NEWS
Vanity. It’s the biggest weakness of any marketing plan for a travel company or destination.
Vanity stops travel brands being innovative; it
prevents destinations from seeing opportunities that exist right in front of their eyes. Vanity makes your travel organisation just another member of the crowd, rather than connecting uniquely with the travel consumer. I’ve just returned from a few weeks of cruising
Steve Dunne CHIEF EXECUTIVE, DIGITAL DRUMS
A lot of travel marketing is a less-than-fruitful exercise in vanity
around the Polynesian islands. It was everything you would imagine – stunning landscapes, beautiful people, fabulous food and fascinating cultures. Be it Tahiti, Moorea, Samoa, Fiji, Hawaii or
American Samoa, every one of my fellow cruisers said the same thing: “Wait until I tell the folks back home.” As we toured the islands, every guide and tourist
information office would tell me: “Tourism is the lifeblood of our island.” Regardless of which island, every guide would
sign off their tours, after we had experienced amazing snorkelling, fabulous gardens or invigorating cultural ceremonies, with the same line: “Please tell your family and friends to come and visit us.” And on every tour a
question asked by my fellow tourists was: “Is there Wi-Fi?” My fellow travellers
But a couple of elements struck me about all
of this promotional activity. Huge amounts of marketing budgets were being put into the same things all their competition spent money on. Much of the activity, while appealing to politicians and travel principals back home, didn’t really achieve much with the tourist, who we know is getting harder to reach through traditional advertising and exhibitions. “Why don’t you offer free Wi-Fi to tourists at
key spots on your island so they post pictures to folk back home while they are here and enthusiastic about your destination?” I would ask. The reply, often said with a grimace, was that
budgets didn’t allow. Ironically this was said as they filed away pictures they had shown me of their big exhibition stands at a conference in a far off land.
wanted to post their pictures and videos, complete with geolocation date and place stamp, so friends and family back home could witness what they were experiencing. Many wanted to live-stream their experiences too. Yet when the Wi-Fi question was asked, the answer from every guide or business owner was invariably the same: “Yes. But unfortunately, it is not free to the public.”
“Many destinations’ promotional activity appeals to politicians and travel principals at home but doesn’t reach the tourist”
Third-party endorsement When I gently pointed out that the most effective marketing initiative is third-party endorsement from someone you trust or who inspires you, I was greeted with a sigh and a comment saying something about their competition doing big advertising campaigns. While it was never said
to me, I got the impression that vanity plays a big role in allocating funds. I should point out that it was
not every destination that ignored the marketing power of offering free Wi-Fi at key tourist spots. Some of the Hawaiian islands on
my cruise completely understood the power of free Wi-Fi to their marketing cause, and many Caribbean islands that I have travelled to this year offer free Wi-Fi in public places – their rewards are tourists “telling the folks back home” about their fabulous experiences of the destination while “on location”. The key for any travel marketing manager,
Pride and prestige As a travel marketer, I will always strike up a conversation with guides and tourist office folk. My lead question is always to ask what they do to market their fabulous offering. The answers tended to be the same across the islands. TV and cinema advertising in key markets, media visits, trade fam trips and a presence at international trade shows too. A couple of officials even showed me pictures of
their large stands at big international trade shows. All of this was clearly regarded as a prestigious thing.
16 27 NOVEMBER 2025
business owner or tourism director is to constantly ask the question: is our marketing activity resonating with the travel consumer or is our campaign just a vanity one? If vanity is your answer, then be aware that it can
blind you to reality and severely limit the power of your marketing budget.
Read more columns by Steve Dunne:
travelweekly.co.uk/comment
travelweekly.co.uk
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