Destination Marketing

As an iconic city and region, Bergen naturally comes with an inheritance of many clichés and tired symbols – and so did the former Visit Bergen profile, created in 2000. The identity wasn’t made for digital surfaces, and the positioning of ‘Gateway to the Fjords’ could communicate that it was only as a stop-over destination on the way to somewhere else.

Research shows that once a visitor does decide to come to The Hague they are positively surprised. It was this gap between image and actual experience that launched the international campaign 'Dive into The Hague'.

What role does sound play in recreating the experience of another location? How are places leveraging the uniqueness of their soundscapes to drive their place marketing and place branding?

How can tourism destinations develop regenerative tourism solutions after COVID-19? Aradhana Khowala, the Chair of the Red Sea Development Company's advisory board, shares why it's so important for luxury tourism to bounce back greener, and what learnings there are for smaller destinations looking to improve their own sustainable approaches.

How do you market a destination to people who are not allowed to visit and keep an industry alive when it is not allowed to operate? The answer: You get them to keep dreaming of the one day that they can. Discover more about the Western Cape's award-winning strategy here.

Vilnius caught the attention of the world with their innovative strategies to support their citizens and businesses throughout the pandemic. We reached out to the Director of Go Vilnius, Inga Romanovskiene, to understand more about their place branding strategy - and to discover the secret to using humour successfully in your marketing.

Are you currently working to attract international students to your destination? If the answer is no, then the chances are that you’re missing a trick. We reached out to three destinations who have been incorporating their study proposition into their broader place brand strategy to understand how they have leveraged their international student attraction to deliver back on their city’s values.

The potential reputational risks involved in communicating about and during COVID-19 are many. But here are a few things that should be considered when deciding how to handle communications in a world turned upside down by this crisis.