Chapter 17: Destination Marketing

1. Tourists travel to destinations, places with some form of actual or perceived

boundary, such as physical boundary of an island, political boundaries, or
even market-created boundaries.
2. Macrodestinations such as the United States contain thousands of
microdestinations, including regions, states, cities, towns, and even visitor
destinations within a town.
3. Tourisms most visible benefit is employment in hotels, restaurants, retail
establishments, and transportation.
4. Second, less visible benefits are support industries and professions, many of
which pay considerably more than the visible employment opportunities.
5. The third benefit is the multiplier effect as tourist expenditures cycle through
the local economy.
6. Tourisms fourth benefit is state and local revenues derived from taxes on
tourism, and helps shift the tax burden to nonresidents.
7. Tourism also yields a fifth benefit, the export of locally made products.
8. Destination marketing is an integral part of developing and retaining a
locations popularity.
9. Too often, planners focus only on destination developments without attention
to retaining and preserving attributes that attracted travelers to the
destination in the first place.
10.Tourist development must balance temptation to maximize tourist dollars
with preservation of the natural tourist attractions and the quality of life for
local residents.
11.Tourist destinations that build solid infrastructures can look for increased
business by expanding from a seasonal product to a multiseasonal product or
by expanding the geographic base of their product.
12.Sustainable tourism is a concept of tourism management that anticipates &
prevents problems that occur when carrying capacity is exceeded.
13.Carrying capacity is determined by an environmental impact assessment.
14.Ecotourism is one of the fastest growing niche markets in the travel industry
& generally viewed
as representing sustainable tourism.

15.Because leisure travel is emotional & discretionary, guests have come to

expect amenities and services without questioning the environment.
16.Tourist competition is fierce amid a growing and constantly changing tourist
market, where, in addition to strong tourist destinations, declining places
upgrade, and new places appear.
17.Convenience includes travel time from airport to lodging, language barriers,
cleanliness and sanitary concerns, access to amenities, and special needs.
18.Timeliness means risk factors like political instability civil disturbances,
currency fluctuations, safety, etc.
19.Tourism planners should conduct an audit of the existing resources of their
communities to determine opportunities for events.
20.Beyond economic value, events help create an identity for a community.
21.Ability to concentrate attractions, facilities, and services in a convenient,
accessible location is essential to create a strong destination pull.
22.Tourist expansion is highly dependent on public investments, woefully
inadequate without private investment and market mechanisms to respond to
changing consumer needs and wants.
23.Destinations find they must make more than financial or hospitality
investments to attract tourists.
24.Many visitor destinations are in fact only stopover destinations for travelers
on their way elsewhere.
25.In an era in which most people in industrialized nations are urban or
suburban dwellers, farm tourism has become increasingly important.
26.Thousands of individuals choose to spend vacations assisting others,
particularly in underdeveloped nations, an activity called purpose-driven
tourism.
27.Medical tourism is a fast & lucrative segment of tourism, as people travel
internationally to gain access to less expensive health care.
28.Tourism marketers know even though an area may attract an activity-specific
segment, there is great potential in providing reasons for others to come.
29.While the historical concept of travel has been to go someplace for a
purpose, it can be argued that for many contemporary pleasure travelers, the
real destination is the vehicle of travel such as a cruise ship, river paddle
ship, or a special railroad.

30.Several classifications have been used to describe different visitor destination

segments:
a. Organized mass tourists - Little or no influence over the travel
experience other than to purchase one package or another.
b. Individual mass tourists - Somewhat more control over their itinerary.
For instance, they may rent a car to visit attractions
c. Explorers - They plan their own itineraries and make their own
reservations
d. Drifters - These people, the backpacker group, seldom, if ever, are
found in a traditional hotel
31.Plog observed that destinations are first discovered by allocentrics
(backpackers or explorers).
32.One job of a tourist organization is to increase the accessibility of a
destination.
33.Marketing information systems help identify and predict environmental trends
that are responsible for these changes.
34.Emerging markets must be identified and served.
35.Effective destination imaging requires congruence between advertising and
the destination.
36.An effective way of communicating with potential travelers is by offering
packages.

37. City, county, or area convention and visitors bureaus (CVB) promote tourism
on the local level.