Time for Destination Marketing Management Organisations?

The Destination Marketing Organisations (DMOs) are facing new challenges. The need to strategize their future and their own existence is real. During the last European Cities Marketing meeting in Gdansk, a record number of 170 delegates from European cities, together with industry thought leaders, shared ideas and insights on how to create best value for the city, the industry partners and the visitors.

The future of the DMO
Keynote speaker, Frank Cuypers, Senior Strategist at DestinationThink.com began with fundamental questions and statements: “Marketing is about value. Why do cities want visitors? Because they create economic value that creates jobs. It is not just about money, but about quality of life. How to add value for your people and your visitors? Why is there (still) too many concern about volume? We forget that the tourist can also add value to your destination. Tourism is about emotions and you remember your experiences when you are sensitively touched.”
Roger Carter, CEO of TEAM Tourism Consulting and also keynote speaker shared his vision of DMOs as key organisations within their own field: “leaders of the destination community, guardian of strategic direction and catalyst of competitiveness.”
Tackling the future of the DMO, Cuypers added: “There is hope if DMOs find and/or rethink their scope. Destination promotion happens through destination stories told by many. Destination stories are a direct result of the destination experience.” He then concluded: “DMOs should undercover their place DNA (climate, environment, economy, history, people, culture, geography), and then brand their destination accordingly. Your destination’s DNA combined with the projection of your destination gives what is perceived by potential travellers.”

Time for Destination Marketing Management Organisations?
Keynote speaker Chris Fair, President of Resonance Consultancy advocated the attendees from 65 different cities to turn into DMMOs (Destination Marketing Management Organisations) to keep up with the tourism trends.
“The goals that DMOs have historically pursued now threaten their future relevance and even existence. As tourism continues to grow, DMOs must shift resources from marketing to management in order to balance the interests and benefits of tourism with those of the local communities they serve.” said Fair, who also continued: “As locals, visitors and digital channels become the primary means of place based communication, DMOs must shift from traditional marketing to management to promote their destination.”
Indeed, DMOs are the only organisations within a city structure that have the capabilities, capacities and funding to focus on developing and managing the experiential quality of a city. With this in mind, Chris Fair emphasised the key steps that DMOs should follow to become DMMOs. First, there is a need to engage the community in the planning process, then to distribute the impact and benefits of tourism to the wider region, to develop quality of life enhancing product and program afterwards, to organise to support and develop initiatives, and finally to manage and monitor destination experience.

The future is digital
Nick Hall & Emil Spangenberg pushed ECM members to the wall to redefine their biggest challenges but also to indentify solutions by asking themselves the right questions. With just 20 minutes to define four key challenges, and 20 minutes to solve four set by others, the session saw a mix of CEOs, Research, Marketing and Digital Directors getting to work on the most significant topics related to Leadership and Digital First as well as Content and Creativity. These priorities were previously identified in the #DTTT’s Transformation Research Report ran in partnership with ECM. More can be find on: http://thinkdigital.travel/opinion/32_dmo_challenges

Meet. Share. Grow.
Eight member cities (Aalborg, Amsterdam, Brussels, Copenhagen, Dublin, Ghent, Paris and Tel Aviv) as well as two countries (Germany and Poland) highlighted their innovative approaches in Presentations, City Showcases and Inspiration Lounges. From the implementation of new strategies to technological innovation, through value creation and the impact of terrorism, attendees were offered many chances of learning from their peers.

Speaking about the meeting, Ignasi de Delàs, European Cities Marketing’s President, said: “As always, exchanges between members were at the heart of this European Cities Marketing Spring Meeting in Gdansk. Together, we searched for new models and modes for the future of the DMOs and I’m pretty sure everyone went back home with new ideas and challenges. The most significant one to me was the Destination Marketing Management Organisations (DMMOs) model that really emphasizes the importance for DMOs to shift from traditional marketing to management to promote their destination.”

Another key moment of the ECM Spring Meeting was Lech Wałęsa (former President of Poland and co-founder of the “Solidarity” movement that began the dismantling of the old communist Poland in the summer of 1980) welcoming the seminar attendees with a very emotional speech. Everyone felt honoured to meet and listen to such a legendary leader.

The seminar was coordinated by Peter Rømer Hansen, Founder and CEO of Rømer Agency and moderated by Philippe Vignon, CEO of Geneva Tourism & Conventions.

In partnership with TOPOSOPHY, ECM will issue a report including recommendations on the future of City Marketing and a set of city case studies, to be launched before ECM International Conference in Dubrovnik, May 31-June 3, 2017.

For this first ECM International Conference, the focus will be on “The New Normal: DistURBANce in Travel”. More information and registration will be available soon on www.europeancitiesmarketing.com

**ENDS**

European Cities Marketing is a non-profit organisation improving the competitiveness and performance of leading cities of Europe by providing a platform for convention, leisure and city marketing professionals to exchange knowledge, best practice and widen their network to build new business. European Cities Marketing is promoting and linking the interests of members from more than 100 major cities in 36 countries.

Contact information
Flavie Baudot, press@europeancitiesmarketing.com, +33 380 56 02 00