Preparing for the New Economy: Advertising Strategies and Change in Destination Marketing Organizations

TLDR

Information technology, especially the Web, has transformed tourism, yet many destination marketing organizations struggle to keep pace with evolving technologies, innovative advertising, shifting consumer markets, and heightened global competition. The National Laboratory for Tourism and eCommerce convened a workshop to identify effective Internet advertising strategies for destination marketing organizations. The study found that information technology has fundamentally altered communication assumptions, prompting destination marketing organizations to rethink partners, competitors, and collaborative networks, and that success in the new economy hinges more on strategic change than on technology alone.

Abstract

Information technology, especially the World Wide Web, has had a tremendous impact on the tourism industry over the past years. It is difficult for most destination marketing organizations, however, to keep pace with the evolution of new technologies, the emergence of innovative advertising strategies, the changes in the consumer market, and the growing competition due to increasing globalization. The National Laboratory for Tourism and eCommerce organized a workshop in an effort to identify effective strategies for tourism advertising on the Internet. The results indicated that information technology has led to a number of profound changes in the assumptions underlying communication strategies. It was concluded that the change occurring in the new economy involves a rethinking of who partners and competitors are and how networks with other organizations can increase organizational capacity to learn. Thus, it is argued that success of destination marketing organizations in the new economy is more about change in approach than technology itself.