Douro on my mind: Measuring & marketing value during the ‘value crisis’

Des­tin­a­tion mar­keters can exploit a gen­er­al per­ceived lack of value and trust to build affin­ity with pro­spect­ive vis­it­ors, accord­ing to K Michael Haywood. 

In this “Good Tour­ism” Insight, Pro­fess­or Hay­wood describes the oppor­tun­ity for des­tin­a­tion mar­keters and the attend­ant chal­lenge for des­tin­a­tion managers.

[You too can write a “GT” Insight.]

It has been 20 years since we vis­ited south­ern Por­tugal. Now it’s the Douro Val­ley in the north of the coun­try that beckons. 

Thanks to accol­ades from friends, anti­cip­ated cul­tur­al and culin­ary delights, love for fine wines, per­ceived value for money, and even Por­tugal’s sus­tain­ab­il­ity plan, I feel an affin­ity with the region. I am curi­ous to see if it is as won­der­ful for Cana­dian snow­birds as I have been led to believe.

There is anoth­er reas­on for want­ing to vis­it. I served as peer review­er for the 2008 Douro Val­ley North Por­tugal Exec­ut­ive Report of the Sys­tem for Meas­ur­ing Excel­lence in Des­tin­a­tions (SMED). 

I have just reread my cri­tique of the report’s meth­od­o­logy wherein I noted the need for a gap ana­lys­is between vis­it­or expect­a­tions and host com­munity (des­tin­a­tion man­age­ment) per­cep­tions. Interesting.

It’s inter­est­ing because here I lan­guish in pre-vis­it mode. With reser­va­tions made and depos­its paid — and hav­ing had no fur­ther con­tact with those organ­isa­tions — I feel like I’m occupy­ing a lim­in­al space between ‘what was’, ‘what is’, and ‘what will be’; nurs­ing high expect­a­tions and beguiled by a Fado lament.  

As I reflect on the nature of affin­ity with and expect­a­tion of des­tin­a­tions, I pon­der the implic­a­tions for des­tin­a­tion marketers. 

AIDA and beyond: Evaluating the whole journey

I’m not usu­ally baffled, but I’ve always wondered why so many des­tin­a­tion mar­keters define their cus­tom­er jour­neys as their inter­ac­tions with a brand rather than as what they are; actu­al phys­ic­al and emo­tion­al jour­neys in search of hap­pi­ness and meaning.

Why do they con­sider their primary job com­plete after they have per­suaded their tar­get mar­kets to book their travel, accom­mod­a­tion, and tours? 

Why do mar­keters neg­lect to learn from the exper­i­ences vis­it­ors have through­out their pre- to post-trip journeys? 

Is it because they con­tort the AIDA (Aware­ness, Interest, Desire, and Action) mod­el to describe the whole jour­ney, when it merely rep­res­ents the steps toward a transaction? 

See oth­er “Good Tour­ism” con­tent tagged with
’Travel & tour­ism and des­tin­a­tion mar­ket­ing’

No won­der then that vis­it­ors, hav­ing arrived at AIDA’s ulti­mate des­tin­a­tion, the sale, find them­selves aban­doned; then search­ing in a fog of blogs and social media influ­en­cers for sin­cere, cred­ible, and timely inform­a­tion about their actu­al destination. 

If des­tin­a­tions acknow­ledge their respons­ib­il­ity as co-cre­at­ors of vis­it­or exper­i­ences, why do so many ignore the poten­tial for the post-book­ing, pre-vis­it, and post-vis­it stages to build affin­ity, engage­ment, loy­alty, and future AIDA actions? 

Even where ‘reten­tion’ or repeat vis­it­a­tion is a stated goal, why do des­tin­a­tions ignore the rel­ev­ance of the post-AIDA action stages? Why not build new AID for future A?

A valuable marketing opportunity in a value crisis

There are insights to be gleaned from vis­it­ors pre‑, post‑, and dur­ing their travels; the value they desire, expect, and actu­ally receive at mul­tiple touch­points; value that con­trib­utes to emo­tion­al as well as eco­nom­ic, social, and cul­tur­al benefits.

Why do these insights remain veiled? 

Is it because com­pan­ies and com­munit­ies are ignor­ant about, or dis­missive of, humanity’s value crisis? 

Or is it because the accep­ted account­ing ver­sion of “value-in-use” ignores “asset-based com­munity devel­op­ment”; devel­op­ment that res­ults in qual­ity-of-life gains, the cre­ation of com­munity shared “well­th”, and the avoid­ance of over­tour­ism (as well as attends to broad­er cli­mat­ic and cul­tur­al crises).

Search “Good Tour­ism” for the keyword ‘Value’

Pro­spect­ive vis­it­ors may care more about loc­al wel­fare con­cerns than des­tin­a­tions ima­gine. Many vis­it­ors may wish to plan trips that enhance the value they bring and the value they experience.

Most des­tin­a­tions recog­nise the neces­sity for vis­it­ors’ in-situ des­tin­a­tion exper­i­ences. But what hap­pens when there is no fol­low-up; no vis­it­or-based audits, cus­tom­er per­form­ance indic­at­ors, nor any ‘feel­ings data’ that can help meas­ure value? 

Per­haps the inab­il­ity to meas­ure and man­age value through the entire vis­it­or or cus­tom­er jour­ney is aggrav­ated by a dubi­ous reli­ance on Net Pro­moter Scores and an inat­ten­tion to the devel­op­ment of competencies. 

Clearly, many adjust­ments need to be made in a post-exper­i­ence world, but shouldn’t great­er atten­tion be giv­en to the pre-exper­i­ence of vis­it­ors (dif­fer­en­ti­ated in accord with the arche­types of cus­tom­er jour­neys); their stressors, interests, goals, and even their ”mundane emo­tions”? 

See oth­er “Good Tour­ism” con­tent tagged with
’Travel & tour­ism and des­tin­a­tion man­age­ment’

And what about eval­u­at­ing the value-cre­ation out­comes (bey­ond jobs and growth) for host com­munit­ies and their indi­vidu­al hosts; the people deliv­er­ing ser­vices and co-cre­at­ing exper­i­ences? What is the value they receive or are denied? How does that affect the value that vis­it­ors receive or are denied? 

Suf­fice to say, I remain puzzled by those organ­isa­tions and des­tin­a­tions that lack soph­ist­ic­a­tion when it comes to com­munity- and cus­tom­er-cent­ri­city, and/or remain dis­missive of well-being and ESG (envir­on­ment­al, social, and gov­ernance) requirements.

These are cent­ri­cit­ies of par­tic­u­lar import­ance in a ‘post-truth’ world in which pro­spect­ive trav­el­lers are just as likely to worry about trans­port­a­tion snafus, pan­dem­ics, scams, safety, and secur­ity as they are to ima­gine enjoy­able escapes.

So wouldn’t it be reas­sur­ing to have someone (even a vir­tu­al ser­vice agent) reach out, listen, offer help and advice, and keep you informed as you anti­cip­ate your adventure?

Valuing visitor affinity

Des­tin­a­tions make huge invest­ments in brand­ing and storytelling that is designed to evoke emo­tions and con­nect vis­it­ors with shared interests and val­ues. (This case study on Douro Val­ley wine is an example.)

Rela­tion­ship-build­ing by des­tin­a­tions is most often focused on media influ­en­cers (social and tra­di­tion­al), cor­por­ate loy­alty pro­grams, and those who make decisions for “high-value cus­tom­ers”, espe­cially in MICE markets. 

Such efforts should not be con­fused with build­ing affin­ity. 

Affin­ity is a con­sumer-determ­ined, beha­vi­our­ally-com­plex con­struct that reveals vis­it­ors’ over­all sense of attach­ment to a des­tin­a­tion; its land­scape, cul­ture, her­it­age, val­ues, and even actions, includ­ing action around sustainability. 

Search “Good Tour­ism” for the keyword ‘Storytelling’

One won­ders wheth­er des­tin­a­tion brand­ing and storytelling has the where­with­al to evoke emo­tion­ally-rich responses akin to affin­ity. After all, their sus­tained effect­ive­ness is totally depend­ent on the size and appro­pri­ate­ness of invest­ments in tour­ism, not to men­tion the ingenu­ity and effort required to lay the ground­work for receiv­ing vis­it­ors and deliv­er­ing on both their and loc­als’ expectations. 

Brand­ing, storytelling, and the basic found­a­tions will only work to a point. Des­tin­a­tions must embody a com­munity of pur­pose if they are to embark upon a pur­suit of mag­ni­fi­cence — in its people, place, products, and per­form­ance — suf­fi­cient to inspire affinity.

It is wise to remem­ber that affin­ity is evoked in two com­ple­ment­ary ways: The “exper­i­en­cing self” and the “remem­ber­ing self” (which can be distorting). 

Affin­ity endures when it is fer­vent, drives pas­sions, and is bond­ing. But it can eas­ily be revoked when vis­it­or appeal dimin­ishes, loc­al ant­ag­on­ism festers, there is a per­ceived lack of care and grat­it­ude, and when ill-con­ceived devel­op­ment erodes trust.

Valorising purposeful destinations-as-communities

Like many of us, mar­keters can suf­fer from short-cir­cuited mind­sets, a lack of focus, and an inab­il­ity to keep up with change and man­age stra­tegic ambi­gu­ity.

But noth­ing is more wor­ri­some than mar­keters who lose sight of the basics of mar­ket­ing 3.0, engage in mar­ket­ing mal­prac­tices, or sub­scribe to anti-pro­gress­ive notions.

For­tu­nately, through deep thought and engage­ment, des­tin­a­tion mar­keters can regain their foot­ing, influ­ence, and mor­al imper­at­ive, and begin to hon­our their community‑, societal‑, and cus­tom­er-cent­ric obligations. 

As Des­tin­a­tion Inter­na­tion­al con­tends, everything depends on a destination’s com­mit­ment to com­munity shared value. 

I would con­tend that we must dig deep­er to: 

• Pur­sue tour­ism on a community’s terms;
• Reima­gine the pur­pose of des­tin­a­tions (ques­tions);
• Take the long view; 
• Under­take deep-dive assess­ments of value and its creation;
• Speak truth to power;
• Com­mu­nic­ate with sincerity; 
• Cre­ate value through­out the whole jour­ney (includ­ing pre- and post-visit);
• Favour­ably affect host/guest per­cep­tions and opinions; 
• Cre­ate value that res­on­ates with mind, heart, and spirit; 
• Improve per­form­ance via mul­tiple ele­ments of value; 
• Foster affin­ity toward communities-as-destinations;
• Accept safe uncer­tainty;
• Recog­nise HR’s new oper­at­ing mod­el;
• Tap the power of gen­er­os­ity; and
• Sup­port pur­pose­ful dis­rupt­ive innov­a­tion.

Now, over to you. As you con­sider these ideas, let us know how des­tin­a­tion mar­keters and man­agers can fur­ther con­trib­ute to the cre­ation of ‘Des­tin­a­tion Excellence’.

What do you think? Share a short anec­dote, com­ment, or ques­tion below. Or write a “GT” Insight of your own. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog wel­comes diversity of opin­ion and per­spect­ive on travel & tour­ism because travel & tour­ism is everyone’s business.

Fea­tured image (top of post): Douro Val­ley, Por­tugal by Mak­sym Kaharlyt­skyi (CC0) via Unsplash. Price / value scale by Tumisu (CC0) via Pixabay. Thought bubble by Clk­er-Free-Vec­tor-Images (CC0) via Pixabay.

About the author

K Michael Hay­wood is Pro­fess­or Emer­it­us, School of Hos­pit­al­ity, Food and Tour­ism at the Uni­ver­sity of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. Prof Hay­wood has recently writ­ten an e‑book “Aston­ish, Smarter Tour­ism by Design”. Find Michael on Linked­In.