Keep It Simple
If you are beginning to build a destination from the ground up, everyone will tell you, you need a plan. It’s true that any effort works better with a plan, yet plans don’t have to be long or complicated. There are two major things you need to know to develop a destination that is more appealing to visitors and provides more amenities for residents as well: what you have now and who is visiting.
know What You Have
Start by understanding the full complement of tourism assets and resources that already exist in your in your community and the surrounding area. Most comprehensive inventories we’ve been involved in, reveal more assets and resources than were anticipated. This also presents more opportunities. It’s also important to understand the visitors who are now arriving, what attracted them to your community, what they like most about it, the experience they had in the community, and what they find missing.
Know Who Is Visiting
Knowing these things serves as the foundation for destination development. Adding in the missing components serves a way to attract more visitors similar to those already visiting. The next step is to determine the additional visitor markets that can be attracted to your existing assets and resources and what additions to the assets and resources would make it more attractive to those markets as well. We use some innovative, yet simple methods to gain this information directly from those involved.
fill the gaps
The additions that make the visitor experience more enjoyable don’t always point to more physical locations. Most often, they can be as simple as a signage system that points visitors to important attractions, or interpretation so visitors can better understand the uniqueness of the community. So often, visitors express the need for somewhere they can stop to talk with people knowledgeable about the community, so they can have the best experience.
shape your strategy
You didn’t read the word strategy anywhere above. That can come later when you have a handle on the basics. Strategy is just the path to get from where you are now to where you want to go. We use the SOAR process (as opposed to SWOT which is negative) to help you define the Strengths, Opportunities, and Aspirations that point to the Results you are seeking. Those turn into your goals. That enables us to collectively come up with a plan to address the elements and actions that need to be accomplished to fill out your destination’s offerings and the actions that must be accomplished to provide visitors with the most fulfilling and satisfying experience possible. When you do that, they go home and tell their friends and family what a great experience they had, doing your marketing for you.