Urban destination marketing: A broken paradigm?

Abstract

In a forthcoming book, the author concludes that there is a big difference between ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ in urban destination marketing. Currently, academics and practitioners work to a ‘4 Ps marketing paradigm’, whose fundamental generalisations fail to ‘tell it like it is’ across critical sets of parameters, ie product offer, marketing messages and imagery, the manner in which branding and other marketing techniques are deployed by destination marketing organisations (DMOs), and the consumption and resultant outcomes of DMO marketing. Critically, the mainstream ‘marketing of everything’ approach adopted in practice by nearly all urban DMOs is strikingly at odds with what one would expect to happen under the ‘4 Ps marketing paradigm’, where towns and cities take a differentiated product to market, based on unique selling points or competitive advantage. In practice, lack of unique selling propositions and realpolitik considerations account for the prevalence of ‘marketing of everything’ approaches, which in turn may be seen as a factor contributing to globalisation and its attendant standardisation of landscape and life. Alongside the gulf between theory and practice in urban destination marketing, there is a related credibility gap surrounding DMO operations, whose outcomes in the main fail to deliver on the business turnover and employment gains expected of them. The author concludes that the existing paradigm is ripe for reworking, outlining a possible basis on which such an adjustment might take place.