Destination Branding: Towards Destination Competitiveness

1. Destination Branding: Towards Destination Competitiveness Frederic Dimanche December 19, 2012

2. What is a destination brand? • Benefits of branding • How do we form impressions of other places? • Destination branding: process and principles • Connect with the customer! • The future of destination branding • Destination competitiveness

3. What’s in a word? • “Destination brand” refers to a destination’s competitive identity (UNWTO Handbook on tourism destinations branding). It is the foundation to destination competitiveness • A destination brand represents the “core essence and enduring characteristics of a destination” • A brand is the DNA that defines the destination. It runs through every act of marketing communication and behavior by the DMO and its stakeholders • A brand is a dynamic interaction between the destination’s assets and the way in which potential visitors perceive them

4. It’s not like consumer goods! • A destination brand cannot be manufactured like a consumer product brand – it inherits core assets (geography, people, culture, and history). It exists in the ways in which these assets are perceived by potential visitors and the emotional value they attach to experiencing them

5. Branding requires a strategy! “So, unless that country always seems exactly like itself every time it crops up, there is little chance that those few seconds will ever add up to a preference for its products, a desire to go and visit the place, an interest in its culture, or, if we were prejudiced beforehand, a change of heart.” (Simon Anholt, Branding Places and Nations)

6. Benefits of a brand? • It has “Personality” in terms of attributes and values • It is Distinctive as compared to your competitors • It is Memorable • It is an assurance of quality (A recognized brand is a promise to consumers who generally know what to expect from that brand and trust that their expectations will be met) • It reduces perceived risk (monetary, social, and safety) • It generates customer loyalty • It can get you a premium price

7. Benefits of a brand? • It serves as base to co-ordinate private sector efforts • It is a sound base for establishing “seamlessness” between communication tools • It serves as a base for promoting and selling other products (books, films, agricultural products, etc.).

9. How do we form images of other places? • News Media reports • Export brands • Promotion of trade, tourism, inward investment and inward recruitment • Domestic and foreign policy • Iconic public figures • How citizens behave when abroad • How citizens treat strangers at home • . . . .

10. How do we form images of other places? • Built and natural environment • World media coverage • Membership of international organisations • Other countries it associates with • Cultural expression – inclusive/exclusive • Sport and entertainment • What it gives to the world, and what it takes back.

11. Branding: process and principles • Destination audit – SWOT analysis • Market segment analysis and tourist perception research • Intermediaries perception research • Internal stakeholder perception research • Competitive analysis • Reduce gaps between customers’ and internal stakeholders’ perceptions • Brand development • Brand implementation • Brand performance monitoring and brand evaluation/correction

12. Are they properly branding? Blain et al., 2005

13. Branding: process and principles • Attention to risks! • Stakeholder interests • Political compromise • Dishonesty • Unclear thinking • This will lead to a bland and forgettable brand

14. The brand connection

15. The brand connection Does it work? Is it me? How does it feel?

16. A new paradigm for destinations • From attracting more visitors, more times, for more money . . . to visit the destination . . . • Towards considering the guest as a partner, emotionally linked to our values, our experiences, and our feelings • We need to reinvent our destinations in order to create emotions and provide guests with positive experiences • otherwise, we will develop new products for yesterday’s customers.

17. Tell stories . . . From a commodity to a product with an emotional history behind it . . . • Ethical raising of animals in freedom • Rural romanticism • The good, the old times… • In opposition to . . .

19. Commodities • Products • Services • Experiences

20. A new generation of customers Power has shifted to unique, mobile, demanding, and empowered consumers: the C Generation I want to live an Experience Cross-Channel I want to know everything Content Control I’m the « Master of my Universe » And I want other to know it Community  Customization I’m a Star

23. How can you design branding and marketing strategies that take these trends into consideration? • What would be the ultimate visitor experience for the C-generation? • What strategies? • What technological applications? • How would they find them? • How would they remember/share them?

24. Towards destination competitiveness Destination competitiveness: A destination’s ability to attract tourists • “What makes a tourism destination truly competitive is its capacity to enlarge tourism expenditure, to increasingly attract visitors at the same time as providing them with satisfying unforgettable experiences…” (Ritchie & Crouch, 2003)

25. “The ability of a destination to deliver goods and services, that perform better than other destinations, on those aspects of the tourism experience considered to be important by tourists.” (Dwyer & Kim, 2003)

27. Go find the brand in you ;-) ! Thank you for your attention! f.dimanche@skema.edu