Attracting tourism requires an effective marketing strategy.
Tourism marketing can be defined as the effective promotional strategies used by tourist destinations to attract visitors. Whether it is a city, a vacation resort, a theme park, a special event, a transportation provider, or any other business or organization that relies on tourists for profitability, each one requires a product-specific marketing strategy if it is to beat the competition and win the business of tourists.
Research
Effective tourism marketing starts with research into what current tourism trends are, what tourists want, what they need, what they are interested in and what they will spend money on. Once a destination or attraction determines those needs, it must determine how it can best meet those needs, by doing an inventory of its assets.
Target Markets
No destination can be all things to all people, and by trying to market to everyone, the message gets diluted and does not work as well. Target marketing, focusing on a particular segment of the market, allows for a more efficient tourism marketing plan. By researching the demographics of past visitors, an attraction can then determine the target market for future marketing.
Advertising
Once an attraction or destination determines what it has to offer tourists, and who to target, it must determine what it can afford to spend on advertising. Money for advertising may come from government entities. If a country's gross domestic product (GDP) is heavily reliant on tourism, as it is in Kenya, for example, the government will spend significant amounts of money to market its product. In most other instances, advertising must be factored into the overhead costs of the business. Some places, particularly those rich in natural beauty, may get a lot of free media from television travel programs and newspaper and magazine articles.
Internet
With more people than ever relying on the Internet for information, and particularly if the attraction wishes to target a younger, more technologically savvy crowd, Web-based advertising is important. Apart from an attraction or destination building its own website and driving traffic to it, attractions should also explore social networking opportunities.
Tourism Bureaus
Tourist information centers, convention and visitors bureaus, and chambers of commerce play are generally the primary tourism marketers in their areas. Their main purpose is to encourage visitation by tourists to local operators (accommodations, tours and attractions) and to facilitate longer stays within the region. Their marketing efforts include operating the official tourism website for their area, launching festivals and events that will attract visitors, producing and distributing the official visitors guide for the area, leading media tours, encouraging convention planners and tour planners to bring groups to their area, advertising their area in key publications and attending travel and tourism shows. These efforts are largely funded by hotel taxes, also known as a "bed tax."
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