Best destination marketing strategies for global success

Destination marketing does more than just tell people about a certain city or location. It sells the ambiance, certain activities, and experiences—often while promoting a brand or service at the same time. 

But destination marketing presents several challenges that change how you approach localization and content marketing. Promoting tourism to a place fundamentally differs from marketing to the people who live there, and it requires you to adapt your strategies for the languages and interests of potential tourists. 

Let’s explore how destination advertising works and some best practices for how to promote a place successfully.

What is destination marketing?

Online destination marketing means advertising a region, attraction, or related brand or service to potential tourists. This is its own marketing area because it has some unique contributing factors—mainly, it’s hard to say where potential visitors will come from. They could be anyone from locals looking for new attractions in their hometown or international tourists who want to experience different cultures. 

Here are some of the factors you need to consider to find and market to a global audience:

• Audience data: Research helps you find the demographics and languages of potential visitors.

• Storytelling: Marketing should include the stories and history behind specific attractions and landmarks.

• Social media marketing: Think about which social media platforms are popular in different regions and how to design a strategy for each one.

• Influencer marketing: Popular social media influencers might attract audiences to or from these destinations.

• Online ads: Tourists typically engage with online marketing when searching for a destination.

• Visual marketing: Landmarks and attractions offer the best opportunity for impressive, high-quality visuals.
• Experiential marketing: Find popular themes in different attractions and combine them into a curated experience. 

That’s quite a long list of marketing factors, but navigating them successfully can lead to the following benefits:

• Building emotional connections: Identifying the best a destination has to offer lets you design a story that resonates with travelers.

• Strengthens brand trust: Understanding what makes a region unique helps you create content that builds credibility with your audience.

• Positions your brand as an expert rather than a seller: Learning everything you can about a destination and sharing it competently makes you a trusted source of information rather than a simple retailer.

• Contributes to the economy: Tourism is a significant factor in local economies, and your efforts to promote it can lead to an influx of money and jobs.

5 best destination marketing plans and strategies

Here are five tried-and-true tactics that destination marketing organizations (DMOs) and other marketers use:

1. Multilingual search engine optimization (SEO)‍

When tourists plan their next vacation, they almost always start with a search engine, whether that’s Google or a social media platform like TikTok. They might look up key phrases like “best summer destinations in Spain” or “popular attractions in Capetown.” 

The key is that people from different countries search in different languages. Multilingual SEO helps your site become the top search result for these common phrases by providing keyword-focused blogs and social media content in several languages.

2. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising‍

PPC marketing strategies place your ads on search engines, videos, and blogs to meet your audience where they are. For example, if they’re watching a YouTube video about learning French, an advertisement for popular Parisian destinations might convince them to click, sending them to your website. 

3. Content marketing‍

Content marketing builds credibility and trust with your audience. Creating blog articles, videos, and interactive experiences allows you to market directly to your target demographics while sharing your knowledge and expertise. When you offer visitors quality content, they’re more likely to trust that your service also provides quality experiences. Plus, content shows them exactly why they should visit the destination you’re selling.

4. Social media campaigns‍

Social media offers the unique benefit of reaching audiences in the same places where influencers share their successful travel stories. That means people generate content alongside you, adding more context and storytelling to every campaign. For example, you could create a marketing campaign that shows off a popular destination while inviting previous visitors to share the memories they made when they went there.

5. Email marketing‍

Planning travel takes time, so you need a way to keep in contact with potential visitors as they slowly commit to making plans. Email marketing helps you maintain a method of contact where you can promote new deals, packages, and tours that convince travelers to take action. 

Destination marketing successes 

Here are some examples of tourism marketing strategies from DMOs.

These campaigns all successfully navigated the complexities of destination marketing with engaging content and innovative advertising.

Localización a escala

Secret Escapes allows site visitors choose their “country membership” to automatically localize the entire site for the relevant language. That means targeted, intentional content, accessible to a multilingual audience.

Secret Escapes used Smartling to translate their content into about a dozen languages, which reduced their translation times by about 25%. Because they add new destinations and deals daily, a fast, scalable translation solution like Smartling was key to their destination marketing success.

Unique experiences

Inspired by Iceland’s informative website shows off what makes the location special, from its unique plants and animals to the long list of unforgettable festivals. It shows potential tourists high-quality visuals and describes the destinations in concise, engaging blog articles with strong SEO. 

Multichannel storytelling with creative media

Travel Oregon showcases the quirky, outdoorsy charm the state is known for through several channels that all deliver a consistent message. Along with the website, Travel Oregon has downloadable travel guides, an email newsletter, and a popular social media presence that features local influencers. By spreading across many channels, Travel Oregon is more likely to interest potential tourists looking for their next destination.

Social media engagement through user-centric content

Georgia.travel does an excellent job of explaining what this unique destination has to offer visitors. From natural landscapes to wild festivals, its media presence is spread across YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook, offering people several ways to find and engage with the content. This global marketing strategy means Georgia.travel can promote tourism to anyone perusing options for their next trip.

Mistakes in destination marketing

Here are three common mistakes to avoid when designing destination marketing campaigns.

Unclear value proposition or brand message

Tourists can find “good food” and “memorable tours” anywhere. To really entice people, you need a clear message about what makes that place unique and unmissable. Then, you can curate an international campaign around unique selling points that convince visitors to commit to making plans.

Failing to localize content for different languages and cultures

Travelers come from around the world to visit impressive landmarks and tour incredible attractions. To appeal to them, you need to translate content for their language and localize it to speak to their sensibilities, whether that’s through culture-specific jokes or different value propositions. A human-reviewed translation tool like Smartling’s AI translation service can help you achieve fast translations while adding the human touch your marketing strategies need.

Ignoring mobile optimization

Visitors might return to (or even discover) your marketing materials while on their trip, which means they’ll rely on mobile devices. Optimize your website, videos, and social media content to work well on slower connections and smaller screens. If visitors have a consistent experience, your audience is more likely to stick with your brand when planning their next trip.

Preguntas frecuentes

Should you promote your destination using only digital marketing tools, or enhance the strategy with offline advertising?

You need both digital marketing and offline advertising for a comprehensive strategy. Digital marketing captures your audience’s attention, but traditional advertising like print ads and billboards can also keep the destination top of mind. It all depends on who you’re marketing to. For example, if you’re trying to promote a Caribbean cruise and know that many of your customers are seniors, they might be more likely to read newspaper ads than watch TikTok videos.

How can I set proper KPIs for evaluating the performance of destination marketing campaigns?

The KPIs destination marketing organizations use are similar to ones used in other industries. Clicks, bounce rates, and conversions all demonstrate whether your marketing strategies are successful, and any upward trend in those metrics indicates that you’re on the right path. 

Roll out destination marketing strategies with Smartling’s localization solutions

Effective destination marketing combines data-driven advertising campaigns with emotional storytelling to deliver a compelling value proposition. It’s about showcasing what makes a region unique while assuring your audience that getting there will be a smooth, enjoyable experience. 

To do that, you need to speak to potential tourists in their preferred language with the right cultural context. 

Smartling’s translation software makes multilingual marketing a breeze. Smartling helps marketers speed up translation turnaround times and deliver polished, multilingual campaigns worldwide. Visit Smartling's marketing translation services page to learn more.