Factors Influencing Destination Management and Marketing
Destination management refers to the process of co-ordinated activities of a destination that includes the visitor’s experience, site visits, amenities, local businesses, the environment of the destination, needs of the visitor, and local residents. The main focus of destination management is to ensure a high quality experience to the visitor. It also helps in maximizing the tourism benefits to the particular destination. Developing a destination management plan requires a comprehensive research of the destination that involves its markets, unique attributes, organization’s capacity, regulations of the destination, etc. It also involves coordination with local tourism organizations, local government, tourism boards, and tourism operators.
There is a huge difference between the anticipated benefits, expectations, needs of the visitor from a destination, hence not one particular approach suits all destination management.
Destination management manages and handles the travel of the visitors to a particular destination which involves their visit to major attractions, providing the visitors with all necessary amenities and access, managing the time they have for their travel to the destination, managing the prices that the visitors need to pay, etc. The Destination Management Organizations end to end manage and coordinate the entire travel plan through their marketing activities and then authentic delivery of the sold plan when the visitor reaches the destination to ensure that the visitor gets a memorable and pleasant experience from the visit (Miami Business, 2018).
The destination considered in this project is Miami which is the major city of Florida. Miami is a major tourist destination worldwide. The main factors of Miami being popular among the tourists are its sandy beaches and its incredible weather that remains pleasant all around the year.
The entire city of Miami is full of attractions for the travellers who visit South Florida. The visitors frequently visit the city and continue to come back to the city in different seasons. The city offers events at the Marlin’s Park, provide tasteful experience with the divine Latin cuisine, experience of art and architecture at the unique street art in the Wynwood district. Miami also celebrates various annual festivals like the Miami Carnival, the Art Basel, Miami’s ultra-music festival, and other cultural heritage festivals of Miami. Other than these, the city also holds many family friendly options that are very lucrative and attractive for families who plan to visit Miami. These destination plans are inclusive of museums in the city, the zoo, and the city’s sea aquarium.
Miami: An Overview
This destination management plan focusses on the Miami city in Florida, USA and hence the DMO’s here in Miami are Miami city, Florida, and The United States of America. All these DMOs should work collaboratively in order to encourage tourism as well as to protect the environment and the residents of Miami. Having said that, it is required by these DMOs to work with social responsibility, sustainability and stewardship and also be responsible towards the local taxpayers, the destination’s government and the tourism industry.
A number of factors influence destination management, marketing, needs and wants of the consumers, the destination’s security and traveller’s safety, the pictures and images used to share the information with various travellers, and the recent development has been the virtual reality tours of the particular destination before the visitors travel, and the brief description of the infrastructure and accommodation of the planned destination. Miami is a mosaic of different cultures that is exhibited through the city’s food, art, music, and various other experiences.
Miami has a lot to offer to its visitors and has numerous attractions for its clientele. This destination is not just attractive to the tourists but also to the business travellers. The management and marketing of this destination is affected by the type of tourism, and Miami is a destination that is a mix of multiple prices tourism as well as a budget friendly tourist location that holds perspectives about a great holiday destination. Different types of people visit Miami and have different needs for their vacation as these people are either a group of friends or solo travellers, or a family with kids, or family with specific health needs. Hence their idea of the vacation is also different that is, some of them will want to have a beach destination in their travel, and some will need a vacation with culture and art, and might want to just relax during their vacation and do shopping and eat out. Considering all these factors, Miami is an ideal destination as the city holds a lot for the travellers, it has large white sand beaches, city centre outlets for shopping with multiple restaurants offering different cuisines, various cultural activities, accommodation for every budget including luxurious hotels and spas, a happening night life, and a historic neighbourhood with Little Havana. Miami offers all these along with a pleasant weather all around the year which makes the travel experience more worthwhile for the travellers.
Attractions of Miami
Culture – The Wynwood walls park is Miami’s international art murals which is an outdoor art exhibition on 80,000 square feet of wall in an open green space that features fifty artists from sixteen different countries. It is a major attraction for art lovers and culture seekers. People who visit this place also visit its neighbourhood “Museum of the Streets”.
Vernacular Site – This site is referred to as a Cuban neighbourhood in the tourist literature. It is the area with traditions and historic features and a Little Havana. The Little Havana is an ethnic combination of Latin America and Cuba (EcoAdventures, 2018).
Recreation including Beaches, sightseeing tours – Maximum tourists who travel to Miami on vacation go there for a dip in the sun and sand. The city’s Miami Beach and the South beach are the most popular beaches among the travellers. The South Beach gains all the attention for its sandy playgrounds. Not just the beaches of Miami but the city and the surrounding area also have a lot to offer to the visitors.
Recently the Miami’s cultural enclaves are also explored a lot by travellers, these cultural enclaves include the Little Havana, Little Haiti, and the Hialeah. The increase in visitors wanting to engage with the local community has popularized the Miami’s cultural community tours as well
Crandon Park – The shoreline of Miami offers funky Lummus to the Crandon Park which is another attraction point for the family friendly travellers. It attracts local people who look for a break from the urban rush and from the large number of travellers.
Eco-sites: Miami also offers eco adventure tours to make the travellers connect with the environment, these tours consist of biking along the key Biscayne, hiking, kayaking and snorkelling in the Biscayne Bay (Granfield, 2015).
A large number of people kayak to the sandbar off K Biscayne. The location is surrounded by old mangrove reef look like Mars and paradise. The travellers also get to learn about and see the colourful fishes, the porcupine like sea urchins, the hermit crab, and other sea creatures that mostly live along the mangrove roots. The kayak tour also makes the visitors learn about the natural habitats and ecological landmarks of South Florida
Miami is the biggest source of tourism in Florida. The travellers visiting the city need to experience more than the superficial tourist activities and hence they look for an in depth understanding of the place, they want to experience the authentic local lifestyle of people, their customs, and their culture. If the DMOs sell the destination as a product to the travellers then the destination, which is the product here should be worthwhile.
Sustainability in Destination Management
When unique places and experiences are found and they get frequently visited by large number of tourists, the demands of the tourists bring a lot of changes in it and also the destination providers get the economic opportunity. Such places start selling on its own to the consumers and then it manipulates and exploits the local residents and cultures. The authenticity of these locations gets lost by such exposure. But there exists a strategy of co-creation that preserves the authenticity. It helps in creating the value of self-construct of experience by the tourists as they engage with one another, with the DMOs and with the local residents (Authority, 2017).
According to UNESCO World heritage (2017) ‘the perception of the quality of a destination is a serious matter and one that can be helped in part by the products, services and experiences it offers.’ The destination needs to offer authentic experiences which relate directly to the destination itself and so is becomes extremely essential to use the local culture, environment and local community.
Tourism is the number one industry of Greater Miami. A big amount of taxes gets collected through it which then is reinvested various projects of the city and the state. It is agreed fact that tourism widely impacts the destination’s economy, but also brings huge changes in the political and cultural landscape of the destination.
People who visit Miami have a lot to see and do with the creation of new elements and the local community helps the visitors gain and collect different experiences. The negative issue is that the popularity of a destination reduces the uniqueness and negatively impacts the local community.
Other positive dynamics are the transformation that tourism brings to the surroundings may be through the labelling of spaces as special or through crafting of narratives near the labelled spaces. All such transformations are very soothing to the eyes and also gains appreciation from the local residents and the local people get a feeling of ethnic pride (Nebhrajani, 2015).
The exposure of a place to the outside eyes, leads the local officials wanting to ensure the safety and resourcefulness of the areas. Many a time’s tourism also creates issues of gentrification. The increase in frequent visits of visitors also leads to various improvements, and increase in the property values.
Sustainability forms a critical concept in the practices of tourism development. It is difficult to state that a tourist destination can be sustainable as the visitors travelling to a destination impacts the infrastructure, the resources like water, energy and create a lot of waste. Hence, as Miami is a highly popular travel destination for people, it needs to be careful not to become a ‘trade-off-tourism’ destination where a trade-off occurs between the rapid economic growth of hotels and the attractions for tourist visitors and the quality of the environment and culture offerings. The sustainable tourism goals involve a few dimensions like, economic, environmental, social and cultural factors, and along with that, the visitor experience needs to be taken into account for motivating the visitors to visit the city (Clement, 2015).
Authenticity in Destination Management
The global tourism is expected to rise as the travellers are expected to prosper and their disposable income would increase. With the increasing tourism across the destinations, every destination will want to have a bigger piece of the pie. Hence, every destination that promotes itself for tourism have strategies to attract more and more people. These destinations also spend tax-payers’ money on working towards attracting visitors and tourists (Hicks, 2017).
All the players involved in the destination management plan should not miss any opportunity of using tourism as a vehicle for the destination’s social, economic and environmental advancement. In order to keep the destination for tourism healthy, it is important that all stakeholders collaborate to catalyse the required changes. The destination management authorities need to figure out a method to efficiently manage the increasing number of travellers, manage their changing expectations, and bringing in improvements and shaping the travellers and host experience positively (Corporation, 2017).
The United States of America has from always been the favourite destination for people from across the globe. But the terrorist attacks, the political unrest and the visa restrictions on entry into the country has changed the perspective and also affected the tourism. Hence, it is important to encourage the customers and their needs to return or to travel to Miami. The strategy to attract people should be to promote the Florida brand by identifying and engaging with the advocates. A competitive advantage can be created for Miami by creating an unforgettable experience for the visitors. This can be done through word of mouth and e-word of mouth or through social media promotions, all such promotional methods are positive result yielding ways to increase the number of tourists (Mullis, 2017).
- As personal recommendations and online reviews serve as the most trusted information, such promotions can be the best way to attain competitive advantage.
- Photos shared by friends and known people on social media serve as great influencers. Talking about influences, people also largely get influenced by peers by listening to their unique experience while they travelled to the destination.
- The Florida State should ensure protection of its visitor volume to achieve its spend baseline as a balance between the two is very essential. Visitors who spend more on the ground help in gaining higher ROI.
- The city can level its visitation in the non-active seasons as well to get a positive economic impact as it will help in getting year round employment for the local people.
- The city should try at building relationships with its travellers at every stage of their lives as the city as well as the Florida state witnesses frequent and several travels from the visitors throughout their lifetime (Hall, 2018).
Conclusion
Tourism involves travel of people from one location to the other, or from one community to the other, maybe for a day, or a week, or for multiple days. Miami is a city with multiple cultures and its community is a mix of cultures, sights and sounds. People visiting Miami seek to get to know its cultural experience. Hence, the best way to get a full experience from a travel is to thoroughly research about the destination, its local culture, economics, and history. Hence, it is important for the DMOs to provide information to the travellers beyond the tourist guidebooks, beyond the online information, and make the travellers dig into the destination’s urban history to prepare them for the trip.
With so large number of people travelling to Miami every year for different reasons and purposes, it is important for the companies, the destination officials, and the travellers to be completely aware of and be held responsible for their impact on the environment of the destination. They all should collaboratively ensure that tourism of Miami should live up to its promise and they should together protect the environment they depend on.
References
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Clement, P., 2015. Defining the future of travel through intelligence: Smart decisions for smart destinations using big data, Available at: https://www.amadeus.com/documents/travel-intelligence/TI-DMO-smart-decisions-for-smart-destinations-using-big-data_WhitePaper.pdf [Accessed 10 May 2018].
Corporation, T, 2017. 2016-17 Visit Florida Marketing Plan, Available at: https://www.visitflorida.org/media/24815/2016-17-marketing-plan.pdf [Accessed 11 May 2018].
Dineen, C., 2017. Florida welcomed nearly 113 million tourists in 2016, Available at: https://www.orlandosentinel.com/travel/os-bz-visit-florida-tourism-2016-story.html [Accessed 10 May 2018].
EcoAdventures, M, 2018. See miami differently. [Online]
Available at: https://www.miamidade.gov/ecoadventures/ [Accessed 14 May 2018].
Granfield, C., 2015. Miami meets nature in Eco Adventure tours that bike, hike, kayak and snorkel, Available at: https://www.miamiherald.com/living/article31088643.html [Accessed 14 May 2018].
Hall, D., 2018. Tourism Destination Management. Journal of Tourism Challenges and Trends, Available at: https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-286254539/tourism-destination-management [Accessed 11 May 2018].
Herrera, C., 2018. Despite Irma, Miami tourism grew in 2017. Will Asia flights make 2018 even better?, Available at: https://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article210209129.html [Accessed 13 May 2018].
Hicks, L., 2017. Tourism’s Shifting Landscape and the Role of the DMO, Available at: https://stampdestinationmarketing.com/insights/future-of-tourism-role-of-the-dmo/ [Accessed 13 May 2018].
Miami Business, 2018. Miami Information, Miami at a Glance. [Online]
Available at: https://www.miami-info.com/Miami_at_a_glance.php [Accessed 13 May 2018].
Mullis, B., 2017. The growth paradox: can tourism ever be sustainable?, Available at: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/08/the-growth-paradox-can-tourism-ever-be-sustainable/ [Accessed 12 May 2018].
Nebhrajani, R., 2015. How tourism impacts Miami, Available at: https://thenewtropic.com/tourism-economy-culture/ [Accessed 12 May 2018].
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