In the last decade, a growing number of tourist destinations have been facing image crises

Marketing Tourism Destinations in an Era of

Uncertainty

Eli Avraham, PhDUniversity of Haifa, Israel

• In the last decade, a growing number of tourist destinations have been facing image crises

• Uncertainty associated constantly to tourism industry

• Today, facing a crisis is no longer a question of “if” but a question of “when”…

Two kinds of uncertainty/image crises: 1. Sudden crisis (sudden uncertainty)

Crime waves, terror attacks, inter-racial conflicts, epidemics, natural disasters (earthquakes, hurricanes, mudslides and floods)

2. Crisis as a cumulative result (prolonged uncertainty)Ongoing, long-term problems: prolonged high crime rates, war, unemployment, social-economic crisis, low quality tourism services

Related Theories and Models • Marketing and advertising, branding, image

management

• Strategic public relations

• Crisis communication

• Destination and place management

• Image restoration

• Stigma and stereotype handing

Marketing Destinations with Prolonged Image Crisis

• A great deal of experience has been accumulated in the field of place marketing and branding

• Not always relevant to places that suffer from negative or weak images, stereotypes, generalizations and during uncertainty

Methodology • Qualitative analysis of symbols,

visuals, slogans, and texts in many website, news articles, ads and other promotional tools

• The date: destinations websites; video sharing website (YouTube); destinations web sites; tourism news websites; international tourism journals; news articles and academic articles; ads, interviews, press releases, tourism brochures

Goals & Timing

Audience

Changing Target Audience, Similarity, Patriotism

Source

Changing Source, Media

Credibility, Blocking Media

Message

Employing Counter-Message, Ignoring, Spinning

Liabilities into Assets

Channel Technique

Feedback Process

SAM Media

Strategies

Tactics

Audience

Characteristics

Crisis

Characteristics

Place

Characteristics

Execution & Evaluation

Source Strategies

1. Establishing rapport with the news people (media relations)

2. Trying to damage the media’s credibility 3. Applying a physical/economic threat to the

newspepole 4. Blocking media access5. Finding alternatives to the traditional media:

celebrities, Internet, social media

Goals & Timing

Audience

Changing Target Audience, Similarity, Patriotism

Source

Changing Source, Media

Credibility, Blocking Media

Message

Employing Counter-Message, Ignoring, Spinning

Liabilities into Assets

Channel Technique

Feedback Process

SAM Media

Strategies

Tactics

Audience

Characteristics

Crisis

Characteristics

Place

Characteristics

Execution & Evaluation

Message-Focused Strategies – The “Crisis? What Crisis?” Approach

• Ignoring the damage to the image • Examples: Istanbul, Egypt and Spain

choose to employ a “business as usual” during the 2000s

• New Milford, Connecticut: “A great past, and a greater future”

• Ramle, Israel: "Discovering the past, looking towards the future"

Image Acknowledging the NegativeNorth England: “The image of the city as grey and

covered with smoke has disappeared, and now the city is attractive” (Burgess, 1982)

• American city of Tulsa, Oklahoma: “When someone says ‘Tulsa’ some people draw a blank…This should fill in the blank about Tulsa… ”

Narrowing / Diminishing the

Problem• London – limitation of the Foot and Mouth

disease problem to the rural areas

• Nepal – “Violence took place in remote, rural areas, while top tourist destinations were secure and free of violent incidents”

Tackling the Issue Solve the problem that led to the negative image (crime, terror, racial conflicts, lack of cultural events)

Examples: New York, Egypt, Caribbean, Miami

Hosting Spotlight EventsSport events, Olympics, the World Expo, exhibitions, cultural events, festivals and other special events (Belfast, Salt Lake City, Beijing 1990)

“Super Bowl XL is not only an affirmation of what Detroit is but what it is becoming”

"The Great Ethiopian Run"

Hosting Cultural Events

• Reno attracting visitors to improve the city's image by creating the "Artown“ cultural events

• Belfast

Employing Celebrities • Celebrities can easily attract potential

consumers' attention

• People seek to emulate their favorite celebrities, and would like to imitate whatever their favorite celebrities are doing or consuming

• Celebrities are usually known for having good taste and large variety of options to choose from

• Highly publicized health problems among British tourists (1997)

• Recover strategy: to show with statistics that less than 1% of the 2 million British tourists in the past year had fallen ill

Employing a “Counter-Messages Offensive”: The Dominican Republic

Spinning Liabilities into Assets

• Spinning the negative factor responsible for the bad image

• Minnesota - winters are marketed as unique and have become a tourist attraction, with various winter cultural events, ice fishing and festivals catering to many

• Bradford, England: “Flavors of Asia”

• Wichita Falls, hosting a cycling event called Hotter ‘n Hell One Hundred, where cyclers ride 100 miles in 100 degree F weather. The events been going for over thirty years now.

Spinning Liabilities into Assets: Economical Crisis as Opportunity

• Greece: "Great classic, great value“ campaign

• The number of tourists, to Iceland and Hong Kong increased after the devaluation of local currency

• Traveling during uncertainty time is cheaper, less crowed so the tourism experience is greater

Spinning Liabilities into Assets:

Economic Crisis as Opportunity

"Financial crisis tourism": "Financial crisis tours" and “Scandals and the crooks of Wall Street tour"

Branding the Destination Counter to the Stereotype

• Reposition the destination in a manner directly opposed to the existing stereotype

• Examples: repositioning Nuremberg as a center of “peace and human rights”

Softening the Image

Geographic Isolation Strategy

• security issues (real or perceived) always have a spillover effect

• “destination-specific” or “isolation strategy”

• “Eilat on the Red Sea”

• Survey in 1985 found: most of the Americans surveyed had no intention of visiting Canada.

• In response, the province of Nova Scotia launched a creative campaign, presenting it as a freestanding entity.

• The result of this surprising campaign was a 90 percent increase in US visitors to Nova Scotia.

“Like me” strategy: Similarities to American Audience

Goals & Timing

Audience

Changing Target Audience, Similarity, Patriotism

Source

Changing Source, Media

Credibility, Blocking Media

Message

Employing Counter-Message, Ignoring, Spinning

Liabilities into Assets

Channel Technique

Feedback Process

SAM Media

Strategies

Tactics

Audience

Characteristics

Crisis

Characteristics

Place

Characteristics

Execution & Evaluation

How to Choose the Right Strategy in an Era of

Uncertainty? AP Characteristics Analysis • a. Place characteristics (the place's

international status, place's location, regime, and availability of resources)

• b. Crisis characteristics (the crisis's stage and duration, type of threat, scale of damages, geographical scale, and origin of casualties)

• c. Audience characteristics (the audience's knowledge of the crisis, sources used regarding the events, the place's former image and proximity to the places being marketed)

Summary • Theoretical frame to

analyze marketing destinations during uncertainty

• Three kinds of strategies chosen to restore destinations’ positive image

• More details: Book and Elsevier teaching presentation