What Destination Stewardship Means for Your City
The pandemic has had a profound impact on our economy and communities. Organizations while responding to the pandemic’s challenges have made fundamental changes to how they approach business. Before Covid, customers were seen as inputs in a business model. Communities were the “marketplace” full of opportunities to “leverage”. Corporate giving was the “nice to do” if it offered PR value.
Now, everything has changed. The pandemic has reminded us that we are safer, healthier, and happier when we work together to nurture our communities.
The destination marketing space has learned this lesson the tough way but tough times inspire innovative insights.
Tourism has an equity problem.
While people love to travel, we are seeing signs that destination residents feel exploited. Residents deliver the tours, cook and serve the food, entertain at attractions and drive vacationers from spot to spot at all hours. Yet, residents are finding it harder to start businesses of their own, preserve green spaces from overuse, or nurture cultural spaces that aren’t housed in a museum.
New businesses watch in frustration as set-and-forget destination marketing campaigns funnel tourists to established attractions and retailers. In major cities, BIPOC businesses don’t have access to the capital, marketing, and media relations resources offered to established tourism players.
The result is predictable — the old guard gets more resources every year while local businesses are overlooked and under-resourced.
“Destination Marketing” is exacerbating the problem.
Simply marketing the destination without understanding how tourism impacts the local community creates an exploitive relationship that erodes trust with residents. The pandemic and social justice protests have shown the necessity of giving residents several seats at the table.
In fact, for destination marketers, collaborative partnerships with community leaders and a focus on the wellbeing of residents are vital for success. This new approach focuses on Destination Stewardship versus destination marketing.
Destination Stewardship will look different for every city.
Destination Stewardship starts with understanding the role residents play in creating experiences and delivering the services that tourists enjoy. With this understanding comes a commitment to using tourism revenue to build and enhance the community. Destination stewards look for partnerships that put community leaders, influencers, and entrepreneurs at the center of creating and promoting destination experiences.
In Detroit, we serve our community by promoting and sustaining our cultural, economic, and environmental resources. We call our approach “integrated sustainability” because it weaves together our focus on environmental respect, economic growth, and cultural celebration.
We’ve partnered with metro Detroit leaders to discover unique stories, services, and experiences that need resources and visibility. Our collaboration has revealed authentic experiences that our core traveling audience craves. More importantly, our goal of sustaining and protecting our community has attracted travelers and organizations who care about sustainable travel.
Stewardship also looks different for large cities. For example, hiking destinations are learning that their marketing is overloading popular trails. In their case, they are actively trying to decrease traffic on these trails.
We have trails in Detroit too. These trails are well-worn routes connecting key points in the city. Businesses and attractions that lie on these trails benefit the most. Our Integrated Sustainability approach asks the question, “how can we equitably spread retail traffic among all Detroit businesses?” As a result, we are developing shopping, dining, and attraction itineraries that encourage visitors to explore experiences off the beaten path.
Not Just a Marketing Campaign
It's seductive to turn Destination Stewardship into a slick marketing campaign. It has a nice, wholesome, ring to it and promises some good community goodwill too. But inauthentic attempts at building community relationships will fail. To succeed, destination stewardship has to become the vision and core objective of the organization. The approach also needs the buy-in of all stakeholders to have the staying power required to make an impact at the community level.
At Visit Detroit, important stakeholders have collaborated to create integrated sustainability initiatives geared toward three audiences: leisure travelers, meeting and event planners, and businesses that have joined us as members. We’re reaching and educating this audience with a mixture of tactics including content development, public relations, digital advertising, and social media. These efforts are ongoing, comprehensive, and considered to be multi-year initiatives.
We’re proud of the first steps we are taking toward Destination Stewardship in Detroit. Even though we’ve just started, we’re already seeing the benefits of this holistic approach. We hope that other cities explore how Destination Stewardship applies to their communities. It’s a win/win that will offer rewards for decades.
Learn more about Detroit’s approach to Integrated Sustainability.
