Destination Marketing Organizations Research Articles

The O-Bento Principle for Successful Multi-sector Collaboration: A Case Study of DMO Roppongi

This article presents empirical research that seeks to investigate the principles of management that lead towards successful multi-sector collaboration through the analysis lens of effectuation theory. The target of this empirical research is a destination marketing organization (DMO) considered to be a classic example of multi-sector collaboration focusing on the destination management performed by DMO as a case study. DMO Roppongi in Tokyo has been selected as the sample for this empirical research, and in particular, Nogi Shrine (Nogi-Jinja) has been selected as a venue for inbound meetings and a successful case of destination management. In Japan, shrines are considered as sacred sites; hence, the research began with the question: ‘Why was Nogi Shrine provided as a venue?’. We interviewed both the executive director of DMO Roppongi and the contact person at Nogi Shrine and conducted a qualitative analysis by focusing on the management features emerged during the process of venue selection. In the world of start-ups, entrepreneurs are required to search for business opportunities proactively, but this research has investigated that in the multi-sector collaboration, the abundant resources are mainly possessed by the participating stakeholders that can be associated with the business opportunities. Hence, the key management point in this case is the impartial use of the resources ‘that are already there’ and available for use. This research has formulated this discovery, as ‘the O-Bento principle’ in line with the effectuation theory.

How the Creative Class Co-creates a City’s Brand Identity: A Qualitative Study

Purpose:Place branding is a discipline with high relevance for a city's policymakers and for hospitality and tourism management, and this is even more true in the context of creative cities. This article explores how the creative class contributes to a city’s brand identity and, by doing so, delivers valuable advice for marketing representatives of creative cities.Design/methodology/approach:Our study builds on a qualitative study, interviewing 18 members of the creative class in 3 diverse European cities. Our methodology was based on grounded theory: We simultaneously collected and analysed data and created analytic codes and categories.Findings:This article suggests that the creative class is an important enactment stakeholder in the identity formation process of a place, as well as destination marketing organizations (DMOs) and other stakeholders. Additionally, it is demonstrated that the creative class co-creates a city’s brand identity by bringing new rhythms and forms of expression to the cityscape.Originality:This article contributes to the fast-growing place brand identity literature by exploring the role of the creative class in the context of cities. It also intends to provide a better understanding of how the creative class co-creates and contributes to their city’s brand identity. Since similar studies do not exist, our article fills an important research gap.Research limitations/implications:Our study shares the limitations of qualitative studies, but the resulting conceptual model of brand management in the context of a creative city offers a springboard for future research in this regard.Practical implications:City representatives and tourist managers need to understand what is the value-in-use generated by the creative class in the brand identity process and must be aware that the creative class plays a key role in delivering the brand message.

Destination Marketing Organisations: The Need for a Child-Centred Approach to Diaspora Tourism

ABSTRACT There is sufficient evidence in academic scholarship that points to the important role diaspora tourism plays for the economies of homeland communities and countries. Given previous research shows a decreased level of attachment to the homeland in the second generation of immigrants, this research seeks to explore the effects of childhood experiences on adult behaviours and outcomes in relation to diaspora tourism. The research reveals the important role played by families in transmitting knowledge, memories, traditions and other cultural practices to diaspora children. Destination Marketing Organisations (DMOs), however, are neglecting to engage this lucrative market partly because communication strategies are aimed at adults of the diaspora and not at children. Based on these findings, we propose DMOs take a child-centred approach by actively engaging diaspora children to devise tourism marketing strategies that are child-friendly.

Segmentation of active international sport tourists by destination loyalty

ABSTRACT Destination loyalty has become a crucial concept in both academia and practice. Numerous studies have revealed the antecedents of destination loyalty to discriminate from other rival destinations. Although increasing destination loyalty is anticipated as the key milestone to achieve from both practical and academic purposes, previous research lacks understanding of the characteristics and profile of loyal travellers. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to segment the profile of active international sport tourists by their perceived destination loyalty and to reveal the differences among three segments of their destination loyalty: low, high, and extremely high. Using a paper–pencil questionnaire, data were collected from international tourists who visited the Niseko ski resort in Japan (N = 298). The results of the confirmatory factor analysis, chi-square test using residual analysis, and ANOVA with post hoc analysis implies that there were significant differences among the three segments. The more loyal tourists feel toward the destination, the more involved with and familiar with a sport they perceive themselves to be, and the more they have visited the destination previously. These results of this study contribute to destination marketing organizations, in particular for snow resorts, to understand their loyal customers, which will be the fundamental material to build their management strategy.

Post-pandemic recovery strategies: revitalizing lifestyle entrepreneurship

ABSTRACT The pandemic resulting from COVID-19 disease has brought about an unprecedented crisis to tourism destinations, resulting in an almost complete shutdown of tourist flows. Whereas disaster recovery models focus on prevention and preparedness, the post-pandemic recovery strategies are underexplored, particularly in relation to the highly representative group of small-scale businesses run by tourism lifestyle entrepreneurs (TLEs). An integrated framework for Destination Marketing Organization (DMO) strategic thinking is developed using the Delphi method with Q-sort technique. Findings from a 26-element expert panel emphasize the priority of creating a favorable environment for small-scale business development and supporting the provision of resources and capabilities. After this initial effort to strengthen these fragile businesses, it is essential to increase their communication capacity, a common limitation of TLEs, allowing these entrepreneurs to access niche markets more suited to the business and lifestyle they run. With stronger businesses, DMOs can enhance destination competitiveness and innovation, stimulating cooperation and networking.

How to “Read” a Destination from Images? Machine Learning and Network Methods for DMOs’ Image Projection and Photo Evaluation

Online photos can reflect tourists’ received destination image and be used to project destination image by destination marketing organizations (DMOs). Studies have identified a gap between projected and received images, highlighting the difficulty DMOs face when selecting content to project the “right” image. Taking an audience-driven perspective, this study analyzed information from user-generated content (UGC) to guide the selection of organization-generated content (OGC) on social media. Using a machine learning algorithm, we extracted connected cognitive and affective elements of received and projected images from UGC and OGC. The elements and their relationships retrieved from UGC were then used to construct a semantic network. The network informs the core–periphery structural information of each element and guides DMOs’ image projection and content selection. Studies with two independent samples demonstrated that an OGC photo whose projected images matched consumers’ central impressions, particularly affective ones, could induce higher online engagement.

Travel burnout: Exploring the return journeys of pilgrim-tourists amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study investigates the timely, yet academically unexplored, topic of travel burnout. The study explores the return journeys of pilgrim-tourists from Iran to Pakistan during COVID-19 pandemic and contextualizes travel burnout as a negative emotional state placed in the existing theoretical streams. The conservation of resources theory (Hobfoll, 1989; 2004) provided theoretical support to guide current study's research agenda. On the basis of a qualitative grounded theory research design, 47 in-depth interviews of pilgrim-tourists were conducted. Travel burnout emerged as a multidimensional concept comprising 3 core dimensions, i.e., low tourist self-efficacy, travel exhaustion and emotional maladaptation. Travel burnout anchors emerged as those factors that facilitated preservation of the tourists' resources when travel circumstances became beyond their regulation. The results pave the way for a more theoretically sound conceptualization of travel burnout. For destination marketing organizations, various avenues are identified that need attention to alleviate the tourist concerns that lead to burnout.

Mobility Patterns of International Tourists: Implications for Responsible Urban Tourism

Up until the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the rapid growth of tourism in popular urban destinations around the globe saw the effects of chronic overcrowding and the breaching of acceptable limits of change imposed on local communities. Overtourism became prominent, intensifying amplified calls for planning and development regimes that emphasize responsible and sustainable tourism growth. In Japan, the term “tourism pollution” emerged as a response to untrammeled growth in cities like Kyoto, Tokyo and Osaka. Understanding the mobility of international tourists in urban contexts is raised here as one way to come to terms with urban overcrowding, particularly in hotspots where popular attractions predominate. In examining international tourist mobility, we argue that spatial and temporal behaviors can be constructive toward the responsible planning and development of urban tourism. Japan’s second most populated city Osaka is the context for this research with GPS big data collected in partnership with one of the country’s foremost navigation app developers. American, Chinese, and South Korean tourist mobility patterns were observed with the evidence pointing out that overcrowding evident at iconic attractions was largely influenced by public transport networks in the city. Evidently, there were distinct differences between the three groups of tourists highlighting that spatio-temporal behavior varied according to the tourist’s country of origin. The findings from this research are instructive to urban tourism stakeholders including policy makers, destination marketing organizations (DMOs), and public transport providers and can help inform responsible and sustainable urban tourism planning and development.

The role of coastal biodiversity conservation on sustainability and environmental awareness in mangrove ecosystem of southern Malang, Indonesia

Abstract. Abidin Z, Setiawan B, Muhaimin AW, Shinta A. 2021. The role of coastal biodiversity conservation on sustainability and environmental awareness in mangrove ecosystem of southern Malang, Indonesia. Biodiversitas 22: 648-658. Southern coast of Malang, East Java, Indonesia has several mangrove ecosystems used for ecotourism, such as Clungup Mangrove Conservation Tiga Warna (CMC Tiga Warna). This area has consistently implemented ecotourism principles. Previously, it was assumed to be vulnerable from the damage due to differences in environmental awareness of ecotourists and local communities. This study aims to (i) describe the strategy of coastal biodiversity conservation to enhance environmental awareness and its sustainability; (ii) analyze the role of conservation on sustainability and environmental awareness, with sustainability as a mediating variable between conservation and environmental awareness. Data analysis was conducted with descriptive and Warp Partial Least Square (WarpPLS). The results indicate that empirical facts of conservation, sustainability, and environmental awareness in CMC Tiga Warna are relevant to the result of statistical analysis. Conservation is believed to form the environmental awareness of ecotourists and local communities and to maintain the sustainability of ecotourism destinations. In addition, the sustainability of ecotourism destinations serves as an effective mediator between conservation and environmental awareness, along with the modeling of environmental awareness enhancement in conservation-based coastal ecotourism. The proposed model explains that sustainability and environmental awareness variances are 23% and 25%, respectively. In summary, Destination Marketing and Management Organization of CMC Tiga Warna ecotourism is believed to improve environmental awareness of ecotourist and local communities by strengthening coastal biodiversity conservation programs in ecotourism areas and in maintaining sustainability.

Opportunities in Transit Tourism: a Case Study of Hong Kong as a Transit Destination

ABSTRACT This study explores the opportunities for developing transit tourism by examining the reasons why transit passengers participate or not in such tourism while in-transiting. The findings suggest that transit passengers need to be made aware of the opportunities for transit tourism prior to arrival at the transit destination; and availability of customised airport transit tours at the transit destination should be ensured to facilitate transit. The study concludes that transit tourism is an opportunity missed; destination marketing organisations (DMOs), airport authorities, and airline operators should devise a common communication strategy to tap into this emerging but still under-developed transit passenger segment.

Uncertainty Avoidance as a Moderating Factor to the Self-Congruity Concept: The Development of a Conceptual Framework

The aim of this article was to propose a framework based on the theory of self-congruity and on Hofstede’s uncertainty avoidance. The framework was to combine destination personality, self-congruity, uncertainty avoidance, and tourists’ revisit intention. The present conceptual paper proposed an integrated model of self-congruity which incorporates the effect of uncertainty avoidance. More importantly, the uncertainty avoidance was introduced as a moderator between self-congruity and revisit intention. Based on the theoretical framework proposed in this article, the estimated results affirmed the applicability of the theory of self-congruity for tourism research. Moreover, by extending the theoretical model through the incorporation of a variable of uncertainty avoidance in the context of tourism, this article offers a significant contribution to the tourism literature. It is important to understand how the theory of self-congruity applies across a broad cultural spectrum. This article also offers several implications for destination marketing organizations from a practical perspective.

A Textual and Visual Analysis of the Intrinsic Value Dimensions of Romania: Towards a Sustainable Destination Brand

This work examines the projected image of Romania as an emerging tourism destination. Computed content-analysis was applied to the photos, text and video materials promoted online in Romania’s last international tourism campaign. The conceptual framework used corresponds to intrinsic values (play, aesthetics, ethics and spirituality), from Holbrook’s typology of value. Being more difficult to apprehend and therefore studied less, intrinsic values allow a more sophisticated approach to value creation. The purpose here is to identify the main attributes that are promoted about Romania by destination marketing organizations. The content analysis of text (last international promotion campaign Explore the Carpathian Garden) and visual data (27 photos from the official Facebook webpage and 7 TV videos) allow to depict an experiential view of Romania’s image: natural resources (coded as aesthetics with 29% of references), epistemic value of discovery (play 25.8%), authentic and historical traditions (ethics 25.8%) and wellness and therapeutic activities (spirituality, 19.3%). Destination marketing organizations have the potential to develop some distinctive aspects such as authenticity (as an ethical value dimension) and play (as an active, self-oriented value). Findings also highlight that a complimentary approach using textual and visual data might be a suitable option to research destination brand image.

Travelers’ Responsible Environmental Behavior towards Sustainable Coastal Tourism: An Empirical Investigation on Social Media User-Generated Content

There has been increasing interest in coastal tourism, sparking a debate on the responsible environmental behavior of travelers visiting sustainable destinations. To mitigate this issue, destination marketing organizations (DMOs) and environmental activists are trying to develop strategic approaches (i.e., by using digital technologies) to enhance the sustainable behavior of travelers. Environmental responsiveness and its impact on sustainable destinations is gaining attention by companies, scholars, and institutions. However, the relevant literature has not addressed social media user-generated content regarding sustainable destinations. Sharing stakeholder knowledge, activities, and experience on social media could accomplish this goal. Hence, this paper aims to explore travelers′ responsible environmental behavior towards coastal tourism within the social media user-generated content paradigm. To measure the effect of user-generated content (UGC), i.e., cognitive triggers and affective triggers, on the responsible environmental behavior of travelers, a survey questionnaire was used to collect data (n = 506) from the world’s longest sandy sea beach, Cox’s Bazar, located in the Southern part of Bangladesh. The data were examined by structural equation modeling (SEM). The results revealed that cognitive and affective triggers of user-generated content influence travelers’ environmental concerns and attitudes, making a significant contribution to shaping responsible environmental behavior. Additionally, the findings show that environmental concerns and attitudes play a significant role in producing commitment towards a sustainable coastal tourism practice. This study contributes to the effectiveness of user-generated content for persuasive interactions with destination marketing organizations to develop sustainable tourism practices.

Destination Brand Personality: Case Study of the World Heritage Site of Ellora Caves

Globally Tourism is the fastest growing industry for which competitive destinations are trying their best to promote their tourism products by developing appropriate brand strategies for marketing their products. Identification of Brand Personality is one of the strategies where Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) are focusing upon. This study aims to explore the brand personality traits of the first world heritage site of India i.e. Ellora caves situated in Aurangabad District of Maharashtra State of India. Though the site is having potential for Tourism, minimal efforts are taken by the stakeholders for branding Ellora. Primary data was collected using interview schedule and questionnaires from 23 tourism stakeholders of Aurangabad region and 90 domestic tourists at Ellora respectively. Factor Analysis is done to reduce the perceived brand personality traits and developing the most relevant ones. Further Cronbach’s Alpha was used for testing the reliability. Factor Analysis is done to reduce the perceived brand personality traits and coming up with the most relevant ones. 18 new traits were identified which were not seen in marketing literature of Ellora like Intelligent, resourceful, Astute, Senile Surest, Shrewd, Hygiene etc. These identified new traits will help to target new segment of tourists like Millennial’s, Eco Tourists etc. The implications of this paper are dual which are related to academic contribution and policy making for the stakeholders relating to branding of Ellora.

The increased importance of competitor benchmarking as a strategic management tool during COVID-19 recovery

PurposeWhile all recoveries are good, some are better than others with regard to their speed and/or magnitude. Many revenue-related key performance indicators (KPIs), such as comparisons to budgets and forecasts that were designed pre-pandemic to assess a hotel's or destination's performance are no longer valid. Therefore, the primary purpose of this conceptual paper is to highlight the need to peg financial-related KPIs relative to competitors' performance during and following a radical market disruption. The secondary purpose of this paper is to summarize advances reported in the literature and in the industry related to competitor benchmarking and accurately identifying competitor sets.Design/methodology/approachThis conceptual paper synthesizes research from disparate sources to offer a series of recommendations to the industry regarding best practices for developing and monitoring revenue-related KPIs during pandemic recovery. Such KPIs will be different based upon hospitality or tourism sector but must be largely founded upon benchmarking off comparable operations.FindingsIndustry disruptions triggered by COVID-19 underscore the need (1) to increasingly utilize competitor-based revenue KPI benchmarks; (2) to have reliable competitor benchmarking data more readily available for use by hotels and destination marketing organizations (DMOs) and (3) for both hotels and DMOs to more accurately identify their competitive sets.Originality/valueThe recommendations offered in this paper are anchored with appropriate theories and empirical research; and as a consequence, offer guidance for the industry for KPI formulation during and following the pandemic.

Covid-19 crisis: a new model of tourism governance for a new time

Purpose The COVID-19 crisis has had a dramatic impact on the tourism industry, with new challenges that calls for a combination of short- and medium-/long-term perspectives. At the destination level, a factor that has a critical incidence in the recovery path is the type of tourism governance. With the spotlight on this factor, the purpose of this paper is to reflect on the need to accommodate the model of tourism governance to the requirements of this new time. Design/methodology/approach The discussion that already existed in the literature about the roles of destination marketing organizations (DMOs) has been brought into the new context of the coronavirus crisis to propose three fundamental changes in them, together with the centrality of host communities in a model based on public–private–people partnerships. Findings Under the principle that the M in DMOs has to stand for management, an evolution of these organizations toward the performance of three different roles is proposed, namely, as the orchestrator of the various players in the destination, the facilitator of opportunities for its members and the intelligence promoter and their strategic mind. Practical implications The practical implications of this proposal are numerous, as it represents a move beyond the usual public–private partnerships of the old normal and goes further than the traditional roles of marketer, intermediary in the value chain and brand promoter. Originality/value To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first work dealing with the topic of tourism governance in the context of the pandemic.

‘Dream now, travel later’: pre-travel online destination experiences on destination websites

Destination marketing organisations (DMOs) seek to provide positive pre-travel online destination experiences (ODEs) to attract tourists. Thereby, DMOs understand official destination websites (ODWs) as central sources of information influencing tourists’ travel decisions. Although experiential marketing theory postulates that customers are reached through sensory, affective, intellectual, behavioural or social experiences, this theory has rarely been applied to analysing tourist experiences on ODWs. Past research and theories remain similar to models from product brands, yet fail to acknowledge the peculiarities of destination experiences. This research explores how users of ODWs experience unfamiliar tourist destinations in the pre-travel phase. To gain a deeper understanding of the nature of ODEs on ODWs, a qualitative multi-method study was conducted involving eye-tracking, retrospective think-aloud protocols, semi-structured interviews and video observations with 15 German millen­nials selected via purposeful sampling. Data was analysed in a qualitative directed content analysis following an abductive approach. Findings expand on previous theory by adding a spatio-temporal experience dimension. In the pre-travel phase, potential tourists explore the spatio-temporal accessibility of expected experiences and the experience density in the destin­ation. Furthermore, this research provides new insights into the different dimensions of ODEs and proposes an advanced conceptual framework.

An eye-tracking study of exoticism in intra-national destinations in the Greater Bay area of China

ABSTRACT Tourists have a tendency to seek novelty, meaning that they are attracted by the foreign atmosphere or culture that they barely experience in daily-life. It thus opens tourism opportunities for countries rich in colonial background or exotic resources. While international tourists’ novelty-seeking behaviours have been well-investigated, far less attention has been paid to domestic exotic travelling experience. Hence, this paper examines how young tourists from Macau and Mainland China process the exotic/non-exotic Greater-Bay-Area landmarks by means of eye-tracking technology. Visual data, supplemented by a survey, was obtained to understand how differing exoticness affects tourists’ visit intentions. Results suggest an overwhelming attention and preference towards exotic landmarks; yet, the exotic appeal in intra-national destinations is only present in the absence of place familiarity. In practice, the findings provided important implications and directions to several stakeholders such as the Chinese government and destination marketing organizations with its help to marketing promotion.

What, how and when? Exploring the influence of firm-generated content on popularity in a tourism destination context

This paper focuses on the factors that determine the popularity of the destination content posted on social media by the destination marketing organizations (DMOs). Specifically, it aims to study the extent to which the destination image attributes included in content posted by DMOs (i.e. firm generated content or FGC) increase popularity. Moreover, three contextual characteristics of content are examined: (1) how it is developed, i.e. the degree of elaborateness; (2) how it is transmitted, i.e. the degree of vividness; and (3) when it is communicated, i.e. the day of publication. Empirical evidence demonstrates that content projecting certain emotions evoked by the tourist destination (affective image attributes) positively influences content popularity. However, content projecting the physical resources of the tourist site (cognitive image attributes) does not significantly influence popularity. It also confirms the positive lineal effect of vividness on popularity and the inverted U-shaped relationship between elaborateness and popularity. Finally, elaborateness, vividness, and day of publication moderate the influence of affective image attributes on content popularity. • Projecting affective image attributes in FGC positively influences popularity. • The elaborateness of FGC has an inverted U-shaped influence on popularity. • Elaborateness negatively moderates the effect of affective image on popularity. • The vividness of FGC has a positive influence on content popularity. • Vividness negatively moderates the effect of affective image on popularity.

One does not simply … project a destination image within a participatory culture

This study examines how internet memes, as an increasingly relevant and conceptually distinctive type of user-generated content (UGC), represent Thailand's destination image and how such representation differs from established destination image sources. For this purpose, participatory culture is first proposed as an alternative conceptual framework, followed by empirical research, which upgrades visual content analysis (VCA) with semiotic analysis. The findings of VCA reveal that memes yield a markedly different representation of Thailand as they introduce an entire cluster of peculiar and controversial themes, which are not depicted on destination marketing organization (DMO) and TripAdvisor photos. Semiotic analysis, in addition, uncovers that memetic representation is evocative and conveys a layer of symbolic notions and alluding connotations. In this manner, findings attest that memes are a semantically rich format and genre of UGC, which expands existing knowledge about destination-image formation and representation on social media. Managerial implications, limitations, and recommendations for future research in this domain are also discussed. • Internet memes are a multimodal, intertextual and polysemic format of UGC. • Everyday culture is the most frequent theme through which memes represent Thailand. • UGC generated by online communities challenges existing frameworks of DI formation. • Managers are advised to use memes for analysis and dialogue with online communities.