ABSTRACT
Chapter 12 suggests that marketing has been the mainstay activity of destinations and DMO for more than 100 years. However, it has progressed from just sales and advertising to a broader, more sophisticated and professional role for DMOs. Marketing, branding, and communications remains one of the most important roles of a DMO, requiring careful, step-by-step planning. The DMPP is introduced as an approach that has proved to be effective in practice and involves developing a hierarchy of goals and objectives, including a destination vision, DMO vision, marketing goals and marketing objectives, and core values and guiding principles. A DMO mission also needs to be written. The chapter suggests that destination branding has become an integral part of marketing and that promotion has morphed to IMC where all communications are consistent and supportive of each other. It then argues that communications are moving more into the online world and new technologies (e.g., artificial intelligence [AI], augmented and virtual reality [AR and VR], and metaverse) are providing greater scope for marketing and branding. Destination product development is receiving greater attention and being meshed more closely with marketing, branding, and communications. Chapter 12 ends by outlining the steps required for effective marketing, branding, and communications.
