Zeszyt naukowy - całość - Wydział ZarzÄ dzania i Ekonomiki Usług

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Peter Mayer, Adam Pawlicz
2. Tourist information centre as a DMO activity
It is widely acknowledged that during the last decades tourism became increasingly
turbulent. Sun-sea-sand destinations re-define themselves as golf hotspots,
former industrial regions develop modern art and architecture initiatives and
laid back agricultural hinterland are suddenly rediscovered as an oasis of health and
wellness. Themes are not only constantly invented but also mixed up or layered
upon the geographical surface. As of spring, 2008, Austrian Styria promises to be a
destination for families, for the youth, the elderly, for skiing, wine tasting, health
and wellness, golf, trekking, cycling and biking, horse riding, for activities and for
relaxation. In each of these markets it is competing with European and overseas
destinations by managing information – both in terms of producing a unique tourism
experience from traditions and cutting-edge trends and technologies and also in
effective and competitive ways of managing visitor flows. With these developments
it is more and more the destination management organization that becomes the focal
point in these transformations. What we observe here is not a unique practice but
a general trend: sole services are more and more difficult to market. Destination
management is emerging as a new supply side integrative modus of tourism, partially
replacing the demand side operator-type integration. This means that allencompassing,
structured and easy-to-use information service emerges as an alternative
to manage a tour: in case of single-destination trips referring to a DMO may
be as convenient and secure for the tourist as the service of a tour operator 12 .
According to Carter and Fabricius 13 destination management involves coordinating
activities of all the basic elements that make up a destination such as the
attractions, amenities, accessibility, image and price. Destination management
should ensure a long-term prosperity and development of local community and also
contribute to the sustainable balance between economic, socio-cultural and environmental
impacts. In an earlier study of Hungarian DMO’s the following areas of
activity have been identified (figure 1) 14 :
place-marketing activities to attract people to visit destination (such as strategic
branding, as well, as more actual advertisement and sales),
co-ordinating other tourism actors’ marketing activities,
delivery of services on the ground in order to exceed the expectations of
visitors by attractions-, event development etc., and
12
P. Mayer, A termékintegráció üzleti modelljei a turizmusban (Product integration
business models in tourism), in: Gazdaság, Verseny, Vállalkozás, Vol. 1, Budapest 2009, pp. 45–
53.
13
C. Carter, M. Fabricius, Destination management – an overview, UNWTO Conference,
„Creating competitive advantage for your destination”, Bp., 7th February 2007.
14
A. Jancsik, E. Madarász, P. Mayer, Cs. Raffay, Tourinform offices’ attitudes towards
change and innovations, in: Kultúrák találkozása, Nyugat-Magyarországi Egyetem, Győr 2009.