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HOW TO POSITION A TERRITORY OR A TOURISM PLAYER EFFECTIVELY

Agence Puck 28 June 2022

As we all know, our daily lives are papered with promotional advertising messages. We are subjected to no fewer than 3,000 appeals every day. In tourism, brands and territories are no exception, especially as the end of the year approaches. They often use the same arguments to promote themselves, creating growing sameness. Positioning yourself is a powerful act of communication that means fighting this sameness and the avalanche of appeals aimed at consumers. This applies to institutions, people, companies and even tourist destinations.

So what can be done to escape this sameness and stand out in the public's eyes?

Working on your positioning is certainly the first thing to do; expressing it and making it known is the second.

How?

1. Positioning means giving things up

You have to know how to give up on reaching everyone. Instead, you need to be in tune with a target because of its behaviour or preferences.

2. Positioning means choosing your niche

You have to choose a different place from your competitors and find the mental image that will convey this positioning. It must be simple, credible and connected with what people know. It then remains to make it known through a simple concept.

An example : an excellent illustration of a destination's positioning is undoubtedly Jamaican tourism.

When Jamaica was able to develop its tourism sector, following a change of regime, it looked for a positioning that would give it a special place in the minds of future tourists. Tourism officials began by searching through postal imagery, then with photographers, for the visual that would be the emblem of the territory for future tourists, but they didn't find it, because they were trying to show all the island's assets. Moreover, these assets were often the same as those of the other pearls of the Caribbean. They were starting from their assets rather than from the mindset of their targets. Logically, they ended up choosing a legitimate target for the territory: the USA, a natural pool of tourists a reasonable distance from the island. In short, they gave up on reaching everyone. Then they put themselves in the shoes of the American consumer, used to taking short exotic trips to Hawaii. So they found a simple, perfectly understandable positioning: “The Hawaii of the Caribbean”. It was in tune with what Americans know. It's simple and totally different from everything the other Caribbean destinations could say.