Is this the right approach? Yes and no.
The Destination Approach
The traveler interested in creative tourism will be appealed by the right destination promotion that offers a lot of possibilities for creative travel. They will choose a destination because of its overall appeal and the possibility to participate in the exiting experiences of creative tourism. In this sense, the destination approach should be focused on the local ambiance and uniqueness of this destination or city. That is true for 61% for the US cultural traveler and 28% of the European cultural traveler. On both side of the Atlantic the first most important reason to choose a destination is its overall appeal – its cultural environment. But it this enough?
The Passion Approach
From all cultural travelers in the USA, 23 % started with a certain type of travel experience in mind when planning their next trip. In Europe, from those whose main choice for travel was to experience culture, 38% cited the cultural heritage as main reason to choose a destination. This is in actuality the market for cultural and creative tourism: the main motivation behind the travel is to experience culture, not only to participate in cultural activities while traveling to a destination. In other words, this is the choice of the concrete passion of the individual: it is more important to make a tour of the Roman Empire heritage or the Frank Lloyd Write architecture, than to visit Italy or Chicago per se.
Understanding this trend, UNESCO created the Creative Cities Network. Music lovers have choices from Italy to Spain, folk arts and crafts enthusiasts will be delighted to travel from Santa Fe to Aswan, Egypt. And while the gold seal of the UNESCO prestige worldwide provides these chosen destinations with enormous potential for marketing based on the UNESCO name only, other destinations should consider much more proactive measures in order to appeal to the cultural traveler, who pursue a passion.
Niche marketing vital for creative tourism destinations
Destinations tend to focus on marketing the overall product in order to appeal to larger groups of travelers. For big cities or clusters of monotypes of attractions (business, meetings, etc.) this works perfectly. Take for example Hamburg: the world city for industrial trade shows. No matter that Hamburg has a lot to offer to cultural travelers, the city is positioning itself as the number one MICE city in Europe and with brilliant success. Munich, on the other side, another MICE and super economic power city, have chosen the Oktoberfest, the most famous beer festival in the world, to attract tourism.
Are DMOs taking in account what niche they can appeal and deliver this message to the passionate travelers searching creative tourism experiences? Not always. They tend to present the uniqueness of a destination through a complex mix of “everything for everyone”. Event promotion for unique events, such as the Rose Festival in the Valley of the Thracian Kings, Bulgaria, Vienna New Year Concert or Milan Scala opera performances, is a very good approach, but is time limited to the duration of the event.
That is why destinations have to choose a typical characteristic, a mono-interest group of attractions appealing to one passion, one aspect of the city or micro-region/cluster to promote themselves to the cultural traveler. This positioning should fill the gap in the sentence: Our (destination, city, place) is the only one in the world where you can …. (learn how to bind your books with leather, paint on brown ceramics, craft your own cloisonné, etc.).
Peru, as a country, position itself as the only place to learn how to wave their incredible Inca style fabrics, and if you want to learn how to do it, this is the place to go. Chile, on the other side, where the same carpet weaving has the exactly same traditions, does not focus on Inca carpet weaving. Santa Fe is the destination par excellence for crafts related with earth-ware and American folk arts, and is the biggest success for creative tourism in North America.
Destinations (from countries to small cities), should explore the possibility to brand, position and market themselves focused on these passions, without, of course, abandoning the overall appeal of the place, appealing to mass tourism. How they can do that?
Create
Determine which group of attractions, activities and infrastructure has the most unique potential to develop creative tourism product. For more information how to become a creative tourism destination, check up these articles. Increase market geography by choosing an uniquely global product. If your city, micro-region is too small, extend the region until finding the right unique product. Example: create a cultural landscape of all wine routes in your state (like Virginia is doing it) and package it together under one product: “Virginia wine making”. For certain interests, you will need bigger territory and several destinations under the same product (American Arts and Crafts Movement), for some destinations you will need only one product, like tile painting in Ybor, Florida.
Brand, position, promote, globalize
Create a group of tourism products (programs, projects, developments in the urban structure or the geographic micro-region) and brand it as “The only place where…”
Promote it globally to the niche markets. Maybe in Germany there are not enough potential travelers to go to Iowa City (UNESCO creative city for literature) to learn modern American literature, but for sure worldwide there are enough Kurt Vonnegut enthusiasts who will travel to the “Athens of the Midwest” to create a stable tourism income.
No matter what approach takes a DMO – a geographic or a specialization one, the most important is to show globally that this destination is THE place to create, experience and enjoy creative travel now, only here and to a very specific narrow niche demanding traveler. And, there is an enormous opportunity for DMOs and travel organizations (travel agencies, hotel owners, etc.) to capitalize on any of thee above approaches to destination marketing for creative tourism. In the USA, there is a gap of 67% between the desire to participate in creative activities (Mandala Research) and the real participation. Countries in emerging destinations, such as Chile, Vietnam, Cuba, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, and all Balkan countries, have unique treasures to offer and shape their destinations in an innovative way to serve the creative tourism. That combined with the fact that they are still in the list “to discover” gives them unique edge to promote creative tourism since the very beginning of destination development – a change to not miss now.
Research based on Mandala Research Report “The American Cultural Tourist”
and the European Traveler Profile Report (download .pdf).
Creative tourism: 5 important considerations for developing creative tourism destinations:
Part Three: Human Capital and Attitude
Part Four: Target Markets, Strategies, Sustainability, Financing
