Tourism tomorrow: Turning crisis into opportunity
COVID-19 is a challenge for tourist destinations, but it is also a rare opportunity for them to rethink who they are and what they have to offer. We take a look at how strategy and storytelling can help entice the right kind of visitor back.
As the borders begin to reopen, destinations are understandably offering short-term incentives to bring people back. In Cancun and Sicily this is half-price flights and accommodation. On Madeira and in Iceland you can get free coronavirus tests, while in Cyprus accommodation, food, and medicine costs will be covered for any tourist who gets the virus. Uzbekistan is taking a more direct approach: contract the virus there and they’ll hand you a straight $3,000.
However, these promotions can only ever be short-term fixes. We need to look beyond the immediate impetus to bring in cash, and think through how we can build a long-term, sustainable future. This is a fleeting moment of pause and reflection, a chance for destinations around the world to focus on what they want to stand for and who they want to attract.
From defining and articulating a distinct voice and image for the entire European travel industry to creating a new brand for London’s Leicester Square, we’ve been helping places shape their identities and reach new audiences for many years. We think there are four key questions destinations need to ask themselves right now if they’re going to reshape their brands for our post-COVID future.
Question 1:
What are travellers looking for right now?
Where once we might have been drawn to the buzzing pavements of megacities like Tokyo and New York, or the pulsing nightlife of places like Amsterdam and Bangkok, now and for the foreseeable future most people will probably value more space. People may look for destinations with lower environmental impact – more sustainable tourism. Or infrastructure that demands less touch. Estonia, for example, is one of most digitally advanced societies in the world with 98% of its government delivered digitally. There is a real opportunity for it to build on this as a touch-free destination.
There are many other trends taking place in tourism to consider. Like people travelling to second and third tier cities - Valencia not Madrid, Porto, not Lisbon, Hamburg not Berlin. Or like the enthusiasm for connecting with local people. It remains vital to build a strategy that considers these longer term shifts in attitudes.
Question 2:
What sort of visitor do we want to attract?
Places gain reputations over time and often without any forethought or planning. While people tend to visit Vienna for its culture, Prague has long had a reputation as a late-night party venue. There’s no real reason this happened but the Prague 1.3m residents have long been unhappy with a situation that sees six times that number arriving every year for an average visit of 2.3 days of noisy revelry.
It’s little surprise that its tourist board has already announced that it is looking to attract a different type of visitor. This is a rare opportunity to reshape its image so it attracts people who might enjoy the architecture more than the pilsner.
It may be that some places see this happening and see an opportunity to step into that market. It may be that places overwhelmed with winter sports enthusiasts reshape their identities around summer activities. Or that cities famed for culture start pointing to their beautiful beaches.
Whatever it is that a destination wants to do, now is the time for it to model its ideal visitor and work out the way to attract them. More than anything avoid the temptation to speak to everyone. You’ll end up appealing to no one. Pinpoint your audience and show them why they have to visit you.
Question 3:
What is our truth?
Could we have rebranded Leicester Square → as London’s premium district? We could certainly have tried, but as soon as anyone walked into the area they’d have seen the dazzling lights, the hustling street performers, and the vast silver screens, and they’d have known it’s not – it’s the home of entertainment. Destination branding is about shifting perceptions but it must always be grounded in reality. Think about who you want to attract and what they might want from your area, but also take time to explore your area’s past and its present, its buildings and its places, its stories and its secrets – it’s in those truths that you will find your most valuable material.
Utah ski resort, Snowbird, did this brilliantly with its One Star campaign. Long known as a tough place to ski or board, it sifted through all the one-star reviews finding ones where people complained about it being too hard, and then used them in an ad campaign juxtaposing those words with shots of vertiginous vistas and knee-deep-in-powder skiers. It was a top thread on Reddit for weeks.
Question 4:
What is the experience we offer?
Finally, remember that people don’t want to see or hear about mountains, galleries or remote villages. They want to know what it feels like to carve through fresh snow, to see a Velasquez for the first time, or to drink tea with an old man who speaks no English. Give them that.
Think your story through. Work on your tone of voice. Draw out the emotional benefits – what does it feel like to visit your destination? If you can capture this then you will begin to genuinely inspire people to visit you.
It’s time to be brave
Nothing like this has ever happened before. Global travel halted virtually overnight, and 2020 will be a devastating year for those places who rely on it. But today we need to be brave. We need to to seize the opportunity to imagine the future we want and act now to start creating it.
If we get that right then these long months of empty cities and silent streets will not have been entirely wasted.