In the middle of the worst heat of last 50 years the atmosphere is further heated by hot news from various national tourism organizations. During the high season contradictory news about the success of the season is coming from Croatia, criticism is directed directly to the Croatian Tourist Board, which is undergoing a major and revolutionary reorganization. Among other things, the Croatian Convention and Incentive Bureau is said to be eliminated. In Slovenia, the reorganization has already been completed and the Slovenian Tourist Board has become a part of a larger agency Spirit Slovenia.

Due to the overheated atmosphere criticism in both countries is directed toward the institutional framework. New Director of HTZ is being accused of terror, lack of strategy and human resources tsunami that has also hit the legendary Director of the Croatian Convention and Incentive Bureau Nik Račić. In Slovenia, the economy is outraged by the withdrawal of the Slovenian Tourist Board. Calls to the re-establishment of the STB are being heard.

Parallel is another story. Both institutions have announced internet and general marketing and green revolution. Viral and other online campaigns are supposed to complement a number of marketing innovations. Bloggers have become this year’s omnipresent saviours of tourism promotion on both sides of the border.

It appears that spears are breaking on the wrong backs. Personally I believe that the reduction of the problem to the level of form of institutions is more about throwing sand in the eyes by the lobbies, to which this situation corresponds. Tourist organizations at the end of this debate are reduced to being collectors and handouts of money to various more or less serious tourism lobbies. Preferably to those who at the same time are bringing happy voters at the next election.

Even a superficial comparison of the most successful Tourism Organizations of the World shows that they are superior marketing think tanks. For the centre and sanctuaries of the most precious knowledge of tourism marketing. At the end of the day marketing of destinations is a primary mission of such institutions. At this year’s Travel Zoom I met the master of Irish promotional campaigns Mark Henry. In a totally competitive world of tourism destinations they have won with everything that is also written in the Slovenian promotion strategy, and which should also be carried out by our southern neighbours. Unlike the two institutions, all campaigns were actually performed. Among the participants of the conference were only a few individuals from the STB and the Spirit agency without the management of the agency (not to stay just at words, you can have a look at the lecture at the following TRAVEL ZOOM link)

More important than whether we have an agency that is called Spirit or the STB is the question of what such an agency does and how it spends its modest resources. Its mission is to design and implement promotion of the country as a tourist destination. If it is reduced to tired fair and trade shows presentations, a little bit of advertising, organization of visits of journalists and other fam & inspection visitors, and the production of printed materials, in the middle of the tourist season we can seriously ask ourselves where our tourist boat sails. With everything that is written it is not quite clear what is the real purpose of such an institution. Is it to support the economy, local politics or tourists which we would like to bring to the destination and support them while they are already at the destination.

When in the middle of the digital and content marketing revolution we are reading programmes of tourism organizations, it seems that we are trapped in another time. As if they do not understand the changing habits of 2.0 tourists who resist organized flows of tourism and take matters into their own hands. As a kind of modern destination rebels seem to me COUCHSURFERS and many others who do not care anymore about the official tourist information, because they simply no longer believe it and trust it, and they prefer to find information themselves and create their own experiences that are by destination organizations called products, whether alone or through new platforms such as TRIP4REAL. Even if through coercion you disable guided tours of tourists to the destination, you can not prevent systems as VAYABLE, which also individuals without a formal license for a tour guide can join if they have a little good will.

In the middle of the mobile revolution, the information of destination organizations is too slow, not innovative enough and covers too few communication platforms. It can not satisfy all the pulses of stimuli, which are today crucial in deciding the choice of destination.
In addition, the quality of market research is poor and focuses mainly on the spent concept of counting of arrivals and overnight stays, but not on the habits of guests who would come to the destination. Let’s be inspired by the now legendary Canadian model for measuring the EQ profile of guests (Experience Quotient EQ profiles), which gives excellent results and on which rests the whole promotion of Canada. Long ago they have abandoned the narrow vision of tourists just according to the national key. Their customers are divided into free spirits, cultural explorers, authentic experiences. For each group a detailed profile has been made and a marketing strategy has been developed.

We do not know how to take at least minimal advantage of the mobile trend for one of the biggest tourist opportunities of Slovenia – all the transit guests who each year go through Slovenia. With simple mobile tools and mobile apps we could give them a friendly reception to the country and offer them something more than the omnipresent Postojna Cave and the shooting stars of this year’s Eurobasket.

To propel the modern digital marketing, we need excellent content marketing. In fact, tourism organizations are content brokers. Good stories abound, we are just missing some good content brokers. Personally, I imagine modern tourist organizations as superior digital tourism marketing agencies, which will be rewarded for their innovation at the best marketing festivals. Shrines of modern marketing knowledge, to which we would be happy to turn for advice, ideas, niche information about markets. Agencies with the best domestic and foreign experts and projects that we would be happy to co-finance because of measurable results, and not because it is something nice and because so does also the rest or because someone has ordered to do so. Agency that would inspire all of us working in tourism because of its creativity and good promotional ideas.

Especially in the tourism sector for real creative flashbacks it is worth to suffer capricious creative geniuses, much better than to drown in an abyss of general and tourist unrecognizable. To get the knowledge it is not required to go far away. At home we have some good examples and in my humble opinion a very successful example of Ljubljana Tourism to which the national tourism board could turn. If we do not have this knowledge at home, it is necessary to buy it abroad from agencies of the type as Brooklyn brothers who in the middle of the biggest crisis managed to pull out the maximum from the Iceland tourism. But we are forced to work with ‘square’ people and even students who can not inspire anyone and build relations on power and established programme schemes on the principle of copy-paste. It could be so much fun and so useful: new integrated campaigns, digitization of content, interactive apps. viral games, relational and content marketing ideas such as trip4real from Barcelona …. so we will with a little bit of a joke really, leave the fate of the destination in the hands of Trip Advisor, which will do the job instead of national tourism organizations.

Before at the end of the summer we are served with the usual tourist statistics, it is necessary to seriously ask ourselves what the tourist destination strategists have done for the year 2014. To this year in terms of tourism we can now slowly forget. Before the new season and the programme planning there is still time for a serious content re-engineering. An arduous travel autumn awaits us and probably another year, when in the economy we will be left to our own creativity and ingenuity ……

Eufrazijeva bazilika
Photo: Croatia Tourist Board

Slovenian tourism with foreign tourists annually generates 2 billion Euros of inflow, tourism accounts for more than 12 per cent of GDP, in Slovenian tourism around 45 thousand people work.

Croatian tourism with foreign tourists annually generates about 7 billion Euros of inflow, tourism accounts for more than 14 percent of GDP (47 billion Euros). In Croatian tourism over 90 thousand people work.

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A long-time meetings industry addict, Gorazd is the Founder and owner of marketing and event agency Toleranca Marketing. He has many years of experience in planning, preparing and carrying out large international meetings and exhibitions. As the founder of the "Power to the Meetings" methodology, he still firmly believes in the power of live events and human to human communication. He is also the author of numerous articles and editor-in-chief of the meetings industry magazine Kongres Magazine.