French Agritourism: 7 Reasons to try France’s Version of Sustainable Tourism

Written by Kim Sucré on February 1, 2022. Posted in Blog.

While Solimar is typically supporting more under-the-radar destinations like Guyana or Liberia, this does not mean that already successful tourist destinations are not worthy of interest. Each year, France receives millions of travelers, making it the most visited country in the world. As a result, France might not seem like the perfect sustainable destination. However, through unique stays and experiences, your stay can make an impact. French agritourism is the perfect way to do this. Associations like Accueil Paysan or Bienvenue à la Ferme offer tourists unique experiences of farm stays to explore the most authentic parts of France that positively impact rural communities.

Read below to learn more about agritourism in France and the promotion of sustainable tourism as a way to support rural farmers!

France’s Main Sites Can be Overtouristed

Mass of tourists along the Seine river in Paris

Among all different French cities, Paris is the most visited one, with over 35 million tourists in 2019. Paris is world widely famous for its romantic atmosphere, its artistic and cultural offers, as well as its gastronomy and fine-wining richness.

But when visiting Paris, you might tend to gravitate around the main attractions; the Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame, Le Louvre… Just like millions of other tourists. In that way, the city looks more like a theme park than like an enjoyable destination where you can bask in a different culture. If you wish to experience the traditional French lifestyle, staying in high-touristed Paris is not your best option; you can find plenty of other places in the French countryside where you will be able to try authentic food, to see extraordinary landscapes, and to explore hidden spots while making a difference!

French Agritourism allows you to support farming communities

France is not only the world’s most visited country; it’s also the first agricultural producer in Europe. However, French farmers are provided with low income; agricultural productions rely heavily on the unpredictable weather and farmers are more and more indebted to pay back loans contracted to face the rise of lands’ prices.

Consequently, farmers often need to reconsider their livelihoods and search for additional and safer sources of revenue. Agritourism is one of those alternatives, offering immersive and unique sustainable experiences to tourists. This also allows farmers to gain more revenue, preserve their lifestyle, and connect with people from around the world. Associations like Accueil Paysan or Bienvenue à la Ferme were created in order to create collectives for farmers and agricultural stakeholders to support traditional farming lifestyle and to promote a more sustainable and fair tourism as a financial lifeline. They support French farms wishing to diversify their activity beyond agricultural production, and assist farmers in the organization of tours and in the creation of table d’hôtes and guestrooms to welcome tourists.

Through farm stays, by purchasing local products or by taking part in agritourism activities, you contribute to improving farmers’ lives with additional financial resources.

With agritourism in France, you can have a positive impact on other vulnerable communities

Beside agritourism activities, farmers organized educational tours for special-need and vulnerable communities. Disabled or aging people can benefit from pedagogic visits through the farms and with the animals, whereas farmers seize the opportunity of young children touring to orient them to a more sustainable lifestyle. Other groups of people which are generally left out get involved in farming projects as well; women victims of abuse, young people who dropped out of school or were heavily bullied, former prisoners trying to reintegrate in society, and vulnerable families.

With agritourism in France, you contribute to supporting rural farmers, who are then able to create opportunities for those in need. Your impact goes further than to your host directly; you contribute to local development and to helping vulnerable communities.

Agritourism allows you to discover a more authentic lifestyle

Agritourism in France allows you to explore rural activities and to connect with nature

Far from Paris and its luxury boutiques, farmers live a totally different life based on hard work and sustainable productions. Through the various activities organized in French agritourism farms, you get to live unmatched adventures. Whether you love animals and want to learn how to milk a cow or a goat, or if you’d rather discover the secret know-how hidden behind your favorite cheese or wine, French farmers are more than willing to share their knowledge with you.

Agritourism in France is the guarantee to take part in experiences you would not be able to live elsewhere. You will get a better understanding of how French farmers live, and will support traditional rural communities.

Agritourism gives you the chance to sleep in unique accommodations and connect with nature

Enjoy the most traditional alarm to wake up each morning with agritourism in France.

Staying for a night in a French farm is a unique moment and a special experience where you can exchange with your host. You will have time to explore the farm and its surroundings, and to connect with nature and follow its rhythm. Farm stay means observing the stars in an unpolluted sky, sleeping with the sound of cicadas and waking up with the rooster crow. You could hardly do more authentic; the rooster is the national animal of France!

If you try agritourism in France, this could be the perfect occasion to sleep in a different kind of accommodation; some farms offer regular rooms and cottages, but you could also try sleeping in unusual lodges like a trailer or a yurt.

Agritourism is the perfect opportunity to experience the best of French gastronomy

French agritourism allows Experience French wine straight from the farms where the grapes were grown — Experience French cuisine straight from the farmers

Food is so important to French people that the ‘Gastronomic meal of the French’ has even been inscribed by UNESCO on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Eating is a special moment for French people, who consider each meal a celebration, and a moment spent together around qualitative products.

Agritourism in France offers you the possibility to stay with farmers who grow and cook their own meals. You can’t find any fresher meal than the one prepared with products cultivated by the people serving you. With no intermediary, food goes straight from the field to your plate, you discover a new kind of authentic French delicacy. This is true farm-to-table luxury

Who’s going to prepare better breads and baguettes than farmers who grow their own cereals? And who will serve you a better glass of wine than the producers who know exactly how the grapes were cultivated? Your farmer hosts take care of you and of your stomach from breakfast to dinner, focusing on the quality and the sustainability of each ingredient.

Agritourism in France makes you discover remote and underrated villages

French agritourism gives you the chance to explore the most beautiful villages — Agritourism in France gives you the chance to explore the most beautiful villages

The association Les Plus Beaux Villages de France (i.e. The Most Beautiful Villages of France) was created to support French rural destinations and preserve authentic heritage. Small French villages, which are sparsely populated and often forgotten, are placed under the spotlight to show tourists how charming and attractive they can be. The association already labeled 164 villages as ‘beautiful’, and none of them is even remotely close to Paris; they are all located in rural areas!

Choosing agritourism in France allows you to discover those villages which are generally unknown to international tourists despite their authentic, charming and welcoming atmosphere. This is the chance for you to explore places where none of your friends have ever been!

Rural France is always a good idea

Even in world-widely known tourist destinations, inequalities arise, and certain communities struggle to live decently. Instead of visiting Paris like many other tourists, planning agritourism during your next trip to France is the guarantee for you to live an authentic French experience while being an important stakeholder supporting rural communities and villages.

To learn more about how tourism can help destinations around the world, visit our website: https://www.solimarinternational.com/

Bedouin Tourism in Israel – Bedouin Hospitality and Community Trails in the Negev

Written by Jonathan Atari on December 7, 2021. Posted in Blog.

The Negev Desert comprises 60% of Israel and contains an impressive variety of dunes, red mountains, cliffs, craters, seas, and of course – local communities. Learn about Bedouin Tourism in Israel’s Negev Desert and social tourism.

Tourism has a huge potential to positively impact communities, especially when it is conducted sustainably. In this blog post, we highlight “Community Trails” and Bedouin tourism in the Negev Desert, Israel. We interviewed Raz Arbel, a social tourism specialist, so get ready to be inspired!

Exposure to different social tourism projects can bring different perspectives to the table and help people think of ways to go about their own. Yet, universal “best practices” are rare, as every project should be adapted to the local context, and relate to the culture, needs, and resources the community possesses. In order to utilize tourism for sustainable development, cultural sensitivity, in-depth research, and immersion in the local environment are crucial.

The Bedouins are a semi-nomadic indigenous people, some of which still preserve their traditional lifestyle. The Negev is home to approximately 200,000 Bedouins, and in the past few years following Raz’s initiative, many have turned to tourism as a source of income.

Raz Arbel has been an Israeli tourism professional for the last 30 years. He managed the Sde Boker Field School as well as the tourism department of Ramat HaNegev regional council. In recent years he is self-employed, leading various social tourism projects. In 2016, he partnered with Shay Yagel to create the “Community Trails” initiative, a network of marked multi-day hiking trails in Israel that aim to benefit local economies. Eventually, the project expanded to a wider product, with Bedouin hospitality at its core.

What makes Bedouin Tourism in Israel and community trails a social tourism project?

Social tourism means that you enable local communities to earn a living from where they live, without forcing them to change their lifestyles. In the case of the Bedouins, for example, it means you don’t build special tents, but utilize the existing ones. If there’s a woman who bakes, she would bring bread for dinner. If someone makes carpets, you buy carpets from him to decorate the tent or sell to the visitors.

What makes the community trails a successful desert product?

The desert product is an intimidating product. If you tell someone who has no prior experience of deserts, let’s hike in the desert, it would scare him. Here, through Community Trails, we facilitate movement within the desert in a safe way. There’s a path, it’s clearly marked, and you know you’ll reach a place to sleep with food at the end of the day. The Negev Highland Trail, for instance, spans from Merhav Am to Mitzpe Ramon and offers a beautiful desert landscape with archeological sites, natural water sources, and even wall paintings.

When I guide tourists in the desert (on other occasions) I try to pass my self-confidence and certainty onto them. The Bedouin does it naturally. He sits on the ground, drinks tea from the fire, and walks barefoot at times. That magically changes your perception of the desert, and when a person gains this confidence he’s less intimidated and more open to experience the desert fully.

This issue is also the reason why the Israeli desert product that we helped develop is called the “friendly desert”.

So how did you get involved with the Bedouins?

In some parts of the Negev Highland Trail, Bedouin villages are the only communities around. When we traveled to the Bedouin villages to check if we could involve them in this development, we discovered that most have no experience in commercial hospitality. This was very surprising to us, given that hospitality is integral to Bedouin culture. The thing is that they don’t know the needs of a western tourist when they come to their tent.

photo of Raz Arbel who is a pioneer of bedouin tourism in israel — Photo of Raz Arbel

Can you give an example of this unfamiliarity?

Sure, typically when you sit around the fire with your host, the conversation stays around welcoming formalities. It is not part of Bedouin customs to talk about anything relating to your life, political views, diseases, whatever – as to not accidentally offend your guests or put them in an uncomfortable situation. It’s part of the Bedouin culture. The western tourist, on the other hand, often wants to hear about their host’s life. So our main efforts became creating a process that teaches the Bedouins how to host accordingly.

What was the training like?

Our first group was made of 16 men from the Arika Village (Wadi Arika). For 3 months, we taught them what tourism entails, what needs to be prepared in the tent so visitors feel comfortable, and how to tell a story about the tent, the camel, or the Bedouin lifestyle as a whole. We followed this up with individual mentoring that focused on additional services each host could offer his guests.

In total, we trained 12 groups of men and 12 groups of women all across the Bedouin community. We started with the community trails project, but once the Bedouins started hosting, they opened it to anyone interested. Suddenly, jeep tours started bringing in tourists, as well as other tourism operators, and the product became much wider in scope than what we had originally expected. Through that, more local products developed like shepherding, various workshops, and more.

Can you share some major challenges you faced in the development of this project and how you responded to them?

One of the biggest problems is with availability, where most of the time, Bedouins don’t answer numbers they don’t know. To solve this challenge, we initially gave out our phone numbers to the public. This way, we were the mediators that would facilitate communication between interested tourists and the reservation hosts.

Now, a Mitzpe Ramon based NGO called Keshet is building a website that will facilitate the reservation process for the Bedouins and provide phone availability. They’ll do this by making agreements with each individual Bedouin.

Another challenge was that many of the villages were unrecognized by the state. As a consequence, something as simple as building a proper western toilet was seen as a violation, and thus they were destroyed. After a lot of time and effort, we reached an agreement about the enforcement mechanisms settled upon the rule that the toilets would be of temporary construction and destroyed only if the whole village would be evacuated.

Because of our work, the project eventually got planning approval, which was a significant achievement. This meant the villages received a permanent status as traditional localities.

What impact does social tourism have on the Bedouin people?

Firstly, it is economical for them. The Bedouin people can stay at home and earn money from it. Secondly, it fosters local pride. Third, it promotes cleanliness. Locals care more about what their environment looks like. Additionally, it bridges and connects communities, especially Jews and Bedouins, but also tourists from overseas and Bedouins. Lastly, it causes parents to encourage their kids to learn English so they can communicate with tourists.

So what you’re saying is that the project had not only a positive economic impact on the Bedouins, but also on the cultural level?

Yes, it caused them to return to their traditions, and in some cases even relearn them. At a certain stage, we wanted to involve women in the tourism industry, but because most of them don’t speak good English or Hebrew, they couldn’t host directly or share stories. So instead, we focused on traditional crafts like embroidery and weaving, making goat cheese, or traditional breads. Some of the younger girls had no idea how to do it, so we taught them, and it became an integral part of the hosting experience. As a result, the man was proud that his wife brought the traditional food or a hand-crafted dress she made. This involvement shows the many benefits of bedouin tourism in Israel.

So, eventually it creates pride in their tradition?

Absolutely! The most important thing that happens in authentic or social tourism is the development of local pride. I saw it in more places, not only among the Bedouins.

That’s why I believe social tourism is one of the most interesting and important tourism products that will develop all across Israel in the next few years.

Thank you!

The project’s new website (for Bedouin tourism products) will be launched at the beginning of 2022, so be sure to check it out for an authentic desert experience in Israel!

To sum up, social tourism can be greatly impactful, though challenging at times. Working alongside the community, understanding the local culture, as well as the tourists’ experiences, are key factors in the development of a successful and sustainable product. This case study of bedouin tourism in Israel is a perfect example!

At Solimar, we specialize in supporting and managing tourism for social development. Solimar’s project in Armenia, for instance, helped develop the cultural tourism industry primarily through community-based sustainable tourism. Have a look at more of our projects here.

Stakeholder Engagement in Destination Planning

Written by Marina de Moraes Lopes on October 5, 2021. Posted in Blog, Uncategorized.

The support, cooperation, and commitment of stakeholders is essential to ensure long-term, successful sustainable development of the dynamic and highly complex tourism industry.

Tourism is one of the largest and fastest-growing sectors in the world, comprised of an intricate network of stakeholders with an interest in the development, marketing, and management of tourism destinations. Other than economic and environmental considerations, the third pillar of sustainable destination development, is the socio-cultural context, according to the UNWTO. Sustainable destination planning and development demand informed relevant stakeholder participation, along with strong political leadership, to facilitate consensus building. Participatory stakeholder engagement planning is the core of strategic destination development and sustainable long-term tourism growth.

Who are tourism development stakeholders?

A stakeholder is an individual or an organization with an interest in a project, a business, or an industry. Stakeholders may not always have a direct link to the project or even the sector itself, but are nevertheless impacted by the outcomes. Future generations, both tourists and locals of tomorrow, are often considered tourism stakeholders, and while their participation in tourism planning is inaccessible, decisions must be taken considering their best interest and well-being.

So who are the people and organizations interested in about the risks and rewards, i.e. the stakes, of destination development? The list is long and includes local and national governments, visitors and local communities, private sector businesses and organizations, destination management organizations (DMOs) as well as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that are all affected by tourism in different ways. Here are the different types of stakeholders:

1. National and Local Government Stakeholders

Both national and local governments play a significant role in tourism planning through attracting investment, as well as through legislation and policy development. The government is responsible for building and maintaining adequate infrastructure, like roads and airports, to successfully carry out travel and tourism activities. Added to that, they ensure the safety and security of their visitors and residents alike.

Local governments often have tourism departments, particularly in the absence of a DMO, that would take charge of planning, development, and promotion of a destination. They create services along the way to support the industry. Economic returns from tourism oftentimes fuel the overall development of a destination.

2. Destination Management Organization Stakeholders

A DMO plays a key role in responsible tourism management and marketing of a specific destination. It helps to establish a competitive edge for the destination, ensure long-term sustainability, strengthen institutional governance, and build a strong and vibrant brand identity around a destination. A DMO is often seen as the connector, bringing together all industry stakeholders to build a tourism strategy for their destinations that will benefit the community as a whole.

3. Local Community Stakeholders

The local community plays a vital role in the planning and development of a destination. For the success and sustainability of any type of tourism development, it is crucial to understand the attitudes and perceptions of residents towards tourism as well as the factors contributing to such opinions. These factors may include construction work, increasing visitor numbers, and public disturbance, environment, air and noise pollution, waste management, inflation of goods and services among other possible factors.

Ultimately, tourism should aim to benefit local populations and improve the well-being of the host communities. Not considering their needs will prohibit residents from acting as destination ambassadors, creating and nurturing a hospitable environment for the visitor.

4. Visitor Stakeholders

Visitors are often considered the most important destination stakeholders. These are the people that add economic value to the destination by spending money on transportation, accommodation, food, and attractions.

A positive visitor experience may result in destination promotion through user-generated content in today’s social media age. Favorable attitudes will positively impact the formation of a destination brand and attract more visitors.

Negative experiences and the spread of bad reviews threaten the social and economic stability of a destination. It runs the risk of damaging the destination brand perception, decreasing tourist arrivals, threatening local businesses, and worsening rather than improving resident quality-of-life.

5. The Private Sector Stakeholders

Private sector businesses including hotels, restaurants, attractions, and tour operators generate a fair share of overall tourism contribution to the local economy. As destinations generally have an abundance of said types of businesses, the success of these stakeholders depends almost entirely on the number of visitors. As they are often in competition for the tourism dollar, economic considerations may be prioritized over social and environmental implications, and how projects could affect local communities.

6. Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) Stakeholders

NGOs as servants to humanitarian and environmental causes greatly affect the outcomes of tourism development. NGOs will look out for the interest of their communities and ensure the conservation of a destination’s natural and cultural heritage though their intentions can contradict the private sector goals and create conflict. Inclusive and participatory tourism planning and sustainable tourism development processes mitigate such conflicts through finding solutions that satisfy all stakeholders.

Strategies for Stakeholder Engagement

With a clear idea of who are the main tourism destination stakeholders, now it’s time to think about strategies to include them in your destination planning.

The first step in driving interest and community engagement is information distribution. Transparent communication with your stakeholders about current tourism impacts, possible future projections, and overall benefits of tourism development is perhaps the easiest way to begin engaging with different stakeholder groups. That said, some stakeholders are easier to include than others. Common challenges include resistance to participate, lack of time and money, ensuring equity, problematic relationships among institutions or individuals, and communication issues.

Furthermore, companies and individuals directly linked to tourism will recognize their role in the industry and participate in the planning and strategic development building process. Meanwhile, stakeholders that do not see the direct economic and social benefits materializing from tourism will struggle to understand why their involvement is required. Lack of participation may result in values and interests being misrepresented or excluded.

Other approaches to stakeholder engagement include arranging workshops, hosting public meetings, and arranging task forces to collectively identify opportunities, develop ideas, answer questions and find solutions. Ensuring that communication lines are open is essential, while continuous engagement can be achieved through scheduled monthly get-togethers or monthly newsletters. Providing training, consultations and technical assistance can also be a form of stakeholder involvement. After all, committed and connected stakeholders that trust each other will be better equipped to build a sustainable and resilient tourism industry collectively.

Solimar International has been fortunate to work with destinations around the world leading the way to sustainable tourism and destination planning through stakeholder engagement and empowerment. The Tourism For All project in Timor-Leste, for instance, aimed to boost the industry, help combat environmental degradation and lift the country out of poverty by creating revenue streams and more economic opportunities for local communities. Main project objectives were achieved through inclusive listening, visioning, and planning exercises, including communities, industry advocates, the DMO, and the government to formalize and strengthen the island’s tourism offering.

Visit our project page for other inspiring tourism development stories produced through successful stakeholder engagement.

Written by Marina Lopes, Alicia Winfield, and Emilija Zagere

Wildlife Conservation & Tourism Best Practices

Written by Gabriella Whittaker on September 21, 2021. Posted in Blog.

Did you know that August 12th was World Elephant Day? An entire day has been dedicated to the Earth’s largest land mammals to celebrate them and advocate for continued wildlife conservation.

Why focus on elephants for wildlife conservation?

Elephants have a unique story regarding wildlife conservation and the countless adversities they have faced. They provide the perfect face for conservation efforts, because their story is one of continued success. These animals have faced countless threats to their survival, including wildlife crimes like poaching, habitat loss, and migratory interferences. Luckily, there are many people and organizations fighting to protect elephants, and these efforts yield positive results.

Solimar’s Connection to Wildlife Conservation

At Solimar, we believe tourism is one of the best approaches to encourage conservation efforts. We helped create Southern Tanzania’s Master Tourism Plan aiming to expand upon the vast impact wildlife tourism has had in Northern Tanzania (home of beloved game havens like the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater) to similar wildlife refuges in the country’s south. Sustainable tourism can encourage conservation, and therefore benefits wildlife, habitats, and local communities all at once. Continue reading to learn about how tourism leads to conservation, and how to ensure you’re practicing responsible wildlife tourism!

Tourism Development and Conservation

As humans continue to develop the far reaches of our planet, the need for conservation becomes dire. Today, about half of the earth’s forests have been lost, coastal degradation is at an all-time high, and climate change is causing extreme alterations to many other ecosystems. Humans tend to see the natural world as a commodity and in need of being altered in order to serve us. But what if we focused on the benefits of protecting these areas rather than exploiting them?

Wildlife conservation is not only extremely beneficial to the ecosystems it protects but also to the local communities surrounding them and to the lucky individuals who get to visit these places. It is a win-win situation for all parties, and when done correctly can save millions of endangered species from extinction.

This Case Study Report developed by Solimar for the World Bank to help countries understand the value of nature-based tourism puts it clearly:

Many developing countries have rich natural assets including national parks, forest reserves, and diverse plants and animals biodiversity that have the potential to offer visitors nature-based tourism experiences. Through investing in the tourism development of these protected areas, governments can help generate income for the communities living around these assets.

This case report continues to describe a multitude of tourism conservation success stories from the Coconino National Forest in the United States to the Great Himalaya Trails in Nepal and many more. These projects have yielded tangible results through both wildlife protection and local community economic development. For example, the creation of a biosphere reserve along with an ecolodge resulted in 308 square kilometers of the protected land surface, as well as direct employment for about 400 community members.

Conservation also gives natural landscapes a stronger sentimental value for those who live around them. It emphasizes the importance of these places and their intrinsic right to exist separate from human activities and commodification. This creates a stronger appreciation for the natural environment.

Other benefits of conservation-friendly tourism

Conservation-friendly tourism also spurs global education and encourages awareness of the issues surrounding habitat degradation and biodiversity loss. If people from all over the world travel to a destination in order to see a certain ecosystem, they are much more likely to consider how their everyday actions might affect that environment. For example, after exploring the dense forests of Indonesia and learning about the threats to global biodiversity, one is much more likely to be conscious of their palm oil consumption.

Conservation tourism has many benefits for different parties, but there are things to check to ensure your tourism is beneficial rather than exploitative. Check out our blog post for more tips to be an ethical traveler.

Blog written by Gabby Whittaker and Kevin Lewicki

How to Improve Your Destination Brand

Written by Lena Eckert on July 11, 2021. Posted in Blog.

A brand is more than just a logo

To start things off, first, it is important to understand what is a brand, what is the purpose of destination branding and how is it different from destination marketing. A brand is more than just a logo, a color and a slogan. Your destination brand is a reflection of your culture and its people, history and heritage, traditional and modern ways of living, built and natural environments wrapped by the totality of perceptions, feelings and thoughts that your guests have about your destination. It is the foundation of your marketing strategy and the most important marketing tool. Learn what is takes to improve your destination brand.

Destination Branding, commonly referred to as place branding, is thus the process of identifying, crafting and nurturing the unique identity of a destination, building a story around the key elements, values and the destination proposition, orchestrating consistent messaging that highlights just that and, ultimately, forming a reputation in the eyes of its visitors. In other words, destination branding is all about who you are. It is the focal part of destination marketing that, in turn, defines how you communicate and deliver your messaging to the right audiences.

Tourism Northern Ireland – Winner of The 2020 Travel Marketing Awards, Category Destination Brand of the Decade, image courtesy of Monotype.

‘Northern Ireland – Embrace a Giant Spirit’ brand focusing on experiences, heritage and belonging, courtesy of Monotype and Genesis.

Brand Purpose for Visit Estonia, courtesy of Lantern. Estonia’s Repositioning and rebranding strategy focuses on telling a story about a lost paradise and an experience-first destinations that allow travellers to make the most of their time.

Before the global pandemic pulled the carpet under our feet, tourism was one of the largest and fastest growing economic sectors, according to UNWTO. While the global economy and the tourism sector recovers, eager travellers are anxiously waiting for their turn to travel again. Though it may still be unclear what exactly will the tourism arena look like after recovery and when that may take place, industry experts say the tourism sector will be the last to recover.

Not only are thousands of destinations worldwide planning and preparing for reopening, new destinations are created every year joining the competition for the valuable tourist dollars. In such a saturated marketplace, carefully crafting a brand story that will resonate with the key audiences is what will allow your destination to stand out. Differentiation is the ultimate objective of branding. Regardless of geographical location or size, effective destination branding that stands the test of time while remaining competitive, dynamic, innovative and agile to ever evolving industry trends and consumer behaviours, is what holds the key to successful destination marketing and tourism growth.

How to brand your destination successfully

Instead of replicating the success of one’s competitors or trying to create something entirely new, building your destination brand should focus on the uniqueness of the place and its surroundings. Consequently, the first step to building a destination brand, according to the World Tourism Organization and European Travel Commission, should be an audit of the destination, the emotions and the perceptions associated with it. Followed by that, it is important to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of the destination as well as identify your target market. Understanding your target audience will allow for you to effectively wrap and deliver your destination’s unique selling point. A thorough competitor analysis should be carried out to identify a possible market gap and successfully position and improve your destination brand.

It is important to mention that stakeholder involvement is an integral part of destination brand development and branding process. A brand’s success is directly linked to the acceptance and support from local residents, local businesses and the government. You should consider all these entities as brand ambassadors that will directly impact the perception of your destination in the visitor’s eyes. After completing an inclusive and comprehensive destination audit, you’re off to a great start to build your destination brand.

Practical tools for destination branding

Practical tools, such as the brand pyramid, can help in defining the destination and brand personality by considering all core components of your destination. The foundation of your brand lies in the rational attributes, the characteristics of a destination and its tourism offer, i.e. the activities, the landscape or the weather. Next, consider the emotional benefits and think about how the visitors feel about the destination and what feelings they take away from their visit. The third layer of the pyramid is the brand personality, the main characteristics and attributes of the brand, including the question of how the brand should be perceived and described by the audience. Is your destination calm, and charmingly intimate or is it wild, vast and rough? Perhaps it is a combination of the two? Furthermore, the brand positioning describes the uniqueness of your brand, led by the question of what makes the destination stand out from their competitors. Finally, the very top of the brand pyramid is the brand essence, the very heart of your brand and what wraps all other components and makes them into one.

After identifying all the components of your unique destination brand, it is time to build an engaging, empowering and passionate brand story that will resonate with locals and visitors alike. Your story will be the backbone of your marketing strategy and integrated marketing communications. Choosing the right visual tools and communication mediums will be essential to improve your destination brand. This means effectively and consistently communicating your brand promise, reaching the right audiences, building relationships based on trust and growing your destination popularity.

Solimar acknowledges the importance of destination branding and provides more insights about this topic within the Destination Management Organisation (DMO) development course, which provides a deeper dive into the intrinsic components of destination planning, development, branding and marketing.

WE DEVELOP, MANAGE, AND MARKET SUSTAINABLE TOURISM DESTINATIONS

Category: Blog