Tourism Marketing for Cities and Towns. Using Branding and Events to Attract Tourists

308 Pages·2006·1.138 MB·English

by  Bonita M. Kolb, Ph.D. (Auth.)

Butterworth–Heinemann is an imprint of Elsevier
30 Corporate Drive, Suite 400, Burlington, MA 01803, USA
Linacre House, Jordan Hill, Oxford OX2 8DP, UK
Copyright © 2006, Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Permissions may be sought directly from Elsevier’s Science & Technology Rights
Department in Oxford, UK: phone: [phone], fax: [phone],
You may also complete your request on-line via the Elsevier homepage (http://elsevier.com),
by selecting “Support & Contact” then “Copyright and Permission” and then “Obtaining
Permissions.”
Recognizing the importance of preserving what has been written, Elsevier prints its books on
acid-free paper whenever possible.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kolb, Bonita M.
Tourism marketing for cities and towns / Bonita M. Kolb.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7506-7945-X (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. City promotion. 2. Tourism—Marketing.
I. Title.
HT325.K65 2006
659.2’930776—dc22
2005022585
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 13: 978-0-7506-7945-9
ISBN 10: 0-7506-7945-X
For information on all Butterworth–Heinemann publications
visit our Web site at www.books.elsevier.com
Printed in the United States of America
06 07 08 09 10 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Working together to grow
libraries in developing countries
www.elsevier.com | www.bookaid.org | www.sabre.org
PREFACE
Tourism Marketing for Cities and Townsteaches readers how to develop a city’s
brand to attract tourists and their spending. The brand that is developed will
use a city’s already existing tourist attractions, distinctive cultural features,
natural beauty, and/or heritage. These unique features plus the available tourist
services can then be packaged together and promoted to tourist segments,
including day visitors, business travelers, and traditional tourists. To create this
branded package the reader must learn how to analyze the urban tourist
product, target the correct visitor group, research their needs, and then develop
a promotion plan. Special emphasis will be given to designing a promotion
plan using branded events and tourist packages targeted at specific tourist
segments.
What is unique in this book’s approach is that it encourages those study-
ing or working in tourism to view tourism development as a community-based
effort to encourage economic development. Partnering with other city organ-
izations and tourism businesses in planning events will provide the tourism
office with additional resources. Collaborating with public groups will help to
ensure that the community feels involved rather then isolated from the tourism
industry. This information will be of especial value to smaller cities and towns
that do not have a developed tourist industry.
Particular attention is given in the book to the concept of analyzing the city
as a product. The city’s main features, tourism services, and image are all care-
fully discussed because a thorough analysis of the city as a product is essen-
tial to developing a successful marketing strategy. Numerous checklists are
provided of ideas for features and services that can be incorporated into a
branded image. In addition to targeting potential tourists, the book contains
information on promoting the city as a tourist destination to tour companies
and convention-planning businesses.
xv
xvi Preface
This book is a combination of theory and practice. The theory is introduced
first, but each chapter quickly focuses on how marketing can be implemented
to develop tourism. In every chapter, numerous examples are presented of
cities and towns that have successfully utilized branding and packaging to
attract tourists. Of particular interest to teachers and practitioners is the inclu-
sion of worksheets at the end of each chapter. The worksheet questions can
be used immediately to put into practice student or practitioner ideas. When
completed, the worksheets will form the basis for a strategic marketing plan.
This book is intended for students enrolled in tourism and travel programs.
Specific classes in which it could be adopted include those on urban tourism,
tourism marketing, destination marketing, and general tourism and travel mar-
keting. The book could also be helpful in urban studies programs. Because
many cities and towns rely on cultural facilities to attract tourists, the book
would also be of value in cultural or arts marketing classes. Practitioners in
the fields of travel and tourism, city management, economic development, and
destination marketing will find this book useful in implementing their job
responsibilities. In addition, practitioners in arts marketing will find this book
helpful in targeting tourists as part of their audience development strategy.
The organization of the book follows the marketing process. The first
chapter explains the history of tourism marketing and presents a broad
overview of the subject. Chapter 2 discusses marketing theory and provides
information on how to analyze the external environment for threats to the
tourism industry and opportunities of which tourism marketers can take
advantage. Chapter 3 goes into great detail on how to analyze the city by means
of the concept of a core, supporting, and augmented product. How to analyze
all of the information from the environmental analysis and the product analy-
sis for strategic marketing opportunities is covered in Chapter 4. Chapter 5
examines how to segment potential tourists into groups based on external and
internal characteristics, while Chapter 6 examines the motivation of tourists
in choosing destinations. To attract tourists it is important to understand their
needs, so Chapter 7 covers the topic of tourism research. Chapters 8 and 9
describe ideas on how to package and brand the city as a tourist product.
Tourism promotion via advertising, public relations, sales incentives, direct
marketing, and websites is covered in Chapters 10 and 11. Chapter 12
describes how to promote to tour companies and convention-planning busi-
nesses using personal selling, trade shows, and familiarization tours. In addi-
tion the chapter covers budgeting and ideas for collaborative efforts with
neighboring cities and the state tourism office.
1
CHAPTER
Tourism to Cities and Towns
CHAPTER OBJECTIVES
• Examine the history and current status of urban tourism.
• Establish the connection between tourism and economic development.
• Explain the application of marketing concepts to tourism promotion.
• Introduce the purchase process and its connection with targeting visitor
groups.
• Present the relationship between branding and promotion.
TOURISM MARKETING DEFINED
Although marketing is a new field of academic study as compared to such fields
as chemistry and philosophy, marketing is not a new human activity. After all,
people have always produced surplus goods or services that they wanted to
barter or sell. To do so they first needed to find someone willing to make the
exchange. The practice of marketing simply takes this basic human behavior
and plans its strategic implementation.
1
2 Tourism Marketing for Cities and Towns
Tourism is also a new field of academic study, but it too is an activity with
a long history. After all, people traveling to visit other places is not a recent
phenomenon. As early as the religious pilgrimages of the Middle Ages, seeing
the sites was always a part of the reason for undertaking a trip.
The marketing of tourism is simply applying the appropriate marketing con-
cepts to planning a strategy to attract visitors to a destination, whether resort,
city, region, or country. While there are many definitions of marketing, the
definition used by the American Marketing Association on their website,
www.marketingpower.com, perhaps defines marketing best: “the process of
planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution
of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and
organizational goals.”
The definition describes marketing as an exchange that satisfies both the
individual (the visitor) and the organization (in this case, the city and its cit-
izens). Unfortunately marketing is sometimes misunderstood as only selling;
with the city convincing the tourist to visit even if they really don’t want to
come. While selling is an important part of promotion, there would be no long-
term gain for a city to focus only on convincing people to visit without first
making sure the city offers the experiences they desire. Even if a city used
high-pressure sales techniques to convince tourists to visit, this would be a
shortsighted strategy because tourism success relies on repeat visitors. A
tourist swayed by a sales pitch that paints an unrealistic picture of what the
city has to offer would most likely be unhappy with the experience and not
visit again.
The definition states that the marketing exchange should also meet the
needs of both the city and those who live there. The city has a mission to
provide for the needs of its citizens, including maintaining the infrastructure,
providing for public safety, and encouraging economic development. There-
fore developing the city as a tourist destination should be undertaken only if
the economic benefits improve the quality of life for the city’s citizens. The
economic benefits tourism can provide include increasing tax revenue so that
more money is available for infrastructure maintenance, attracting visitors who
may someday relocate to the city, and providing for economic development
through attracting new businesses. Therefore marketing cities is providing a
product that meets the needs of visitors while improving the quality of life for
the city’s citizens—the primary mission of the city.
Tourism to Cities and Towns 3
What’s in a Slogan? Topeka by Any Other Name . . .
The City of Topeka decided they needed a new marketing campaign to
attract tourists, so they assembled a committee of 11 citizens to provide
ideas on an appropriate brand image. The group decided to focus on
Topeka’s railroad heritage and the importance of freedom, themes that
were to be incorporated into a logo and slogan.
To involve the community in the process of developing the campaign,
the group then requested ideas for slogans from local residents. Good
suggestions were received, such as “Topeka, a great place to grow” and
“Topeka, the beat of the heartland.” Sorry to say, not everyone had such
a positive view; or else they just had a sense of humor. Other sugges-
tions included “Topeka, not as bad as you think” and “Topeka, you won’t
get a lot of unwanted relatives visiting you.” It is not anticipated that the
last two will be used! (Topeka Capital-Journal, 2004)
Questions to Answer
• Do we have a slogan we can use in promoting our city?
• If we do, when was our slogan last reviewed?
• If a new slogan is needed, how can we involve the community in its
development?
HISTORY OF URBAN TOURISM
The activities of cities and towns have always been of interest to both visitors
and those who stayed at home. Postcards of city scenes produced in the late
19th century were designed to show Main Street bustling with markets,
parades, and festivals. In fact, when Main Street developed, one of the most
important criteria in planning the layout of a building’s site was to maximize
the traveling public’s exposure to each business (Francaviglia, 1996).
The marketing of places in the United States can be traced back to the
selling of the western frontier to American citizens. Once the railroads had
connected the populated east with the sparsely populated west, efforts were
initiated to motivate people to travel. The “See America First” movement, an
early example of such an effort, was started to encourage U.S. citizens to use
the new cross-continental railroads to visit the west. To meet the needs of
the new tourists, entrepreneurs first built luxury hotels in places such as
4 Tourism Marketing for Cities and Towns
California’s Yosemite Valley that duplicated the luxurious ambience of eastern
resorts. While enjoying the natural splendors was the first inducement to
tourism, it was only a short time later that experiencing the excitement of the
new cities, particularly San Francisco, became the reason to travel west. Early
promotional messages contrasted the adventure of exploring the cities of the
United States with visiting the old civilizations of Europe. A good example of
this approach was used by the See America First movement, with the slogan
“See Europe if you will, but See America first” (Shaffer, 2001).
The construction of the transcontinental railroads also led people to settle
permanently in the vast geographic region between the two coasts. These fledg-
ling towns located in the United States heartland marketed to easterners to
encourage them also to move west. Many cities were successful in attracting
visitors by marketing the advantages of their new town in comparison with
other, older, established cities. For example, the city of Wichita, Kansas, grew
from 50 people in 1870 to 40,000 in 1888. This growth was the result of a col-
laborative effort between the local newspaper, businesspeople, and civic organ-
izations that positioned Wichita as a new, and better, Chicago (Ward, 1998).
Growth in Urban Tourism
The recent growth of the tourism industry results from three social changes:
development of the transportation infrastructure, increased disposable income,
and improved access to communication technology. The development of the
transportation infrastructure allowed tourists to easily visit locations that were
once considered remote. In addition, more people now have sufficient dispos-
able income to use for travel, the cost of which has meanwhile decreased due
to competition between companies in the tourism industry.
Access to improved communications technology has also sparked a growth
in tourism. People now have an increased awareness of different countries and
cultures. This awareness can in part be credited to the vast amount of global
information provided by the Internet. This knowledge of other people and cul-
tures, combined with convenient transportation systems and the necessary
income to fund the trip, means more people are motivated to travel to new
destinations, including cities.
These three social changes—transportation systems, increased disposable
income, and communications technology—have increased the number of
people traveling and also the frequency of travel. This overall increase in
tourism provides an opportunity for even a small city or town to develop as a
tourist destination. However, for this to happen, cities and towns need to
understand marketing strategy. Attracting tourists will occur only if the city
or town has a desirable product that is properly branded and promoted.
Tourism to Cities and Towns 5
Everyone’s Heard of Vancouver BC, But What about
Vancouver, WA?
What happens when everyone has heard the name of your city but thinks
it’s someplace else? When Hilton Hotels decided to open a $73.1 million
hotel and conference center in Vancouver, Washington, just across the
border from Portland, Oregon, they realized they had a problem. To sell
the Hilton as a conference destination, they would have to sell the city
as a location. Fortunately, since the hotel is the key to revitalization of
downtown Vancouver, business leaders were happy to help in develop-
ing promotional materials that would portray a new, vibrant image for
their city.
A year before the hotel was even opened the city had already pro-
duced a brochure with a short history of Vancouver and a map of local
businesses. The Hilton used this promotional material to help attract
conferences. The hotel and the community are working together because
each has an interest in ensuring that both the hotel has customers and
the city has visitors (Nelson, 2004).
Questions to Answer
• Is the name of our city distinctive in any way?
• Does it have any positive or negative associations?
• Is the name of our city similar to that of a better-known city?
• How can our name be incorporated into a slogan that can be promoted
to tourists?
TOURISM AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
The idea of using tourism to encourage economic development is now new.
The City Beautiful movement, which was influential at the beginning of the
20th century, maintained that physical improvements to a city’s infrastructure
would in turn help to improve social relations among its citizens. Of course
the recommended improvement projects, such as civic centers, parks, and
street improvements, cost money that taxpayers were not always willing to
spend. Therefore those involved with the movement reminded local citizens,
particularly those with businesses, that not only would the improvements
make the city a more pleasant place in which to live, they would also attract
tourists. The movement’s supporters argued that these visitors would then
6 Tourism Marketing for Cities and Towns
spend money that would increase business revenue and therefore indirectly
benefit all citizens (Cocks, 2001). The same argument is still being made today.
While cities welcome the money spent by visitors, tourism is not the total
answer to improving the economic health of economically troubled cities and
towns. However, it can be one part of the solution to increase business revenue
and provide employment opportunities. Developing a tourism industry can
also change the image of the city, and this new more positive image can be the
catalyst for other positive economic changes, such as attracting new residents
and new businesses.
Economic Health of Cities and Tourism Development
Cities can be described as being in one of three stages of economic health:
economically strong, in decline, or in transition. An economically healthy city
will have expanding business and industry sectors that induce new residents
to move to the city because of employment opportunities. Such a city probably
will already have an established tourism industry because its positive image
attracts tourists. In fact local residents might even complain about the nega-
tive effects caused by the many tourists visiting the city.
Warhol in Slovakia?
Although Andy Warhol’s parents were both born in Medzilaborce in
eastern Slovakia, he never even visited the city. However Medzilaborce
decided there was enough connection to brand itself as “Warhol City.”
How was this strategy implemented? Tourism officials had nine houses
and four bus stops in the town center decorated in Warhol’s signature
pop style. Photos of the houses and bus stops were then used on the
city’s promotional materials, including giant billboards. Surprisingly, in
a place that was never even on the tourist map, the Warhol Family
Museum of Modern Art now welcomes 10,000 visitors a year (Reid,
2004).
Questions to Answer
• Was anyone famous, or infamous, ever born or ever live in our city or
the surrounding geographic area?
• If not, have such a person’s relatives been born or lived here?
• If so, how can we use their association with our city in promoting our
image to potential tourists?
Tourism to Cities and Towns 7
However, there are two reasons that even economically strong cities must
still think about promoting their image. First, if their tourism strategy is suc-
cessful, it may be copied by a competing city that offers similar attractions
with less crowding. Second, even if the city has no fear of competition, a
change in the public’s opinion of the city or a desire for a new experience can
cause a decline in tourist numbers. For these reasons, even cities that are suc-
cessful tourist destinations must remember that marketing is an ongoing effort.
On the other end of the spectrum are cities that have lost businesses and
industry and are in economic decline. This decline may be because the indus-
tries have become outdated or because businesses have moved elsewhere,
taking with them jobs and tax revenue. The result is an out-migration of the
city’s residents, who must look for new opportunities in other cities. Many of
the citizens still living in the city will suffer from a high level of unemploy-
ment and as a result need a variety of social services. Unfortunately the city is
less prepared to meet these needs because of the loss of tax revenue. To find
the funds to help unemployed citizens, cities often must neglect maintaining
the city’s physical infrastructure. This neglect results in a further decline in the
city’s image.
This type of economically depressed city may find it too difficult to attract
tourists because of the neglected infrastructure and the city’s negative image.
If the city does put its resources and energy into developing a tourism market,
it can result in developing a tourist enclave surrounded by an economically
depressed community whose residents feel shut out from any benefits tourism
might bring.
The Importance of Saying It and Meaning It
“I Love New York” and “Virginia Is for Lovers” both have instant asso-
ciations in people’s minds because the slogans have both been in use for
more than 25 years. One of the secrets to successful branding is to ensure
that the slogan and logo are remembered, by using it frequently over a
long enough period of time. In addition, what the slogan says about the
city must actually be true. Whether the new Dallas slogan of “Live Large,
Think Big” or San Francisco’s “Only in San Francisco” is successful
remains to be seen. However, it may be Columbia, South Carolina’s new
slogan of “Where Friendliness Flows” that will last the longest. Why?
Because the city is having hotel workers, waiters, and taxi drivers take
“friendliness” training so that the slogan will be more than just words
(DePasquale, 2004).
(continued)