Destination (tourism)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

With Destination (pronounced "German" dɛstinaʦɪ̯oːn ) is called in tourism one geographical area , which as a trip is conceived goal.

Definition and demarcation

The Gabler business dictionary defines:

“Destination is defined as a geographical area that the respective guest (or a guest segment) selects as a travel destination. It contains all the facilities necessary for a stay for accommodation , meals , entertainment / employment . It is therefore the competitive unit in incoming tourism that must be managed as a strategic business unit. "

The destination presents itself as a common unit of a tourist segment, both on the part of the provider and the demand. In the specialist literature and in practice, the destination is defined as a set of characteristics relevant to tourism. These include, for example, “landscape, fauna, flora, climatic conditions, cultural attractions.” It forms an economic competitive unit. The term encompasses both small-scale structures ( hotels , resorts , amusement parks , also known as locations in technical jargon), or places ( e.g. in city ​​tourism ), as well as entire regions ( tourism region , historically grown or branded), countries or an entire continent. The size of the area that is subjectively perceived as a destination depends on the distance between place of residence and travel destination. For example, a German takes i. d. Usually a city like Stuttgart would be an independent destination, while a Japanese would consider the continent of Europe as the destination of his vacation - and not explicitly individual cities like Rome, Paris or London. For classic terms such as hotel, tourist resort , health resort , seaside resort or ski area , destination is the generic term and in the general sense is not restricted to any specific segment.

Destination management and marketing

The concept of the destination has historically grown out of travel behavior. The expectations of the traveler lead to the fact that the offer converges and a profile emerges (e.g. the Mediterranean region for beach holidays, the Alpine region for summer mountain tourism and winter sports ). On the other hand, the segments overlap regionally (such as holiday and cultural tourism ).

A destination is linked by a common tourist and other infrastructure . Until the 1990s, the party focused on the established profile and kicked by regionally in competition in the same segment, but also to the other segments. Due to the globalized travel behavior, travel destinations no longer compete exclusively in terms of their own offer profile, for example one ski area in the Alps with another in the winter season in Europe, but also with beach tourism in the tropics. In addition, the tendency is moving away from relevant tourism, the guest today expects a much broader range of offers and requires an accompanying offer in all sectors (such as wellness , events , comprehensive tourism information); he also decides much more spontaneously which type of trip he will actually take ( last-minute offers). Therefore, in the tourism market, there has been a move towards managing the destination as a common strategic business area. The individual offers are connected in the sense of a synergy effect. The license plate liberalization initiative recognized that the license plate is the most important symbol of the city's brand for many cities as creating identity .

The origins of destination management lie in the municipal tourism associations , which presented a town as a destination. Today, common umbrella brands are typically established as advertising media . Its sponsors are both private-sector (companies in the tourism industry, professional associations ) and state organizations ( ministries and national or sub-national tourism authorities, such as Österreich Werbung ), and supranational destination marketers are also being formed.

In addition to tourism advertising, destination marketing agencies are also increasingly acting as travel agencies or tour operators and establishing common standards of quality management for the destination.

Criticism and new approaches

In recent years there has been increasing criticism of one-sided supply-oriented definitions of tourist destinations. A main argument here is that tourists do not orient their travel behavior towards the boundaries of locally, regionally or nationally defined destinations. They cross these boundaries in different movement and activity patterns (e.g. round trips with fly-and-drive or hub-and-spoke pattern with overnight stays in a centrally located location and day trips to different destinations). At the same time, attempts are being made on the supply side to do justice to this flexible demand behavior with static and hierarchical structures. New approaches such as the St. Gallen Model for Destination Management (SGDM) therefore define destinations as variable and diverse areas of activity based on strategic visitor flows (SBS for short) in order to better meet the effective demand behavior.

In a social science-oriented travel research, the interactions between tourism needs and practices on the one hand and the economic interests of tour operators and providers in the destination areas on the other hand are examined.

See also

literature

  • Pietro Beritelli, Christian Laesser, Stephan Reinhold and Arnold Kappler: The St.Gallen model for destination management - business area innovation in networks . 1st edition. IMP-HSG, St. Gallen 2013, ISBN 978-3-9523471-7-1 .
  • Thomas Bieger : Destination Management . 7th edition. Oldenbourg, Munich / Vienna 2007, ISBN 978-3-486-58628-2 .
  • Alexander Schuler: Management of education and change of destinations . Dr. Kovač, Hamburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-8300-7720-6 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b quotation Gabler Wirtschaftslexikon - The whole world of the economy . Gabler Verlag / GWV Fachverlage ( Wirtschaftslexikon.gabler.de [accessed on February 3, 2010]).
  2. ^ Jörn W. Mundt: Tourism at Google Books
  3. ↑ Ralf Bochert : Press release on the license plate liberalization survey. (PDF) (No longer available online.) Heilbronn University Press Office, January 19, 2011, archived from the original on April 14, 2016 ; Retrieved May 1, 2011 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.hs-heilbronn.de
  4. ↑ C. Laesser, P. Beritelli: St. Gallen Consensus on Destination Management . In: Journal of Destination Marketing & Management , 2 (1), 2013, pp. 46–49.
  5. ↑ P. Beritelli, S. Reinhold, C. Laesser: Process Orientation in Destination Management . In: Marketing Review St. Gallen , 31 (6), 2014, pp. 34–47.
  6. ↑ KF Hyde, C. Laesser: A structural theory of the holiday . In: Tourism management , 30 (2), 2009, pp. 240–248.
  7. ↑ a b P. Beritelli, S. Reinhold, C. Laesser, A. Kappler: The St.Gallen model for destination management - business field innovation in networks . Institute for Systemic Management and Public Governance (IMP-HSG), 2013.
  8. ↑ [1]
  9. ↑ P. Beritelli, T. Bieger , C. Laesser: The New Frontiers of Destination Management Applying Variable Geometry as a Function-Based Approach . In: Journal of Travel Research , 53 (4), 2014, pp. 403-417.
  10. ↑ Ingrid Thurner: "Nobody walks under palm trees with impunity": About the interactions between travel practice, country images and destination branding . In: Harald Pechlaner, Michael Volgger (Hrsg.): Society on trips - A journey in society . Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2017, pp. 225-238.