Something strange happened to destination marketing
With the never ending onslaught of technology innovation in social media, digital marketing, and internet based “solutions,” chaos has replaced clarity when it comes to actually connecting with a potential consumer.
Take my recent search for information on places to stay in Virginia Beach. What a mess that was. Starting with a google search (as most of us seem to do) yielded practically nothing useful for me.
In fact, googling “Virginia Beach Resorts” offers up a bunch of hotel websites that look identical, save for a name swap, and a few photo changes. Is this supposed to be the ownable, differentiated brand position that inspires me to prefer one place over another? I understand multiple property owners desire to realize economies of scale on a web platform, but this creates chaos for a consumer, and completely ignores major tenets of branding, including differentiation.
Don't let technology distract you from the basics
Destinations, resorts, and attractions need to remember that even with a never ending tide of new things to learn and master (from twitter to gliider to google video), they STILL need to master the basic concept of branding before any of these other innovations make sense.
I’ll go one step further:
Only through solid branding can any of these marketing innovations be brought into order, and deliver your destination from the price-driven, commoditized hell that are travel booking sites, and useless search result pages.
Maybe the pendulum needs to swing back in the other direction, from the chaotic mess that’s been created in travel search, to a [somewhat] more controlled approach to branding, where we offer content, imagery, and inspiration to guide the perceptions that people form.
Shame that the businesses in this area have totally missed out on this opportunity! Perhaps you should forward this on to their tourism board. :-)
Unfortunately this problem is all too familiar. Despite all our technology advances, consumers and brands continue to disconnect.
Interested in help with non-U.S. properties improving their online marketing and presence.
Virginia Beach as a whole is woefully behind in digital marketing concepts and strategies. Part of it is because most of the properties located there are small, family owned/operated businesses without any marketing expertise and very limited budgets. One operator (the one you chose to highlight) is the "big guy on the block" and is consequently very egotistical about "knowing what and how it needs to be done." There are a limited number of other major operators but they are in a management role, have limited budgets because the margins are so tight, and are rely on the brands to do the marketing for them.
For the record: We do digital marketing for over 200 hotels/resorts across the country and Hawai'i, and I live in the Virginia Beach area.