Covid killed the status quo: a pandemic ushers in a new era of destination marketing

Trust in the media is at an all-time low. Studies show that people place trust in their friends far more than in marketers or advertisers. So, why keep marketing like we always have? Will Seccombe, a long-time destination marketer, thinks we shouldn’t. That’s why he’s betting on storytelling to build authenticity and trust for destinations like never before. The secret sauce: empowering members of the community to tell that story themselves.

Contributors

Zach Stovall
Senior Creative Strategist, Flip.to

Will Seccombe
President and Managing Director, Connect Travel

Transcript

Zach Stovall: Will, In our other Thought Starters segment, Reinventing the DMO, you spoke about the challenges DMO’s have faced in planning for the future. Because, in essence, everything was going so well. Tourism was a rising tide, and everyone was happy to float along. But there have also been some criticisms, some fair, some not.

Will Seccombe: For the last couple years, we’ve had conversations about the DMO’s role in the community. Destinations are fighting for budgets and fighting to prove their relevancy, and fighting to justify their existence because politicians or media or citizens are thinking visitors are going to keep coming. We saw that in Florida.

Zach: It’s pretty easy to sit back on your laurels and say, ‘yeah, everything’s going fine and it’s gonna continue that way.

Will: It’s going to continue that way, so you don’t really want to rock the boat.

Zach: Will, I know you’re a big believer in DMO’s and the value they provide to the community. What questions do DMO’s need to ask themselves right now, and what can they do immediately to make themselves more essential within the community?

Will: What do we want our community to look like moving forward? How do we use travel to get there? I think it’s a great opportunity for DMO’s to create really powerful partnerships within their communities. Nobody’s better equipped to be a connector within communities and connecting other small businesses with each other. Nobody’s better equipped to provide the services to address even the health issues – to help source PPE and things like that. There’s a real opportunity for DMO’s to create and show their value to the community right now, so they’ll be considered essential moving forward.

Zach: You mentioned DMO’s being connectors within their communities. Why, in particular, are local residents so important in telling the story of a destination?

Will: I think that is one of the most powerful things DMO’s can do right now – engage the citizens to talk about what is so powerful in their community. NYC just announced their new recovery plan, and it’s a really inclusive program, and really an extraordinary model for DMO’s to engage all sorts of impacted people in their community to come together, work together and identify a plan. I think it’s a case study on what destinations can do. A big part of that is letting New Yorkers share everything that they love about their city. Get out and about and explore their city as they reopen. I would look to what NYC + Co. has done with their reopening plan for tourism and hospitality. It’s a great model for what all destinations could do. A big part of that is they’ve spent the last several months working together to identify what is best – how do we work together to do it? And not just roll out a campaign when we think the time is right.

Zach: By empowering New Yorkers to share their individual stories of New York, they’re really tapping into a hard-to-achieve element of any marketing campaign. That’s authenticity. 

Will: Authenticity is absolutely critical. I think it’s going to be more important than ever. The traditional tourism marketing messages of our culture — shopping, dining, fun for the whole family – is kind of everywhere. But when people are talking about the things that they love within their communities, and what makes them tick and what makes them love where they live. That has a real authentic and very impactful message. 

Zach: Underlying that message is something that is ultimately most appealing: trust. And that, in a lot of ways, makes this type of campaign more impactful than traditional marketing.

Will: If you look at the Gallup study of confidence in institutions, it’s really fascinating in terms of what it is that we, as Americans, trust. I will tell you that marketers and advertising and news media in general is at the very, very bottom of the list. It’s telling to know that right at the top is small business is the most trusted of institutions in the country. How do you engage your small businesses to tell your stories? How do you become, instead of storytellers, but curators of the messages coming from your community? Being a curator and an amplifier of that local message — it really resonates. It’s personal, it’s authentic, it’s real. The campaigns that do that are going to continue to be more important.

Zach: As you mentioned before, DMO’s are beholden to a diverse set of stakeholders, that often don’t understand what happens behind the curtain. How do you address them?

Will: It’s true that most destination marketing initiatives are externally focused.The argument is always made that the citizens don’t ever see our work, because it’s all out of market focused and not targeting the locals. Now is a great opportunity to align with those organizations. They clearly see that lack of travel is having a real negative impact on their communities right now.

Zach: Yeah, I bet that’s pretty clear right now. But, there’s no better way for them to see the value of a DMO than to see the organization actively working within their community to engage locals and improve the community.

Will: This is an extraordinary opportunity for DMO’s to reimagine what their destination looks like moving forward, and what their organization prioritizes moving forward. Again, the idea that universal disruption is the perfect time for reinvention. It’s a great opportunity to really sit down with stakeholders, align the vision and identify what success looks like going forward. Then starting to build a long-term plan to attain that moving forward, knowing that it’s going to be a challenge and it’s not going to be easy. It would be almost a shame to take this down-cycle in the travel industry and not really refocus or re-energize on a vision for a successful, community-based, community-focused DMO.

Zach: Thanks, Will, for some really potent ideas about authenticity and storytelling as DMO’s look to reshape their roles within the community. I’m Zach Stovall for Shape.travel. Thanks for joining, and if you liked this one, be sure to check out our other Thought Starters podcasts.