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What DMOs Can Do to Promote Tourism for Local Travelers
The new reality imposed by the pandemic has lead to a change in travel habits. As you may know, travelers are giving up on overseas trips to rediscover local gems.
A consequence of this change in habit is that destinations have adapted their marketing strategies to the new reality, which means that everything they had planned for 2020 is no longer valid. Now it is more important to promote local attractions in order to catch the locals’ attention.
As part of an interview for the travel industry news website Skift, Dan Holowack (co-founder and CEO at CrowdRiff) has pointed out interesting initiatives that DMOs are working on since they pivoted their strategies to locals.
Those initiatives are listed below so you can get inspired when planning your own marketing strategy to attract locals.
What? Share official health and safety messaging on social media.
Why? This creates brand awareness and generates engagement among locals who are searching for such information.
What? Promote staycations by showing deals and user-generated content for local attractions on your website.
Why? Having all that information in one place inspires locals at the same they have all the necessary data to contact the experience provider.
What? Spread uplifting local news on the destination’s blog.
Why? This will bring positivity to the locals and improve your destination image among potential travelers.
What? Promote important and traditional events for your community.
Why? Big events are an important source of income for destinations and they can be successful by following safety and health rules.
What? Run a safety pledge campaign that engages locals and businesses.
Why? This way the responsibility of the safety is shared amongst the community and locals will be more confident in experiencing local attractions.
What? Promote visuals of locals wearing masks.
Why? Promoting such content in your virtual spaces is a good way to normalize the idea of wearing masks in risk places, improving the safety of your destination.
Adopting one or multiple of these ideas is a good way to start your 2020/2021 marketing campaign.
Here at Orioly, we have been working closely with DMOs to assist destinations in attracting more tourists, making them stay longer, and generating more revenue for local businesses.
Check our destinations page if you want to learn more about smart tourism and work with us to connect your tourism ecosystem.
