Marketing and Managing Tourism Destinations

My association and experiences with destination marketing and destination management span four decades, and I have been very fortunate to have been involved with these two topics at various levels across several continents as a marketer, consultant, teacher and trainer. In my numerous journeys around the world, I have learned from and been inspired by many great professionals.

I have always taught my students to be generous in sharing the credit with others and not to take credit from others when you do not deserve it. To be true to my own teaching and advising, the assistance of many other people is hereby acknowledged.

The idea for writing this book started many years ago when I was providing consulting advice for the Canadian Government Office of Tourism (now Destination Canada) and the Ontario Ministry of Industry and Tourism (now Tourism, Culture and Sport). These bodies have undergone many name changes since then, but at that time we would not have called them destination management organizations, or DMOs. This was my apprenticeship period in destination management when I learned most about destination planning, research, product development, professional development and training. Much was accomplished in that time, and I had the privilege to work with some highly professional clients and mentors, including George Kibedi, Wayne Fergusson and Bob Brock. It was also then that I had the pleasure of cooperating on tourism planning projects with Anna Pollock, who has gone on to become one of the great visionaries in destination management.

After setting up the Economic Planning Group of Canada with Gordon Phillips, David Hall and Don Anderson, I had the pleasure of participating in many more DMO projects, particularly in Ontario and the Maritime and Western Provinces.

I left Ottawa and EPG with a suitcase full of consulting reports and one great book – The Tourism System – co-authored with Robert Christie Mill, who was at our alma mater, Michigan State University, at that time. Bob is a brilliant writer and teacher as well as being a fellow Scot and graduate of the University of Strathclyde’s Scottish Hotel School. The Tourism System has gone on to become a classic text in tourism and is now in its eighth edition.

After moving to Purdue University from Canada, several new avenues in destination management and destination marketing opened to me. The first one was with the UN World Tourism Organization in Madrid, and this opportunity took me to many parts of the world. There were several individuals who helped me on the way to this great opportunity, and they include Carson (Kit) Jenkins of Strathclyde University in Glasgow and Don Hawkins of George Washington University. Dr. Harsha Varma at UNWTO was a valuable colleague through these years when I gained more practical experience in South and Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, Middle East and Africa.

The second opportunity came with my continuing close working partnership with Don Anderson, who had moved to work with the University of Calgary after his successful experiences with the Calgary Convention and Tourist Bureau (now Tourism Calgary) and World Expo 1986 in Vancouver. Don is truly one of the world’s greatest visionaries with respect to destination management and particularly about the advancement of the professional field. Together we worked with many great people in developing, implementing and fine-tuning the Certified Destination Management Executive (CDME) programme with the support of Destinations International. These people included Professors J. R. Brent Ritchie, Geoff Crouch and Lorn Sheehan at the outset. During the teaching of many core and elective courses, I got to know many wonderful and talented DMO executives who added to my knowledge of the profession. They included Rick Hughes, Joe McGrath, Elaine McLaughlin, Jim Wood, Teresa McKee Anderson, Valerie Pena, Jo Wade, Amy Vaughan, Doug Harman, Bill Talbert, Matt Carter, Maura Gast and many other truly talented DMO professionals.

The third opportunity that came my way was to go to Australia and work with Philip Pearce at James Cook University. During that time, we were fortunate to provide market research and segmentation analysis support to the Queensland Tourist and Travel Corporation (now Tourism & Events Queensland) and many other DMOs within the state. I need to thank Jonathon Day, then with QTTC and now with Purdue University, for his help in arranging this experience for me in Queensland.

A fourth opportunity that came my way was the teaching in Italy and AILUN in Sardinia and thereafter at IULM in Milan. In working with Manuela DeCarlo, Francesca d’Angella and Ruggero Sainaghi at IULM and Professor Giulio Bolacchi at AILUN, I learned much about destination marketing and management in Italy and other parts of Europe.

While at Purdue, I was also able to work with Joe O’Leary and many talented graduate students of his and my own. This was an exciting time, and we conducted many research studies on tourism consumer behaviour, market segmentation analysis, special-interest travel and various other topics.

My latest adventure has taken me to the People’s Republic of China, where I have conducted many marketing and consulting projects for DMOs through Belle Tourism International Consulting (BTI) at the provincial and city levels. Although at an early infancy level in China, there are many highly skilled and creative professionals in destination marketing and management, and it has been my honour to work with some of them, including Guo Minwen, Chen Meihong, Wu Bihu and Ivan Xu. I am also grateful for several opportunities that have been provided for me by PATA and especially to participate in the PATA Macao Task Force, which produced the report Macao Tourism Positioning: Towards a World Centre of Tourism and Leisure. It was a pleasure to work with the director of the Macao Government Office of Tourism, Joao Costa Antunes, and his talented management team and my Task Force colleagues, Andrew Drysdale, Jon Hutchison, Sue Warren, Stewart Moore and Lindsay Turner.

It has also been a distinct privilege for me to work in Indonesia on destination marketing and management and in training related to the introduction of a new nationwide system of DMOs. Spanning the past 10 years, it has been my pleasure to work with Wiendu Nuryanti, David Sanders, Frans Teguh, Syamsul Lussa and several others to advance destination marketing in Indonesia. The opportunity to work with Swisscontact to develop professional and higher education programmes in destination management was another fantastic opportunity in Indonesia. Along with Ruedi Nuetzi, Ayu Masita and Mercya Susanto, in partnership with great people at STP Bandung (including Anang Sutono, Wisnu Rahtomo, Faisal Puksi, Haryadi Darmawan, Mita Marsongko and others) and STP Bali (Ngurah Byomantara, Yusni Wiarti, Eka Mahadewi, Micke Anggraini, Andre Hanoo, Lily Dianasari, Made Tirtawati and others), we developed some of the best and most comprehensive curricula and training materials for destination management.

My latest adventures back to the United Kingdom and the University of Greenwich, and to Taiwan at the National Kaohsiung University of Hospitality and Tourism Management are further adding to my knowledge and understanding of destination management, as is my co-editorship of the International Journal of Tourism Cities with Dr. J. Andres Coca-Stefaniak. My re-learning about destination management in the United Kingdom is being assisted by many great people, including Andres, Nikki MacLeod, James Kennell, Jithendran Kokkranikal, Samantha Chaperon, Ray Powell, Sven Kuenzel, Ewa Krolikowska-Adamczyk, Elizabeth Booth, Michael De Domenici and others at the University of Greenwich.

Alastair M. Morrison, May 19, 2018