Digital Destination Matching: Practices, Priorities and Predictions

Over the past three years, travel agents, enterprises and destinations have switched almost entirely from traditional to digital marketing methods, relying strongly on search engines and social media. They consider these methods as faster, more flexible, financially more efficient, and with wider reach. Most importantly, they provide customer data and feedback, with precise targeting of different messages to different market sectors, with rapid measures of success. This, however, leads to fragmentation of information reaching tourists, which itself affects destination image. This seems unavoidable with continuing competition between platforms; hence, the agents, enterprises and destinations need multichannel marketing. In addition, since most search engines and social media are international, cultural context is a critical component of communications, in style and content as well as language. This may now include multiple sensory detectors and sources, including visual, sound, and haptic. As tourists increasingly garner information independently, travel agents have greater incentives to seek exclusive control over sales of specific products.