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Tourism

What is a Destination Marketing Organisation?

What is a Destination Marketing Organisation?

Advant Technology has worked with many DMO advertising campaigns over the years, helping to create awareness and drive profitable footfall to specific locations within a destination. 

As Advant Technology works extensively in the tourism marketing and advertising sector, we felt it pertinent to define precisely;

What is a Destination Marketing Organisation? AKA a DMO.

The destination stakeholders represent the connection between individual suppliers and consumers of tourism services. This group comprises private, public, and non-governmental organisations that play an active role within the ecosystem, either as suppliers or consumers.

A destination marketing organisation (or DMO) is responsible for promoting its location to potential visitors, including marketing the location’s goods and services. They are tasked with providing all promotions of their location to facilitate profitable tourism. 

A DMO may be a non-governmental organisation (NGO) or a Governmental Organisation, company, or association interested in promoting its location. It can include anything from small towns to entire countries. 

Depending on jurisdiction and legal issues, they may focus solely on marketing within one country or internationally and, therefore, market to the whole world.

Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) offer services such as:

  • Destination management;
  • Promotion;
  • Visitor information and more!

There are many different types of DMOs, including:

  1. National DMOs;
  2. Regional DMOs;
  3. Destination Marketing Associations (DMA);
  4. International associations and more!

Some advantages of having an effective destination management organisation are listed below: 

  • A destination’s competitiveness and attractiveness come from effective, sustainable strategies and are based upon a balance of interests of all stakeholders inside the tourist destination. 
  • Achieving consistency: An effective DMO has ownership and responsibility to coordinate among public and private stakeholders at the international, regional, national and local levels that ensure consistency.
  • Sustainability Destination activities and initiatives that are not well-managed may lead to irreversible loss of resources and customer loyalty, damage the destination’s image and reputation and create obstacles for future development. Thus, an effective DMO would work towards sustainably managing those issues.
  • The Tourism Marketing & Promotion Division is responsible for implementing all provincial tourism marketing and promotional activities to facilitate profitable tourism.
  • The Tourism Marketing & Promotion Division supports the Destination DMOs in developing, managing, promoting and evaluating their respective Tourism products. 
  • Building a tourism culture in the destination: Tourism marketing and promotion helps to build an awareness of the destination’s attractions, services and experiences by key markets-locally, nationally and internationally. The destination marketing organisation acts as a point of contact for international tourism organisations. 
  • Establishing effective partnerships: The effective implementation of tourism activities can only be achieved through collaboration between all stakeholders in the destination.
  • Limiting the impact of overtourism: Tourism marketing and promotion can help lead visitors away from overcrowded sites, reduce traffic congestion and provide more options for visitors.
  • Building strong brand identity: A destination’s brand can attract and retain visitors by providing a clear and consistent message about the destination. A strong brand identity helps build loyalty among visitors while increasing their overall satisfaction with the experience.
  • Destination branding: Destination branding is creating an image or style that identifies a place in the minds of target markets (visitors, potential visitors and opinion leaders) and differentiates it from the competition. Destination branding is essential in destinations with similar product offerings to their neighbours.

Conclusion:

The benefits that a destination marketing organisation can bring to a destination are numerous and often include limiting the impacts of overtourism, building a solid brand identity and establishing effective partnerships. Destination marketing organisations work diligently to facilitate profitable tourism for their respective destinations.

If you are a DMO and want to learn about promoting your brand through engaging content delivered to tailored audiences, reach out to our team, and we can help you plan an effective and measurable campaign.

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How to Promote your Destination to Travellers with Digital Advertising

Digital Advertising for Tourism: Strategies for Destination Marketing Organizations

As the tourism industry continues to evolve, destination marketing organizations (DMOs) and travel companies need effective digital advertising strategies to attract visitors. This comprehensive guide explores proven methods for promoting your destination through digital channels, based on years of experience working on destination marketing campaigns with tourism brands worldwide.

The  State of Tourism Marketing Today

The tourism industry has undergone significant transformation in recent years. While the COVID-19 pandemic created unprecedented challenges, the sector has shown remarkable resilience and adaptation. Today’s destination marketers must navigate a complex landscape where digital advertising plays an increasingly crucial role in attracting visitors.

  • Shift toward experiential travel content
  • Rise of sustainable tourism messaging
  • Increased focus on domestic tourism
  • Growing importance of mobile-first marketing
  • Integration of virtual experiences

Understanding Digital Advertising for Tourism

Digital advertising offers unique advantages for destination marketing organizations and travel brands:

  • Precise audience targeting based on travel intent
  • Real-time campaign optimization
  • Multi-channel presence across search, social, and display
  • Rich media storytelling opportunities
  • Measurable ROI and performance tracking

Digital ads are easy for people to find online, they’re fast, they’re flexible, and they give you access to huge audiences across search engines, social media platforms and video sites.

They also allow us as marketers to be creative with our content by using different types of formats such as images or videos, which are great for storytelling.

Digital advertising will allow you to reach people at the perfect time with the right message – all based on your traveller’s location, intent and interests.

You can attract new travellers by showing prospects your destination in a way that is relevant to them. It will help you increase your brand awareness amongst prospective customers who may not be searching for a destination at all or, on the other hand, they may be actively looking for their next holiday (in-market audiences).

The Role of DMOs in Digital Marketing

The role of a DMO, aka Destination Marketing Organisation, is to get tourist traffic across the regions by implementing a range of marketing strategies sustainably, such as:

  • Developing comprehensive digital marketing strategies
  • Creating compelling destination content
  • Managing paid media campaigns
  • Coordinating with local tourism stakeholders
  • Measuring and reporting on tourism metrics

Why is Country Marketing Important?

Successful country marketing can greatly benefit the local tourism industry, including restaurants, entertainment sites, hotels, airlines, local transportation, car rental firms, tour operators, and other sectors. This increases spending in your country, helping boost the economy and allowing you to share your great culture with potential visitors.

Essential Digital Marketing Channels for Tourism

1. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

  • Target high-intent travel keywords
  • Create destination-specific ad campaigns
  • Optimize for local and international search terms

2. Social Media Advertising

  • Instagram: Showcase visual destination content
  • Facebook: Target specific traveler demographics
  • Pinterest: Capture early-stage travel planning
  • TikTok: Engage younger travelers with authentic content

3. Programmatic Display Advertising

4. Video Marketing

  • YouTube destination campaigns
  • Social media video ads
  • Connected TV commercials
  • Immersive virtual tours
Digital Marketing Channels to Use When Promoting a DMO
Digital Marketing Channels to Use When Promoting a DMO

The Travel Decision-Making Journey

  • Dreaming Phase
    • Inspire through stunning visuals
    • Share authentic destination stories
    • KPIs: Reach, engagement, video views
  • Research Phase
    • Provide detailed destination information
    • Highlight unique experiences
    • KPIs: Click-through rates, time on site
  • Planning Phase
    • Offer practical travel guides
    • Share itinerary suggestions
    • KPIs: Downloads, email signups
  • Booking Phase
    • Present clear calls-to-action
    • Showcase partner accommodations
    • KPIs: Referral clicks, conversion rates
  • Experience Phase
    • Provide local recommendations
    • Share real-time updates
    • KPIs: App downloads, engagement
  • Sharing Phase
    • Encourage user-generated content
    • Facilitate social sharing
    • KPIs: Hashtag usage, social mentions
Travel Decision-Making Process
Travel Decision-Making Process

Creating Effective Tourism Ad Creatives

What creative should I use?

Depending on the audience you want to reach, you might use different types of creativity. Gone are the days of showing a couple of travellers lying on a pretty beach, today travellers are looking for memorable experiences.

Here are some ideas:

Visual Content 

  • Showcase authentic experiences over staged photos
  • Feature diverse travelers and activities
  • Highlight unique destination features
  • Include recognizable landmarks
  • Use high-quality, professional imagery

Video Content Strategy

  • Create immersive destination tours
  • Share local culture and traditions
  • Feature authentic traveler testimonials
  • Showcase seasonal activities
  • Develop mobile-optimized content

User Generated Content (UGC)

  • Make sure you have permission to use the content
  • Feels organic and authentic
  • Helps build trust

Measuring Tourism Marketing Campaign Success

Here are some metrics to track:

  1. Campaign Performance

    • Click-through rates
    • Conversion rates
    • Cost per acquisition
    • Return on ad spend
  2. Brand Impact

    • Brand awareness
    • Consideration metrics
    • Destination sentiment
    • Share of voice
  3. Tourism Outcomes

    • Visitor numbers
    • Length of stay
    • Tourist spending
    • Economic impact

Digital Ad Metrics to Monitor

Digital Ad Metrics to Monitor

Advanced Tourism Marketing Strategies

Leveraging User-Generated Content

  • Curate authentic traveler content
  • Create branded hashtag campaigns
  • Partner with travel influencers
  • Develop social media contests

Data-Driven Optimization

  • Use traveler behavior analytics
  • Implement dynamic creative optimization
  • Conduct A/B testing
  • Apply machine learning insights
  • Virtual and augmented reality experiences
  • AI-powered personalization
  • Sustainable tourism messaging
  • Voice search optimization
  • Blockchain-based loyalty programs
Digital Advertising for Travel Brands and Organizations Word Cloud
Digital Advertising for Travel Brands and Organizations Word Cloud

Conclusion

There are many digital advertising tools out there, but not all of them will work for your destination.

You should pick the ones that best suit your goals and target audience. Remember- the more you test, the better chance you get results!

We are an expert travel marketing agency, having worked with Destination Canada, Cyprus Tourism Organisation, Tunisia National Tourism Organisation, Polish National Tourism Board, Greece National Tourism Organisation and many other national and local tourism organisations.

If you are a travel brand or a country or destination marketer and need help creating a destination marketing campaign, we’d love to hear from you. Please send us your RFP, and we’ll respond with a well-crafted media plan.

Whilst Advant Technology is headquartered in the UK, but we help brands globally, so don’t hesitate to ask us if we can help you in your target market.

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Case Studies Facebook Ads Tourism

Polish National Tourism Board: Facebook Video Ad

POLISH NATIONAL TOURISM BOARD:
FACEBOOK VIDEO

INDUSTRY:
Tourism
MARKET:
UK
SERVICES:
Facebook video
Testimonial

“After winning a competitive tender, the Advant Technology’s team really went the extra mile to make sure that the campaign they created was spot on. Because they are such a great listeners, they understood exactly what I was trying to achieve and I can’t praise their creativity highly enough. The campaign they run for us during the pandemic brought amazing results and hugely exceeded our expectations. I would recommend them wholeheartedly as a company which provides just the right balance of professionalism, creativity and customer service.”

english logo

Dorota Wojciechowska​ 
Head of Marketing, Polish Tourism Organisation​

UK Travelers Inspired: Polish Tourism Facebook Video

We have extensive experience in planning and implementing paid media campaigns in the tourism industry, and over the years, we have had the pleasure of working with many tourism boards across the globe including Canada, Tunisia and Cyprus

Our most recent work was with the Polish National Tourism Board whose campaign objective was to inspire British tourists to one day resume their travels to Poland during a time when the UK was coming out of its first Covid-19 lockdown. 

CHALLENGE

The tourism and travel industry have suffered immensely from the coronavirus pandemic, and tourism boards around the world have seen a massive drop in the number of tourists visiting their countries. To help the Polish tourism industry recover from the crisis, the Polish National Tourist Office (PNTO) in London wanted our help in creating and implementing a creative marketing campaign to inspire British travellers to visit Poland in 2020.

SOLUTION

A memorable, fun and inspiring video was created to encourage shares and conversations on social media. Dubbed “Re-Lose Yourself in Poland”, the theme of the video was focused around the relatable elements of lockdown 1.0 where banana bread making, jigsaw puzzles and Zoom quizzes became our new reality.

We targeted people with an interest in Central and Eastern Europe and who are likely to travel in Q4. With a small budget and a target of 5M impressions, we monitored and optimised the campaign frequently to ensure we were on track to hit the target.

RESULT

  • The video resulted in over 6.1 million impressions (1.1m above target)
  • The ad generated nearly 350,000 reactions on social media, showing clear signs of how relatable the content was

Read our guide on how to promote your destination to travellers with digital advertising.

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PNTO vid
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Blog Tourism

Tourism industry marketing: Why Wikipedia matters

TOURISM INDUSTRY MARKETING: WHY WIKIPEDIA MATTERS

Elevating Tourism Marketing: The Significance of Wikipedia

Here at Advant Technology, we specalise in paid digital media but we still keep our ear to the ground to see what’s happening in the wider marketing world.

We recently came across a fascinating academic article highlighting the value of content in increasing overnight stays in smaller cities.

How, you ask? By adding information to Wikipedia pages where there was relatively little information, consumers were able to make a more informed decision, this information influenced where they decided to travel and for how long.

The article highlights the importance of having a strong online presence, this presence leads to greater awareness which in turn leads to more travel resulting in positive economic returns.

Read the full study here.

If you’re interested in learning how you might be able to run a program like this at scale in multiple languages, reach out to us and we can recommend a sister agency who can do just that using proprietary technology.

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