Don’t forget niches: Marketing to micro-communities for sustainable tourism growth

“Instead of reach­ing a mass audi­ence, des­tin­a­tions can be a big fish in a small pond by focus­ing on niche mar­kets, where they can excel and provide the most value to both vis­it­ors and the tour­ism industry.”

So says Jens Thraen­hart, glob­al tour­ism strategist and found­ing part­ner of UNWTO Affil­i­ate Mem­ber Chamele­on Strategies. 

Accord­ing to Dr Thraen­hart, niches can help des­tin­a­tions address spe­cif­ic sus­tain­able tour­ism issues and con­cerns, while ensur­ing mar­ket­ing efforts are highly tar­geted and effective.

How would he know?

Jens Thraen­hart is the former CEO of the nation­al tour­ism mar­ket­ing organ­isa­tion of Bar­ba­dos, the small island devel­op­ment state in the Carib­bean; former Exec­ut­ive Dir­ect­or of the Mekong Tour­ism Coordin­at­ing Office (MTCO), the region­al tour­ism col­lab­or­a­tion of the six mem­ber coun­tries of the Great­er Mekong Sub-region (Cam­bod­ia, Lao PDR, Myan­mar, Thai­l­and, Viet Nam, and China PRC) in South­east Asia; and former chair of the Pacific Asia Travel Asso­ci­ation (PATA)‘s China Chapter. 

Micro-communities for small places

Effect­ive niche mar­ket­ing can con­nect Bar­ba­dos and oth­er small des­tin­a­tions to rel­ev­ant ‘micro-com­munit­ies’, Dr Thraen­hart believes. Wheth­er bird­watch­ers or dive pho­to­graph­ers, rum con­nois­seurs or hor­ti­cul­tur­al­ists, reach­ing such net­works can cre­ate mean­ing­ful engage­ments and achieve tan­gible res­ults, while being mind­ful of sus­tain­ab­il­ity, cul­ture, and heritage.

“These micro-com­munit­ies, while small, are loy­al and pas­sion­ate. They fol­low each oth­er, and pro­mote des­tin­a­tions with­in their tribes,” Dr Thraen­hart said. “By authen­tic­ally enga­ging with people who are already pas­sion­ate about cer­tain exper­i­ences, des­tin­a­tions can cut through the noise and cre­ate mean­ing­ful connections.”

The inter­net has made it easi­er for micro-com­munit­ies to cross bor­ders and gath­er online. It has also made it easi­er to identi­fy, ana­lyse, and reach them. Interest-based seg­ment­a­tion, sen­ti­ment ana­lys­is, and the iden­ti­fic­a­tion of key opin­ion lead­ers and influ­en­cers can inform mar­ket­ing strategies and con­tent development. 

Des­tin­a­tions can lever­age spe­cial­ised con­tent to cre­ate enthu­si­ast­ic fans, devel­op itin­er­ar­ies, raise aware­ness, build trust, and gen­er­ate pos­it­ive word of mouth. For an island repub­lic of only 282,000 people, this approach is poten­tially very powerful.

Niche marketing for better destination management

Micro-com­munity and niche mar­ket­ing can play a sig­ni­fic­ant role in des­tin­a­tions shift­ing from des­tin­a­tion mar­ket­ing to des­tin­a­tion management: 

“Many des­tin­a­tions have learned the hard way that end­less upward growth is simply not sus­tain­able. Over-tour­ism, or bet­ter, over-crowding, has been just one neg­at­ive res­ult of mass tour­ism marketing.”

Under his lead­er­ship, Dr Thraen­hart was a strong advoc­ate for the Bar­ba­dos Tour­ism Mar­ket­ing Inc. (BTMI) to devel­op a micro-com­munity and niche mar­ket­ing approach to sus­tain­able tour­ism, includ­ing the “Be Bajan” concept, to stretch tour­ism dol­lars, drive inclus­iv­ity, and increase the level of sat­is­fac­tion for trav­el­lers and residents.

This would include BTMI devel­op­ing a des­tin­a­tion man­age­ment plan, which calls for all stake­hold­ers, from busi­nesses to indi­vidu­als, to play a major role in shap­ing tourism.

“These busi­nesses provide exper­i­ences to res­id­ents and vis­it­ors alike and have a sig­ni­fic­ant cul­tur­al influ­ence as iden­ti­fic­a­tion for Bar­ba­dos’ cul­ture and heritage. 

“Enabling authen­t­ic exper­i­ences would allow them to become valu­able mem­bers of their com­munit­ies, grow, make an impact, and achieve their goals. In doing so, they will rep­res­ent the heart of Bar­ba­di­an cul­ture and exper­i­ences, and help build the pub­lic image of Bar­ba­dos both at home and abroad.” 

For example, last year, Bar­ba­dos was fea­tured in the glob­al doc­u­ment­ary series Sus­tain­able Travel – Where Next which show­cased small, respons­ible travel businesses. 

Positive visitor and resident sentiment

An inclus­ive stake­hold­er approach can drive pos­it­ive vis­it­or sen­ti­ment as meas­ured on the Tour­ism Sen­ti­ment Index (TSI). The TSI score reflects what people feel and find most worthy to share about a destination. 

An increas­ing TSI score shows a rising num­ber of vis­it­ors recom­mend­ing the des­tin­a­tion to oth­ers. Word of mouth, in turn, lowers mar­ket­ing costs while increas­ing demand. Strong demand can drive air­lift due to the bet­ter eco­nom­ics for airlines.

To bal­ance the all-inclus­ive stake­hold­er scale are the res­id­ents. “An increase in pos­it­ive res­id­ent sen­ti­ment will res­ult in res­id­ents being friendly and wel­com­ing because they are part of the eco­sys­tem, are involved and engaged, and get real bene­fits,” Dr Thraen­hart explained.

Res­id­ents become more wel­com­ing because they feel they are part of the solu­tion while also bene­fit­ing. “This is dir­ectly cor­rel­ated to high­er guest sat­is­fac­tion, which drives demand, which drives vis­it­ors, which drives eco­nom­ic development.

“This bal­anced approach is crit­ic­al for good tour­ism and to increase tour­ism rev­en­ues. Once that bal­ance is out of whack, you have a prob­lem, which we saw with over­tour­ism before COVID, when des­tin­a­tion mis-man­age­ment dis­rup­ted the equilibrium.” 

Balanced tourism is healthy tourism

Dr Thraen­hart’s firm Chamele­on Strategies has uniquely put the concept of “bal­anced tour­ism” at the core of its stra­tegic approach to find a healthy equi­lib­ri­um between growth and pre­ser­va­tion. He has also launched the Bal­anced Tour­ism Blog to artic­u­late the import­ance of achiev­ing bal­ance in tourism.

‘Bal­anced Tour­ism’ focuses on achiev­ing an equi­lib­ri­um between the eco­nom­ic, social, and envir­on­ment­al aspects of tour­ism while bal­an­cing growth and pre­ser­va­tion. It seeks to optim­ise bene­fits for the des­tin­a­tion while min­im­ising neg­at­ive impacts and redu­cing the leak­age factor to drive inclus­ive eco­nom­ic growth.

Dr Thraen­hart explains that while both ‘Bal­anced Tour­ism’ and ‘Sus­tain­able Tour­ism’ aim to be respons­ible, Bal­anced Tour­ism spe­cific­ally tar­gets an equi­lib­ri­um among vari­ous aspects of tour­ism to bal­ance growth and pre­ser­va­tion. Sus­tain­able tour­ism is more focused on long-term con­ser­va­tion and respons­ible man­age­ment of resources.

“A des­tin­a­tion that is out of bal­ance, sim­il­ar to oth­er eco­sys­tems and even our own bod­ies, do not func­tion prop­erly. In tour­ism, this may lead to angry res­id­ents, which neg­at­ively impacts the vis­it­or exper­i­ence. The res­ult is a decline in tour­ism and degrad­a­tion of the des­tin­a­tion. The drop in vis­it­or num­bers trans­lates into lay­offs, which could even increase crime rates, pol­lu­tion, and oth­er neg­at­ive impacts.

“Pos­it­ive trav­el­ler and res­id­ent sen­ti­ment taps into the pas­sions of inter­na­tion­al trav­el­lers and loc­als alike, res­ult­ing in a bal­anced tour­ism des­tin­a­tion with bene­fits for all and not just a select few. Bal­anced tour­ism stretches tour­ism dol­lars, drives inclus­iv­ity, and requires the col­lab­or­a­tion of all stake­hold­ers in an all-encom­passing tour­ism eco­sys­tem that increases trav­el­ler and res­id­ent sat­is­fac­tion,” Dr Thraen­hart said. 

“I think this is an import­ant mod­el as it clearly shows the inter­de­pend­ence of all stake­hold­ers in a healthy and bal­anced tour­ism industry. This cre­ates value as every­body bene­fits and is incentiv­ised to par­ti­cip­ate in a con­struct­ive manner.” 

The ulti­mate goal of bal­anced tour­ism is to cre­ate net pos­it­ive bene­fits. This includes the desired and often touted eco­nom­ic bene­fits as well as pos­it­ive social and con­ser­va­tion out­comes, includ­ing regen­er­at­ing com­munit­ies and degraded ecosystems.

‘Be Bajan’: ‘Local-hood’ in Barbados

To help increase res­id­ent sen­ti­ment, Dr Thraen­hart advoc­ated for Bar­ba­dos to start pos­i­tion­ing itself more than just a tour­ism brand known for its beau­ti­ful beaches, but to become a pur­pose-driv­en life­style brand. 

Pro­posed as the “Be Bajan” cam­paign, this concept taps into cul­ture as the driv­ing force behind a small busi­ness and com­munity-centred approach to tour­ism product and des­tin­a­tion brand devel­op­ment. ‘Bajan’ is a col­lo­qui­al term for Barbadian.

“Be Bajan would cel­eb­rate Bar­ba­dos’ unique iden­tity and cul­ture, cre­at­ing a sense of pride among loc­als and shar­ing that pride with vis­it­ors, with an aim to con­nect people of all types with Bar­ba­dos in a more mean­ing­ful way, serving as a bridge between loc­als’ pride and vis­it­ors’ exper­i­ences,” Dr Thraen­hart explained.

The strategy is based on ‘loc­al-hood’, in which human rela­tion­ships are the focal point, and loc­als and vis­it­ors inter­act around shared experiences. 

“The goal is to build tour­ism growth respons­ibly across indus­tries and geo­graph­ies, with loc­al-hood as the shared iden­tity and com­mon start­ing point,” Dr Thraen­hart said.

The goal for the des­tin­a­tion then is to make any­one, from res­id­ents to vis­it­ors to the dia­spora, a part of a ‘pro­moter’ scheme; to share exper­i­ences online, invite friends and fam­ily to vis­it the des­tin­a­tion, and pro­mote sus­tain­able liv­ing and respons­ible prac­tices, with a focus on being wel­com­ing, respect­ful, envir­on­ment­ally-con­scious, caring for the com­munity, and enjoy­ing life. 

Stakeholder-centric experiences and storytelling

Anoth­er com­pon­ent of the strategy is to cur­ate authen­t­ic loc­al exper­i­ences via a stake­hold­er-cent­ric approach, in which small busi­nesses col­lab­or­ate to pos­i­tion the des­tin­a­tion’s exper­i­ences as sus­tain­able. The des­tin­a­tion would high­light these exper­i­ences to effect­ively com­mu­nic­ate those which are most rel­ev­ant to tar­get customers.

“It would be designed to become a key driver in cre­at­ing a tour­ism com­munity, increas­ing the loc­al tour­ism value chain, and provid­ing the mech­an­ics to engage stake­hold­ers. This stra­tegic approach sup­ports sus­tain­able tour­ism devel­op­ment by build­ing a com­munity of like-minded stake­hold­ers, by becom­ing a respons­ible storytelling plat­form,” Dr Thraen­hart said. 

Con­sumer-gen­er­ated con­tent has the highest impact. Dr Thraen­hart advoc­ated for the des­tin­a­tion to use such a plat­form to encour­age mem­bers’ busi­nesses to engage with their cus­tom­ers; encour­age them to share their exper­i­ences online.

In the Mekong Region, for example, the Exper­i­ence Mekong Col­lec­tion provides a strong plat­form for capa­city build­ing and inclus­ive growth to spread the tour­ism dol­lar and divert vis­it­or flows into less­er-known des­tin­a­tions in the region. 

In the case of island des­tin­a­tions such as Bar­ba­dos, it would be a means to pos­i­tion Bar­ba­dos as a des­tin­a­tion with more than just beaches and intro­duce exper­i­ences not nor­mally asso­ci­ated with the island.

How­ever, Dr Thraen­hart noted that while pro­act­ive ‘exper­i­ence devel­op­ment’ is key, mar­ket­ing and brand­ing are still import­ant. “Under­stand­ing which exper­i­ences are attract­ing the highest volume of con­ver­sa­tion and pos­it­ive sen­ti­ment is cru­cial for effect­ive con­tent mar­ket­ing and exper­i­ence promotion.”

This know­ledge is also crit­ic­al for identi­fy­ing and enga­ging with key opin­ion lead­ers, and tap­ping into their pas­sion­ate and engaged online com­munit­ies of niche interests. For example, the TSI ranks Bar­ba­dos first in the Carib­bean and ninth in the world for nature photography. 

“This insight could open up oppor­tun­it­ies to pos­i­tion Bar­ba­dos as a nature des­tin­a­tion and cre­ate a cam­paign with a top cam­era brand to tap into their loy­al audience.”

Could niches transform your destination?

Dr Thraen­hart con­cludes: “Sus­tain­able tour­ism mar­ket­ing through respons­ible storytelling is the most eth­ic­al approach, pro­mot­ing authen­t­ic stor­ies and real people that can pos­it­ively affect loc­al com­munit­ies and businesses.”

This pro­posed micro-com­munity and niche mar­ket­ing approach, com­bined with stake­hold­er-cent­ric engage­ment, with its emphas­is on vis­it­or and res­id­ent sen­ti­ment, social media, authen­t­ic exper­i­ences, and respons­ible storytelling, could sig­nal a rethink of tour­ism, and may even trans­form des­tin­a­tion mar­ket­ing and management. 

Dr Thraen­hart and his team at Chamele­on Strategies, which uniquely includes three former expat­ri­ate nation­al tour­ism board CEOs and past seni­or travel & tour­ism exec­ut­ives, stand ready to imple­ment this innov­at­ive mod­el at for­ward-think­ing des­tin­a­tions any­where in the world.

Featured image (top of post)

‘Niche inspir­a­tion’. Image sup­plied by Ger­rit Kruger of Chamele­on Strategies, who gives cred­it to the fol­low­ing cre­at­ors at Shutterstock.com: Grace­ful Digit­al; Ground Pic­ture; Mike_O; Bill45; Anna Jedynak; good­luz; CandyRe­triev­er; SALMONNEGRO-STOCK.

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