Sustainable community tourism as a disruptive innovation

Guerrilla tactics may deliver powerful marketing method for sustainable tourism

As tourism has grown and become a large-scale commercial activity, the experience has been commoditized and the key selling feature has become price. More and more  "Never mind the quality, feel the width" characterizes its sales promotion.

The tourist’s relationship with the destination has become one of ‘Wham bang thank you maam’.

And the bigger the industry becomes and the more tourists hit destinations, the more tourism becomes unfulfilling both for destination populations who feel they are being used and for tourists who often get a really superficial experience.

But now a revolution has begun in the tourism industry. Host communities, who have largely been excluded from the tourism sales and management process but are forced to share their facilities are saying "why" and "what are we getting out of it": Tourists are now recognizing that often they are part of a culture clash and they are demanding better and more harmonious experiences: travel marketing companies are seeking to fulfil those needs at a minimum cost.

Even though tourism is a dramatically growing industry, its benefits are not widely spread. They are currently focused on popular front-line destinations, largely because product-delivery networks such as tour operators and internet global distribution organizations depend on global travel entities such as big hotel brands for their product. Thereby, tourism flows often bypass destinations who could really benefit from tourism.

As tourism becomes a major item of world trade – the tourism economy this year alone is set to hit some 5 trillion dollars which could provide a lot of good things including employment and poverty eradication – destinations are recognizing that they could claim and use a slice of the cake and to obtain real benefits they, rather than outside entities, need to be in charge of the process.

After all, it is destinations that actually ‘OWN’ the tourism product. Other tourism entities are merely intermediaries. Tourism could be very much more worthwhile and certainly more fulfilling for both tourists and destinations. This fact by now is pretty well-known, but how to get to the dream from the current banal reality.

Providentially, the current situation provides an ideal philosophical and practical background for the emergence of sustainable tourism, a healthier more rewarding form of tourism, as a disruptive innovation, feeding off the unmet needs and aspirations of current tourists – and of the destinations too.

As Mariette du Toit Helmbold of Cape Town Tourism said recently "We want a love affair with our visitors not one night stands" and she’s certainly on the right lines, more than most Cape Town Tourism has used its tourism opportunity to its community’s advantage.

The fact is that any healthy and thriving tourism initiative would certainly be based on a fulfilling relationship between tourists and hosts. So how to go about this and what has sustainable tourism marketing got to do with it?

First of all, destinations need to decide a fundamental question. Do they want to have a real relationship with their tourists or do they regard them as a cash crop? There are ways to manage both.

How to combine sustainability, tourism and marketing in a truly powerful triumvirate for the benefit of communities?

Simple. It starts with a VISION – a vision holistic in delivery, and Zen in depth of tourism experience: A simple integral all-embracing virtuous circle informed by an honest local inventory; an assessment of needs; an appreciation of current practice; and the identification of geographic, socio-economic and interest markets.

Successful sustainable tourism creation and marketing generally appears to follow a relatively simple procedure:

• Firstly a vision for destination tourism is created by co-operation of committed local stakeholders – from a variety of local sectors – as a result of examining other destinations’ efforts and incorporating an inventory of local assets and needs.
• Secondly the vision is grounded and brought into practice, encapsulated by the procedure agreements, the business plan and the marketing material and initiatives.
• Because the vision is strong, by now a core group of evangelists have been attracted, energized, and spread the word.
• Thirdly, guests visit, their experiences enhanced by a true and powerful welcome and a quality of interpretation and hospitality that can only come as a result of deep destination knowledge and understanding.

Destination tourism providers are rewarded both in financial and the practical satisfaction of delivering a unique and authentic experience of their destination that will, in turn create committed destination evangelists who will add to the deep sustainability of the tourism offer.

Valere Tjolle

Excerpted from the upcoming Sustainable Tourism Marketing Guide. To obtain a pre-publication review copy of the guide at a 50% discount (£50 instead of £100) Get it HERE

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