Today’s travellers will do their research on a destination through consulting the Internet, reading other people’s comments and opinions as well as taking on the advice of family and friends before actually visiting the place.
For this reason, it is important that travel destinations have a strong promotion strategy in place, they project a good image of the location and advertise their best and main products. This means that all the agents involved in this process will have to work together in order to promote the best possible image of the before and after travel experience. To create all of these projections, destinations should polish up their strategies and for this, there is nothing better than having good data of today’s travellers’ movements. There are many digital tools on the market for travel destinations to collect and study data and help them make informed decisions and be prepared for the upcoming seasons. For instance, there is already an existing tool on the market called Insights-X for Destinations. It consists of a control panel that allows you to know if a certain municipality will be a trend in the upcoming months or years, what the average hotel prices will be for the next six months, what type of travelers visit each place, and many more! However, as well as data, it is interesting that the travel destinations consider 3 key elements in order to strongly position themselves:
- Their image- Every travel destination has to clearly define the image that they would like to portray in the minds of potential travellers from around the world. This image should reflect the main values of the place and it should be able to adapt to the changing trends of the tourism sector. If a travel destination does not have a well-established image, before making a decision, a thorough analysis of all the possible data of itself should be made as well as of the competition and of the present and future travel trends.
- Residents/Local ambassadors.- One of the main objectives of a travel destination is not only to attract visitors from other places, but more importantly, to attract the local residents of the place: they are the travellers that we should be convincing with our destination brand. Without them we wouldn’t be able to achieve anything as no one can describe and promote a place better than its own residents. And of course, a tourist destination would not be complete if its people are not involved in its development.
- Before and After.- A tourist destination should always work on the before and after experience. The tourists that have travelled to our destination are the ambassadors of the future and we have to learn how to take advantage of the great potential they pose. In today’s world of social media, there is nothing better than that the virtual word of mouth to help us consolidate and extend a worldwide tourist brand.
By correctly managing these 3 key elements and working with updated data that helps us see the market trends, its consumers and competitors, we will stand out and grow as a travel destination around the world.
