groups. Be the expert. Or invite one to provide you with expertise.

Competitions, lotteries, research studies, interviews, articles and movie clips are just a few samples of what´s attracting people enough to fill in their names and numbers because they want the information you´re providing. It´s all about content and interactive dialogue. You have to know your clients.
While your customer database is growing by itself, you can let other businesses that are of interest to your audience hang on to your marketing. Or you can join theirs.

But that´s another story.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,