Are DMOs paying too much attention to their D, and not enough to their O?
This isn’t an article so much as it is a 776-word question.
While I know the headline may elicit some chuckles from certain cohorts of the TIQ readership, the point is hopefully obvious – DMOs for the most part are doing an incredible job of promoting their destinations, but if none of the credit for the increases in occupancy, ADR, RevPAR and other metrics can be accrued to the work the DMO is doing, if you can’t stand in front of your elected leaders and your industry stakeholders and proudly proclaim (with evidence), “WE did this,” does that decrease your perceived value? Does it lessen the chances that you’ll get funded again? Have a think about that – if you can’t truly prove your worth, if you can’t truly demonstrate what you did, there’s a pretty good chance it could.
Over the last several years, we’ve focused so much on whether the “M” in the acronym DMO is correct (or whether it should be “S” or “L” or even “X”), that we’ve forgotten that it’s the other two letters that really matter:
The D for Destination.
And the O for Organization.
I’m gonna take a couple things for granted here.
First, that your destination is beautiful. It’s also amazing, incredible, one-of-a-kind, and it’s perfect for a long weekend in the Fall. You have the latest craft brewery and a brand new boutique hotel, you have miles and miles of white sandy beaches, and you’re surprisingly accessible to Mother Nature’s wonders. And of course, it has the most surprising little neighborhoods with all these cool shops and galleries that have to be seen to believed.
And second, that you’re doing a great job marketing your destination. From carefully curating your own channels to strategically managing your paid and earned channels along with your SEO program, you’re pushing out consistent brand messages designed to entice more visitors every year in order to drive greater economic impact.
If that’s the case, and again I take for granted that it is (or you wouldn’t be astute enough to be reading TourismIQ), then you’re doing precisely what The Journal of Travel Research defined as “destination branding” in 2005 following a DMO survey. That definition:
“Destination branding is the set of marketing activities that (1) support the creation of a name, symbol, logo, word mark or other graphic that readily identifies and differentiates a destination; that (2) consistently convey the expectation of a memorable travel experience that is uniquely associated with the destination; that (3) serve to consolidate and reinforce the emotional connection between the visitor and the destination; and that (4) reduce consumer search costs and perceived risk. Collectively, these activities serve to create a destination image that positively influences consumer destination choice.”
Kudos to you, that round of applause you receive every year at your annual lunch every year is well-deserved.
But there’s a problem. It’s the O. You’re forgetting yourself.
If you’re like most DMOs, you spend so much time focused on creating consumer awareness for your destination that you neglect to create awareness for the very organization that’s so critical to the destinations’ success – your own.
And that’s more important than ever, because thanks to Google and all the sparkly new AI tools, potential visitors can almost literally get their information from anywhere. Even if “anywhere” means that information isn’t entirely new, or is maybe kind of made up (AI tools are making ‘repeated factual errors’, major new research warns).
Not long after that Journal of Travel Research article was published, the-organization-previously-referred-to-as-DMAI (now Destinations International) produced their iconic Futures Study which remains one of the most insightful and forward-thinking documents ever written about DMOs.
In it, they spell out that DMOs would face three primary challenges in the years ahead:
1. Relevance
2. Visibility
3. Value Proposition
The study doesn’t say it’s essential for the destination to be relevant, they say it’s essential for the organization to be relevant. It says the DMOs need to create visibility for themselves, not (just) for their destination. And it reinforces the need for the DMO to have a value proposition – not just why it’s important to come TO the destination, but why it’s critically important for visitors to come THROUGH the DMO.
People (your visitors) don’t just remember pretty places. DMOs need to stop branding the “O” like an afterthought. In today’s attention economy, it’s not optional. It’s not nice-to-have. It’s the foundation of brand recall and relevance.
So, at the end of this (article? rant? diatribe? 776 semi-coherent words strung together?), that’s the question I’d invite all to consider – are you paying too much attention to your D, and not enough to your O?