Making sense of destination promotion - On the impact of promotional measures on overnight stays and income from tourism

Abstract

This paper studies the effectiveness of promotional measures. For that the relations are investigated between the composition of promotion in terms of content and a number of potential success indicators, such as of overnight stays and its composition (domestic vs. international) as well as federal tax revenue in a destination. The results reveal the following: (1) The decision on how to use promotional surface (in print products) is basically made between visuals and informational text (not emotional text), either including information about other than typical touristy suppliers or not. (2) This separation however does not significantly explain differences with regard to the success indicators and their recent changes. (3) In con-trast, it is information about supra structures as well as emotional text, but not visuals, which is strongly associated with positive overnight stays and tax income development. Additionally, a small number of non-generic products such as MICE (meetings, incentives, convention, events, which normally are produced for a specific target group) also contribute to a positive demand and income development. The conclusions drawn from these results include the following: (1) invest in MICE products, (2) communicate less by non-informational visuals but rather by more emotional-informational text, (3) assume that a majority of travelers is familiar with what to expect in general but less what to expect in particular.