SEEING IS BELIEVING

Through the eyes of your customer

In Toposophy, we have recently had the opportunity to reflect on the quote of Kakuzo Okakaura that "the art of life lies in a constant readjustment to our surroundings".

Indeed, the Japanese scholar provides in his famous work 'The Book of Tea' an important lesson about the art of developing attractive tourism products, even in the rather sedate world of golf. Who could imagine that? Well, as Ralph Lauren’s blog explains, golf (traditionally associated with the comfy world of luxury travel) is in the midst of a crisis as young generations consider it too hard, too expensive and too slow for 21st-century lifestyles. This is naturally affecting golf tourism too.

Fortunately the fashion label (which has an interest in the ongoing attraction of golf to future generations) has thought creatively and has been behind many efforts to think outside the box and bring golf to new players in new markets. On the other hand, taking an existing product and creating a new audience entirely is what’s behind this cool project to turn a Canadian park into an illuminated forest.

Understanding how your customer sees your prime products is therefore essential if you don’t want to end up
marketing an obsolete product to an uninterested audience. The stakes are even higher when there’s more reputation or financial gain involved, ie. in the rapidly evolving world of luxury travel. Combining intelligent service design (as explained brilliantly here) with attractive tourism products will therefore become increasingly standard for DMOs that want their products to remain eye-catching to the restless consumer and a pleasure to enjoy.

As we see the above as only one of the trends that will shape destination marketing in 2015, we expect you to get a full picture by having a look at our latest report.