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tions, mostly funded by governments with tourism
industry partners such as hotels and airlines.
Although it can be traced back to the 1920s, the
global development of destination marketing is
associated with the rapid expansion of international
tourism and domestic tourism since
the 1960s. In larger countries there is typically a
hierarchy of destination organisations ranging from
the national through several area or regional
bodies, to local organisations dealing with particular
towns, cities or resorts. Most destination
marketing is a form of public sector intervention in
a commercial market, intended to attract more
tourists. Initially growth-oriented, it typically
focuses on image creation, advertising and
sales promotions. It may be aimed at any or
all forms of domestic and international tourism
but, to maximise its effectiveness, it is
increasingly targeted at segments selected by
market research.
As destinations develop, growing numbers of
tourists and the growing maturity of the industry
shift the focus of destination marketing to take
account of tourism capacity and visitor management
issues. Because the positive and negative
impacts of tourism differ according to the various
tourist types targeted, destination marketing becomes
more partnership and product-based, recognising
that the overall tourism product is an
amalgam or composite product comprised of
several elements not controlled by national tourism
organisations. Destination marketing thus incorporates
market research for developing destination
objectives and strategies for targeting, segmentation,
and monitoring purposes. It focuses on
facilitation, meaning intervention in the market
by a national organisation to achieve identified
goals by supporting the marketing of all parties
involved in the provision of tourism products. It
includes, for example, the organisation of workshops
and travel trade shows, operation of
destination information and booking systems, and
support for product planning and development.
All forms of facilitation are justified on the
grounds that if they were not carried out by the
national tourism office, at least initially, they would
not happen. Increasingly, they are justified by
objectives of sustainability.
See also: destination; image; marketing; sales
promotion; sustainable development
Further reading
marketing information system 379
Kotler, P. et al. �1995) Marketing for Hospitality and
Tourism, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
�Addresses destination marketing.)
Middleton, V.T.C. �1994) Marketing in Travel and
Tourism, Oxford: Butterworth Heinemann.
�Deals with structures and functions of NTOs.)
VICTOR T.C. MIDDLETON, UK
marketing information system
A marketing information system �MIS) is a
subsystem of an organisation's management information
system. It consists of people and
equipment, and contains procedures to gather,
sort, analyse, evaluate and distribute timely and
accurate information needed for marketing decision
making. The main basis of a tourism MIS is
marketing research information from the
organisation's environment which is stored in a
database format. More advanced systems also
provide features to forecast the future state of
the economy and market demand for tourism
products. Ideally, the marketing database is maintained
at the lowest possible level of aggregation in
order to provide marketing managers with the
highest degree of flexibility.
By integrating and disseminating complex
marketing information, an MIS contributes to the
improvement of managerial performance. Therefore,
an effective MIS will provide query functions
for quick information retrieval on a video display
terminal and deliver printed forms or reports to
alert the manager when an unexpected situation,
whether positive or negative, has developed. The
value of reporting has been enhanced greatly by
recent advances in graphical display technology.
New multidimensional approaches allow more
options and information to be displayed than was
possible with traditional presentation techniques.
Further enhancements with more sophisticated
analytical models change an MIS into a decision
support system. Although an MIS can be