ABSTRACT
Measuring effectiveness is one of the most challenging aspects of destination marketing, which probably accounts for why this is one of the least reported topics in the tourism literature. It is very difficult to quantify the extent to which destination marketing organisation (DMO) initiatives can be attributed to increasing (or decreasing) visitor numbers, length of stay and visitor spending, since there are many other forces external to the DMO that influence these performance measures. Due to this complexity, and for practical reasons, DMOs generally use performance indicators that measure what can be measured as opposed to what should be measured. Since the 2008–2009 global financial crisis, the pressure for DMOs to demonstrate their value for taxpayers’ funding in an era of government austerity measures has intensified. The challenge of demonstrating value and effectiveness will only increase as DMOs lose control of their destination’s brand image to user-generated content on social media. Instead of receiving income from sales, DMOs rely predominantly on grants provided by government, and are not therefore accountable to shareholders in the same manner as a commercial enterprise. DMO staff find themselves accountable to multiple masters, such as the board of directors, tourism businesses, travel intermediaries, local taxpayers, the media and government funding agencies. DMO effectiveness is therefore partly subjective to the perspective of the stakeholder, and so needs to be evaluated based on a combination of indicators to evaluate marketing performance, stakeholders’ satisfaction and operational effectiveness.
