This presentation talks about tourism destination marketing and management in the era of online business. For all course presentations, including videos, please see https://www.tourismmarketingandmanagement.com/2016/11/11/what-is-e-business-in-tourism/

1. Destination marketing and
management in digital tourism
E-business in Tourism -course
Finnish university network for tourism studies
Juho Pesonen, Ph.D., UEF, CTS
juho.pesonen@uef.fi

4. What is a destination?
•Network
•Place
•Combination of travel products (Buhalis, 2000):
– Attractions
– Accessibility
– Amenities
– Available packages
– Activities
– Ancillary services

5. THE TOURISM SYSTEM (Leiper, 1990)

7. Kysynnän ja tarjonnan kohtaaminen

8. Destination ICT systems
•DMO = Destination Management Organisation
•DMS = Destination Management System
•DMS connects internal and external resources.
•DMOs mission is to create a image for a destination, coordinate
businesses and public actors within the destination and provide
information to tourists before and during the trip. (Gretzel et al.,
2006; Choi et al., 2007; Wang 2008; Inversini and Cantoni, 2009).
•Leadership, management and marketing

9. What is a DMS?
•Information system, distribution channel, strategic management
system and intranet.
•Combines and distributes information about a regional supply of
tourism products.
•Marketing and selling.
•Complicated system

10. HMS (Hotel management system)
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hlW2ZULWSw

11. DMS
•Nine success factors (Park & Gretzel, 2007).
– Quality of information
– Ease of use
– Reacting
– Security and privacy
– Usability
– Trust
– Interactivity
– Personification
– Satisfaction
•DMO website.

12. Customers have to be tracked online
•Travel search (http://www.tnooz.com/article/travel-research-
google-online-acitvity):
– 17 times
– 129 minutes
– 32,5 sites
– During 73 days in 13,8 different days.

14. Tools for management and marketing of a
destination / business
•http://chiefmartec.com/2016/03/marketing-technology-landscape-
supergraphic-2016/

15. Destination management
•Putting it all together.
•Big picture.
•Network management.
•Strategy planning and management.
•Combining resources:
– http://remotecontroltourist.com/
– http://www.tnooz.com/article/explore-melbourne-live-remote-
controlling-real-people-ground/

16. Innovations
•http://www.visitnorway.com/uk/the-scream/
•http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business/Swiss_invest_in_innovation
_to_boost_tourism_.html?cid=34575122
•http://wintersleep.myswitzerland.com/

17. Destination and e-commerce

18. What kind of roles does DMOs play in the era
of online marketing?

19. Introduction
•Destination Management (or Marketing) Organizations are central
players in tourism domain.
– NTOs, NTAs, RTOs, DMOs, CVBs
•Ongoing discussion in the tourism literature on the role of DMO.
– What is the role of DMO in competitiveness of the destination? (Pike &
Page, 2014)
– How can we quantify promotional activities of DMOs in long term? (Pike
& Page, 2014)
•DMOs are non-profit entities which aim at the generation of the
tourists’ visits in a given area (Gretzel et al., 2006).
11.11.2016 19Juho Pesonen & Raija Komppula

20. Introduction
•Information and communication technologies are changing travel,
tourism and hospitality.
•DMOs have had to adapt to digital world.
•DMOs in traditional information flow was only to collect tourism
information such as attractions, hotels and other facilities, and provide
them to potential tourists through print media or website (Lee &
Wicks, 2010)
– New information flow and power of consumers.
•Not only to adapt but to lead the change (Borzyszkowski, 2014).
•What is a good DMO and what it should do?
– Background in Saimaa destination.
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21. Roles of DMOs (http://www.dcvb-nc.com/comm/charts/roles_of_a_dmo.pdf)
11.11.2016Juho Pesonen & Raija Komppula 21

22. Roles of DMOs (http://www2.unwto.org/en/category/technical-product-
target/destination-management-organizations)
• Statistical Strengthening and Development of a Tourism Satellite Account
(TSA)
• Product Development and Diversification
• Marketing and Promotion Plan
• Value Chain Analysis and Local Economic Development
• Institutional Strengthening and Public-Private Partnership
• Tourism Legislation and Regulation
• Tourism Physical Planning and Resort Development
• Tourism Development Master Plans and Strategic Development Plans
• Tourism Policy
11.11.2016Juho Pesonen & Raija Komppula 22

23. Roles of DMOs https://destinationthink.com
•Organizational models
•Destination leadership
•DMO Value Proposition
•Strategy & Performance Measurement
•Destination Development
•Consumer Engagement
•Innovation & Trends
•Destination Marketing Tactics
11.11.2016Juho Pesonen & Raija Komppula 23

24. Research aims
•Understand what DMO’s should do in the age
of ICTs
– What are the roles and actions of DMO’s?
•Literature review: what tourism academics have
been studying regarding DMO’s and digital
technologies?
•Helps us to understand what are the responsibilities
of DMOs.
11.11.2016Juho Pesonen & Raija Komppula 24

25. Methodology
•Scopus database
•TITLE-ABS-KEY ( "destination management organi?ation " ) OR TITLE-
ABS-KEY ( "destination marketing
organi?ation" ) AND PUBYEAR > 2005 AND ( digital OR online OR
ict OR technology OR role OR website OR strategy OR social medi
a OR smart OR intelligent OR internet )
•Resulted in 204 document results in Scopus. Abstracts of all these papers
were read and evaluated if they are somehow connected to the topic of
DMOs in digital world. Altogether 117 papers were included to be
further examined based on their abstracts. Besides these there were also
17 papers that were connected to the topic but could not be accessed
because of pay walls.
•12 roles were identified.
11.11.2016Juho Pesonen & Raija Komppula 25

26. 4.1 Leadership
•DMOs should be the leaders in the area in tourism function
development (Borzyszkowski, 2014)
•Leading branding process (Dickinger & Lalicic 2015)
•Contributing to customer satisfaction (Bulchand-Gidumal et al., 2013)
by creating possibilities for businesses to thrive.
•https://destinationthink.com/change-management-dmo-destinations-
proactive/
11.11.2016Juho Pesonen & Raija Komppula 26

27. 4.2 Infrastructure development
•Therefore, DMOs and destination stakeholders should critically
evaluate traffic flows, airline needs, what routes to fund, how to
cooperate throughout value chain (Hvass, 2013).
•DMOs should know what kind of infrastructure development in the
region would benefit the tourism the most.
11.11.2016Juho Pesonen & Raija Komppula 27

28. 4.3 Collaborating with external stakeholders
•E-learning for travel agents (Kalbaska et al. 2012)
•Working with airlines (Hvass, 2013)
•Collaborating with other destinations (Wang, 2008)
11.11.2016Juho Pesonen & Raija Komppula 28

29. 4.4 Collaborating with internal stakeholders
•Collaboration within the destination to increase competitiveness (Fyall
et al., 2012)
•New technological tools that enable collaboration and measuring it
(Baggio et al., 2010).
11.11.2016Juho Pesonen & Raija Komppula 29

30. 4.5 Website & Destination Management System
•Website evaluation (Li & Wang, 2010)
•Different DMO websites (Luna-Nevarez & Hyman, 2011)
•Tourist decision making process (Nelson, 2015)
•Website quality and performance (Fernandez-Cavia et al. 2014;Vasto-
Terrientes, 2015; Stepchenkova et al., 2010)
•https://destinationthink.com/content-marketing-dmos-visit-
philadelphia-engagement/
11.11.2016Juho Pesonen & Raija Komppula 30

31. 4.6 Collecting customer information and
communicating it to relevant stakeholders
•Web 2.0 as a new opportunity to learn about tourists (Dickinger &
Lalicic, 2015)
•https://destinationthink.com/data-driven-destination/
11.11.2016Juho Pesonen & Raija Komppula 31

32. 4.7 Marketing and communication
•4.7.1 Attracting new customers
•Lange-Faria & Elliot 2012, Tham
et al., 2013, Milwood, 2013;
Marine-Roig, 2014: user generated
content and social media presence
•Pan & Li, 2011: Search Engine
Optimization
•Xiang et al. 2010: Search Engine
Marketing
•Advertising (Choe et al., 2013
•https://destinationthink.com/desti
nation-needs-find-unique-selling-
proposition/
11.11.2016Juho Pesonen & Raija Komppula 32
4.7.2 Keeping existing customers
• Li & Wang, 2010
• Murdy & Pike, 2012 & Pike et
al., 2011: Customer relationship
marketing

33. 4.8 Disaster recovery and crisis management
•How to get tourists back (Walters & Mair, 2012)
•Communication during crisis (Volo, 2008)
11.11.2016Juho Pesonen & Raija Komppula 33

34. 4.9 Destination image and brand communication
•Nelson, 2015
•Jabreel et al. 2016
•Destination image through social media pictures: Stepchenkova &
Zhan 2013.
•Image gap (Chen et al., 2012)
•https://destinationthink.com/destinations-brand-advertising/
11.11.2016Juho Pesonen & Raija Komppula 34

35. 4.10 Keeping up with the developing technology
•Lee & Wicks, 2010: DMOs learning to use new technologies
•Komesli et al., 2011: Implementing latest technology such as website
ontologies
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36. 4.11 Sales
•DMOs are also selling tourism product online (Masiero & Law, 2015)
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37. 4.12 Sustainability
•Information management with ICT tools for sustainable destination
management (Ali & Frew, 2014)
11.11.2016Juho Pesonen & Raija Komppula 37

38. Results• Leadership
• Infrastructure development
• Collaborating with external stakeholders
• Collaborating with internal stakeholders
• Website
• Collecting customer information
• Marketing
– Getting new customers
– Keeping existing customers
• Disaster recovery and crisis management
• Destination image and brand communication
• Keeping up with developing technology
• Sales
• Sustainability
11.11.2016Juho Pesonen & Raija Komppula 38

39. Conclusions
•The goal of this paper was to identify what kind of roles DMOs have
to take in the age of ICTs
– According to this literature review, DMOs have huge responsibility
• ICTs in destinations
• Marketing, telling the story
• Stakeholders relationships
• Leadership
•First study to present academic analysis on the roles of DMOs
•Provides an overview and references on the topic
•Provides a big picture by combining various research streams
11.11.2016Juho Pesonen & Raija Komppula 39

40. Conclusions
•What really is a destination and how destination resources should be
used?
•Can destinations work together for different markets?
– NTOs, regional DMOs and cities
– Collaborative marketing and management
– Who should take what roles?
•Academics have been careful with their advices
– A lot of descriptive research, how things are
– Less recommendations for every day choices destinations have to make
(e.g. which markets to choose Dwyer et al., 2014)
– What can be measured, not what should be measured (Morgan et al.,
2012)
11.11.2016Juho Pesonen & Raija Komppula 40

41. Thank you
Contact
Juho.Pesonen@uef.fi
@eppuJ
https://fi.linkedin.com/in/juhopesonen
https://uef.academia.edu/JuhoPesonen
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Juho_Pe
sonen
www.uef.fi/mot
www.uef.fi/tmm
uef.fi