Destination Marketing

Destination Marketing

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
1) Destination marketing planning...................................................................................................3
1.1 Destination marketing planning principles...........................................................................3
1.2 Importance of destination marketing planning.....................................................................4
1.3 Destination marketing to support growth and development.................................................4
2) Key elements of destination marketing campaigns.....................................................................5
3) Role of digital marketing in promoting a destination..................................................................9
4) DMO's roles and challenges......................................................................................................10
4.1 The role of DMOs ..............................................................................................................10
4.2 Challenges faced by DMOs................................................................................................11
4.3 Branding..............................................................................................................................12
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................13

Introduction
Destination marketing is related with application of marketing principles in order to
promote a destination so that tourism in that destination can be increased which can help in its
economical development along with improving its global image. In this report the marketing
principles are applied to two international destinations Thailand and Sri Lanka so as to promote
their tourism. Thailand is a SE Asian country which is located at the centre of the Indochinese
Peninsula with a population of 66 million people (Almeida-Santana and Moreno-Gil, 2017). The
country also witness a large number of tourists each year with more than 35 million tourists
visiting Thailand in 2017. Philippines on the other hand is an archipelagic country in SE Asia
and it consists about 7,641 islands with about 110 million inhabitants. The country also witness a
large number of tourists with about 8.2 million international tourist who visited in 2019. The
DMO in Philippines which help in promoting tourism in the country is the Philippine
Department of Tourism which is a government agency that help in promoting tourism in the
country. The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) help in promoting quality tourism in
Thailand so that better facilities can be made available to tourists. In this report the importance of
destination marketing planning key elements of destination marketing campaigns, differences
between the destinations, roles of DMOs and the challenges faced by them, use opf digital
marketing tools etc. will be discussed in details.
1) Destination marketing planning
1.1 Destination marketing planning principles
Marketing planning is important so that the destination can be marketed effectively and
more number of customers can be attracted to visit the destination that can help in its growth and
development. Marketing principles can thus be efficiently applied which can help in achieving
the marketing goals of a destination: Destination: It is important that the destination, which is marketed, is accessible and
affordable for the target customers that can help in enhancing customer satisfaction and
can help in effectively marketing the destination. Pricing strategy: Price plays an important role in developing a tourist destination and so
it is essential that the price of tourism in destination is favourable for customers which
can help them in making decisions regarding visiting the place. The products and services

offered to customers must be such that they can attract customers efficiently and so that
DMO should collaborate with various services so that they can be provided to customers
at reasonable rates (Avraham, 2016). Promotional activities: In order to promote a destination it is important that effective
marketing channels be used by the DMO so that the target customers acne b reached and
promotion of the destination can take place. It can also help in reaching to a large number
of target customers so that the sales of destination can be increased.
 Services offered: The destination which is promoted must be able to provide all the
product and services that are required by customers while their stay at the destination like
accommodation facilities, shopping areas, food and beverages etc. so that more number
of customers can be encouraged to visit the destinations.
All the above mentioned principles of marketing should be effectively applied by DMO in
order to market about the destination so that sales can be increased and more number of
customers can be attracted towards the destination.
1.2 Importance of destination marketing planning
Destination marketing planning plays an important role in developing, managing and
promoting a destination through an efficient plan which determines the roles and responsibilities
of different stakeholders, set clear plans and actions which are to be performed, allocation of
resources appropriately etc. It also help in the following ways:
 It ensures that the target markets and segments are appropriately targeted which help in
attracting them towards the destination (Bastiaansen and Wang, 2018).
 It help in making destination marketing both cost and time effective.
 It helps in effectively conducting the market research so that the needs and wants of
customers, competitors strategies etc. can be found out for effective planning.
 It helps in making the tourist destination highly attractive by providing high quality of
facilities.
1.3 Destination marketing to support growth and development
Destination marketing plays an important role in not only representing a specific
destination in the global market but it also help in the economic and community development of
the destination which brings long-term benefits to the destination like attracting more number of
visitors, increasing economic gains etc. It also help in the growth and development of the