Strictly tourism? The co-evolution of tourism brands and place branding.

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1 Strictly tourism? The co-evolution of tourism brands and place branding. FELICITY PICKEN To support chapter 6 INTRODUCTION Place-based marketing is not particularly new. Tourism, as a principal author of place related marketing and as a means of experiencing other places, has always formed a significant part of how places are globally perceived. Place branding however, is relatively new evolving alongside tourism branding over the past twenty-five years (Hall 2003:119). While still a problematic and ambitious project (see Ritchie and Ritchie 1998; Lodge 2002; Hall 2005), place branding has nevertheless been something of a minor miracle for the tourism industry producing the makings of a framework for country, state and province-wide, co-ordinated, targeted marketing messages. Documentaries like Selling Australia (Film Australia 2001) illustrate the way the tourism industry has become quite adept at key place brand functions: defining and positioning place. Reciprocally this expertise is repaid with the extended scope of place brands, engaging the non-tourism sector, local residents and potential tourists across a range the tourism sector could not hope for, alone. This relationship of mutual benefit evolves as the need for countries and regions to be able to position themselves internationally continues to grow. Years of experience in place brand competition and positioning has earned tourism marketing some strategic value in terms of the increasing importance of creating global place-based appeal. Therefore, tourism brands provide the basis for much wider place-marketing programmes. These programmes enjoin place-related goods, businesses, cultural and natural treasures, lifestyles, real estate and investment opportunities. They are targeted at not only at potential tourists, but also potential investors, employees, students and migrants. Marketing programmes, like Brand Australia and Brand Tasmania increasingly refer to and are co-administered by non-tourism interests. Stephen O'Neill (2004), former Executive General Manager of Marketing Development with the Australian Tourist Commission (Tourism Australia) insists that Brand Australia now goes beyond tourism and that it must be applicable to other industries and sectors as a general place or country based marketing strategy. Considering this another way, Brand Australia has graduated from its home in tourism and now engages markets across industries from a more general register of place. In the emerging regime, the kind of brand appeal that makes a desirable destination is also good for sales in the non-tourism sector. In this way, a must go holiday is not unlike a must have product and a must invest opportunity. Place branding, without explicitly privileging tourism, nevertheless provides the means for members across all sorts of industries and sectors to tap into and connect up with the place-branding 1

2 resources of the tourism industry. In this set of relations, tourism branding is almost accidentally strategic in something much bigger than itself. Providing a united front for place-based industry, place branding programmes disperse tourism branding through sectors that lie beyond what is strictly tourism. It is as though tourism has busted out, as everywhere the charms of branded tourist worlds and things increasingly represent all manner of non-tourist worlds and things. That tourism brand strategies increasingly brand so much of the global appeal across nontourism sectors should make a sobering as well as cheerful thought for current and future tourism marketers. Diffusing the tourism brand. Place brand as a distribution channel. The appealing side of tourism branding must be the creative aspects like brand proposition, image development and the bundling together of attributes, values and emotional cues into one sharp marketing framework. In contrast, the less appealing side must be the co-ordination, the communications and the endless amount of work involved in engaging the brand with the local population, tourism industry and non-tourism sectors. In addition to connecting with customers, the success of tourism branding depends on how well it is supported and taken up in the place by locals, the tourist industry and (ideally) the non-tourism sector (Buhalis 2000; Cai 2002; Lodge 2002; Tourism Tasmania 2004; Tourism Australia 2005). If creating widespread brand awareness and support is paramount to a successful brand then a brand needs to be widely distributed. Place branding presents the opportunity for tapping into a range of new distribution channels for tourism marketers. Therefore, there is a lot of appeal for destination marketing organisations in the take up of a shared place brand strategy. From a tourism marketing point of view, let everyone be aware of our images, values and attributes especially since success is proportionate to the participation of the industry, tourists and residents. Tasmania as the island state has quite a mature sense of being different and seeking connection with other places. Brand Tasmania adopts much of the form of tourism branding (styles, images, values and attributes) and connects them with a wider array of things Tasmanian. In this way, place brands act as conduits for the dispersal of tourism appeals, translating tourism through multiple industries and locations. Brand Tasmania encourages non-tourism industries to develop a shared understanding of tourism visitor needs and extend the scope and depth of the tourism experience (Tourism Tasmania 2002:14). Love this place, Love this bus, love this milk Brand Tasmania and the local population. Visitors do not distinguish between tourism and non-tourism products that they use. The non-tourism products and services may have as great an impact on the quality of holiday experience as those delivered by the tourism industry (Tourism Tasmania 2004:10). 2

3 Brand Tasmania s most recent dialogue with the local population comes in the form of a multimedia Love this place campaign. The campaign started by pitching prime time branded images of Tasmanian natural and heritage icons into Tasmanian homes. Accompanied by the proposition Love this place, these picture postcard images set the scene for the next series of advertisements that profiled Tasmanian entrepreneurs, artists and personalities and their testaments of loving this place. Through this process, the Love this place campaign established a set of images, values and attributes that created a particular appreciation for place and described Brand Tasmania to Tasmanians. Against this general brand awareness campaign, it is a small step to connect love this milk, love this bargain and love this bus (although it is the bus service that is Tasmanian!). The Love this place campaign has set Brand Tasmania amongst Tasmanians. In terms of tourism, this amounts to increasing tourism brand awareness amongst local residents, bringing them into closer alignment with the awareness of tourists, and increasingly the non-tourism sector. The final part of the campaign connects place to a membership set of brand aligned products and services through the love this prefix. Through this connection, sets of brand attributes and values, first developed to incite holiday travel start to lend themselves to a host of everyday and exotic things Tasmanian under a more general strategy associated with place. Locals are asked to support a product or service because it is associated with a (touristic) sense of place that is also increasingly familiar to them. A place brand does not discriminate so much between tourists and residents. Rather, these points of view are calibrated into a common way of appreciating place, or a common awareness of brand. Hooking in to tourism brands. The non-tourism sector and place brand alignment. There are benefits from co-operating with place brand strategies for the non-tourism sector also. The level of incentive for the non-tourism sector will depend on the strength of the existing, largely tourism inspired brand. For example, and putting questions of method aside: Australia has been voted the most popular nationality and ranked number one in the areas of tourism, investment and immigration as well as being ranked the number one Nation Brand overall (Tourism Australia 2005). In this case, using Brand Australia to spearhead an Australian Commonwealth Government culture of innovation initiative makes good marketing sense. It also contributes to the apparently desirable state of moving the brand beyond its origins in the tourism sector (Innovation Australia 2005). The theme of separating place branding from tourism branding is a repetitive one (see also O Neill 2004; Brand Tasmania 2005). The distinction rests on the scope of activities between the two. Tourism branding aims to incite people to like a place enough to want to visit. Place branding aims to incite people to like a place enough to want to engage with it in various ways: visit, purchase a product, relocate, start a business. In this way, place brand is always larger than tourism. What is significant, particularly in terms of this distinction, is the disproportionately large role tourism marketing continues to play in executing place brand strategies, in getting people to like the place. 3

4 As an illustration at the sub-brand level, Brand Tasmania membership recommends itself with access to a place branding system that includes the benefits of tourism marketing and branding resources. In a case of co-operative leveraging place based industry avails itself of an array of brand collateral including posters, portfolios and film based on the expertise and creative efforts of tourism marketing (Brand Tasmania 2005). In exchange, brand awareness is distributed through the brand member and their contacts. It is not only the role of the tourism industry to apply brand values. Other Tasmanian industries also have a role in championing the Tasmania brand. The quality image of Tasmania is increasingly being used by export industries as a point of difference. This substantially increases Tasmania s desirability as a holiday destination and it is imperative that Tasmania brand values are adopted across a range of Tasmanian products (Tourism Tasmania 2001:6). What this amounts to is that the wine grower in search of export opportunities, the salmon exporter looking for new markets, the Health Department s drive for mainland healthcare professionals, the University s drive for international students and the two night winter package at Cradle Mountain all appeal to the same brand. This means they all invoke the same sort of touristic sentiments, imagery and values that, through their consistency across sectors say this is Tasmania. This is Tasmania for visiting, for staying, for investing, for working, for studying, and for finding top quality products. CONCLUSION Because of their shared evolution, it is difficult to understand tourism branding without also thinking about its relation to the more general place branding. Place brands distribute tourism brands over a wider range of stakeholders (non-tourism sectors, local population, potential tourists) than tourism promotion alone is capable of. This distribution is essential if tourism brands are to be able to achieve brand familiarity, gain widespread support and deliver on brand promises. Place branding can be seen as a conduit that allows tourism brands much needed exposure across non-tourism sectors and local populations as well giving the non-tourism sector access to the place marketing collateral and expertise of the tourism industry. REFERENCES Brand Australia (2005) Brand Tasmania (2005) Buhalis, D. (2000) Marketing the Competitive Destination of the Future Tourism Management 21: Cai, L. (2002) Cooperative Branding for Rural Destinations Annals of Tourism Research 29(3): On risk evasion through brand. Film Australia (2001) Selling Australia Sydney: Australian Broadcasting Commission. 4

5 Hall, C.M. (2003) Introduction to Tourism: Dimensions and Issues (4th Ed.), Melbourne: Hospitality Press. Hall, C.M. (2005) Tourism: Rethinking the Social Science of Mobility, Harlow: Prentice Hall. Innovation Australia (2005) Lodge, C. (2002) Putting Branding on the Map Marketing March 14: O Neill, S. (2004) Brand Australia A Partnership Approach World Tourism Organisation Conference Larnaca October Ritchie, J. and Ritchie, R (1998) The Branding of Tourism Destinations: Past achievements and future challenges 1998 Annual Congress of the International Association of Scientific Experts in Tourism Marrakech, Morrocco. Tourism Australia (2005) History of Brand Australia Tourism Tasmania (2001) Tourism 21 The Conversion Challenge: Strategic Plan for the Tasmanian Tourism Industry Hobart: Tourism Tasmania. Tourism Tasmania (2002) The Tasmanian Experience: creating unforgettable natural experiences Hobart: Tourism Tasmania. Tourism Tasmania (2004) Tourism 21 The Growth Challenge: Strategic Plan for the Tasmanian Tourism Industry Hobart: Tourism Tasmania. 5