Anatomy of the strategic review of a destination marketing project in an Italian region.
Preliminary note
The case described here is real. The area is not named, the bodies involved are not identified, tourism data are not reported in absolute terms, and the strategy developed after the analysis is not disclosed.
What follows is the analytical path: which document we started from, which assumptions were updated, which questions were put to stakeholders, and which strategic problem emerged before deciding how to promote the destination.
The project arose from the need to update an earlier tourism plan, developed before travel behavior went through some of the most significant changes of recent years.
The point, then, was not to write a new plan by erasing the previous one.
It was to understand what still held true.
The project profile
- An Italian area with a recognizable cultural heritage.
- Landscape, traditions, food and wine, and local products completing the offer.
- A range of different public and private operators, each called upon to contribute to the tourism offer.
- An existing earlier plan, with an initial strategic framework.
- The need to update the model in light of changing tourism demand, digital behavior, and the growing search for authentic, sustainable, less standardized experiences.
The area had no shortage of things to see.
It had a great many.
The question was a different one: does being rich in attractions automatically make a place a destination?
1. The initial request, and why it was set aside
The apparent request was to update the area’s marketing and communication plan.
New targets. New channels. New content. A more contemporary digital strategy.
All legitimate needs.
But before deciding how to communicate the destination, something more fundamental had to be verified: what, exactly, were we asking the traveler to choose?
The initial question was therefore set aside.
Not:
“How do we promote this area more effectively?”
but:
“What must exist, before any communication, for places, operators and hundreds of experiences to be perceived and chosen as a single destination?”
The two questions look similar.
They are not.
The first produces a communication plan.
The second requires building a destination strategy.
2. The evidence that changed the question
2.1 The heritage was not the problem. Its organization in the traveler’s mind was
The area had numerous attractions.
Cultural sites. Historic town centers. Landscape. Food and wine. Craftsmanship. Traditions. Experiences.
The risk was treating their sum as equivalent to a tourism proposition.
But travelers do not choose an inventory.
They choose an idea of a journey.
The strategic question therefore became: what holds all of this together?
Because if every town, attraction and operator presents itself well but there is no higher reason connecting them, the traveler may recognize the individual places without recognizing the destination.
Method rule
Attractions belong to the territory. The destination belongs to the traveler’s mind. Having the former does not guarantee owning the latter.
2.2 The most recognizable element of identity could also become a limit
The area could rely on a recognizable cultural heritage.
It was natural to place it at the center of the narrative.
But the analysis led to a different question: must the reason a traveler recognizes a place necessarily be the same reason they decide to spend several days there?
Cultural identity could serve as a frame.
Within that frame, however, there were people, flavors, landscapes, rituals, craftsmanship, rural life and ways of living the territory.
The destination could therefore evolve without disowning its heritage.
Not by replacing its identity.
By broadening its meaning.
Cultural heritage made the area recognizable.
Experience could make it desirable.
Method rule
The asset that makes a destination recognizable need not contain its entire promise. It can be the gateway to a much broader experience.
2.3 The real competitor was not necessarily the neighboring area
A tourism benchmark built solely on geographic proximity would have given an incomplete reading.
Travelers do not necessarily compare neighboring destinations.
They compare alternatives capable of satisfying the same desire to travel.
If they are looking for authenticity, culture, slowness, gastronomy and a connection with the place, the competitor may be hundreds or thousands of miles away.
The competitive perimeter therefore shifted.
No longer only:
“Who offers heritage similar to ours?”
but:
“Which destinations have already come to own, in the traveler’s mind, the idea of travel we want to represent?”
This changes the benchmark entirely.
The comparison is no longer limited to monuments, beds or attractions.
It is between promises.
Method rule
A territory’s competitors are geographic. A destination’s competitors are psychological: they compete for the same trip in the mind of the same person.
2.4 The previous plan was not wrong. It was a snapshot of a different moment
The project already had a strategic plan in place.
The simplest temptation would have been to replace it with a new strategy.
That was not done.
The earlier document was treated as a hypothesis to be tested.
Targets, travel behavior, the role of digital, seasonality, motivations and ways of experiencing the destination were all reexamined.
Some elements retained their value.
Others needed to evolve.
Shifts in tourism demand had made authenticity, sustainability, flexibility, lived experiences, the chance to connect with places and the digital planning of the trip far more central.
The issue, then, was not deciding whether the old plan was right or wrong.
It was separating what remained strategically valid from what belonged to the context in which it had been written.
Method rule
Updating a strategy does not mean rewriting it. It means testing, one by one, the assumptions on which it was built.
2.5 A destination cannot simply be communicated. It must be delivered
Destination communication can promise authenticity, experience, discovery, slowness and connection.
But that promise is then delivered by many different players.
Accommodation providers. Restaurateurs. Guides. Producers. Cultural operators. Local authorities. Retailers. Experience organizers.
The tourism product, therefore, is not what the destination organization communicates.
It is what the traveler encounters.
This makes destination marketing profoundly different from marketing a conventional product.
Those who build the brand do not fully control the product.
Hence the need to involve public and private stakeholders not only as recipients of the plan, but as sources for the diagnosis and as parts of the system that will have to make it credible.
Method rule
In destination tourism, the brand makes the promise, but the ecosystem delivers it. If the two levels do not match, communication accelerates disappointment rather than growth.
3. The turning point
Bringing the evidence together, the problem was reframed.
The area did not simply need better promotion.
First, a legible relationship had to be built between:
territory → experiences → promise → destination.
The progression became:
from an area rich in attractions → to a system of experiences → to a recognizable destination → to a place brand capable of guiding choice.
This also changes the role of communication.
Without a shared promise, every campaign has to explain all over again what the area offers.
When that promise exists, communication, content, operators and experiences can progressively build meaning around the same idea.
The strategy developed after the analysis is not reported in this case.
But the principle that guided it is: before bringing more visitors to an area, you must decide which destination you want them to find.
4. Seven questions to ask before promoting a destination
- If we removed the destination’s name from our communication, could ten other Italian areas use the same promise without difficulty?
- Are the places we are known for the same as the reasons we would like to be chosen?
- Are we describing a collection of attractions, or a recognizable idea of travel?
- Are our competitors really the neighboring areas, or the destinations competing for the same desire in our traveler’s mind?
- Does the positioning defined a few years ago still describe the behavior and expectations of the traveler we want to attract today?
- Could the operators who meet the traveler explain the destination’s promise in their own words?
- If we doubled the communication budget tomorrow, would we make a destination more recognizable, or simply make its individual attractions more visible?
5. Where to start
Before defining campaigns, channels, content and media investment, a destination marketing project should bring at least five levels to the same table:
- what the area actually has;
- what it believes it represents;
- what today’s traveler is looking for;
- what competing destinations already occupy in that traveler’s mind;
- what the local ecosystem is genuinely able to deliver.
The distance between these levels determines how solid the promise is.
It is the same logic Line2LEAD applies to strategic projects: rather than starting from what needs to be communicated, first establish what it makes sense to promise, to whom, and why it should be credible.
Because in destination marketing, the question that comes before the communication plan is: are we promoting a place, or are we building a reason to choose it?
6. This case is not about tourism
The mechanism described applies to any organization in which the final value arises from the interaction of many players that no one fully controls.
Business networks. Consortia. Industrial districts. Associations. Marketplaces. Franchises. Local ecosystems.
In all of these cases, there is a temptation to use a shared brand to create unity.
But a visual identity does not automatically turn a plurality of players into a system.
First comes the shared promise.
Then the participants’ ability to keep it.
Finally, the communication that makes it visible.
The symptom is often:
“We need to promote ourselves more.”
The strategic question comes first:
“What are we asking the market to recognize as a single whole?”
Because communication can amplify a destination.
It cannot, on its own, create its coherence.
To discuss your case
If you are working on promoting an area, a network or a system of operators, the first step is not a new communication plan but a conversation about the promise that system is truly able to keep.
When the territory is well known, but the destination does not yet exist