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(Warning: ridiculously adorable baby photo below. Be ready to smile.)
“Tourism marketing” usually implies promoting to audiences who live elsewhere, yet locals play a key role in tourism marketing too. In fact, they play a far more critical role than most tourism brands are willing to acknowledge:
- They are influencers, who can either help promote you or help promote AGAINST you.
- They are, inevitably, your go-to-market whenever tourism slows (off-season) or gets interrupted (recession, natural disaster, global pandemic, etc.).
So essentially…they can become your greatest ambassadors AND they can save your bacon when times are tough. Surely this makes them an audience worth consistently courting, right?
And yet, in my experience working with tourism brands, I find that locals are often viewed as an inconvenience, and an audience that needs to be “placated” not courted. Tourism brands frequently complain that locals:
- Don’t drink the Kool-Aid they’re dishing out…locals feel they know the REAL you and they love calling you out when you try to promote only your “good side.”
- Feel entitled ownership of the area and begrudge the entity’s (perceived) power.
- Resent floods of tourists coming to the area and disrupting their normal activities.
But if you only care about them when “regular” tourism is down, can you blame them for not loving you? Locals don’t like being your Plan B. Who would?
Instead of treating them like a fair-weather friend, you should consider ways to treat them like a special audience. You want their support, their goodwill, and their vocal promotion in good times and in bad. How do you get it? You need to instill a sense of pride in them about YOU.
This is true for all types of tourism entities…destinations, hotels, attractions, even tour companies and cruise lines within both their home base and the markets in which they operate.
Give locals reasons to take pride in you. And be proud to be associated with you. And want to brag about you to others. Let THEM pour your Kool-Aid.
In some ways, this isn’t about treating them as a tourist whose wallet you’re looking to open. It’s about treating them as a part of your tourism family.
Tasmania, Australia’s island state, does an extraordinary job at this.
The Little Tasmanian program was not created by Tourism Tasmania, nor is it designed to be a tourism promotion program. And yet, that’s one of its hidden super powers.
Brand Tasmania created the program, in collaboration with government partners, to foster early childhood literacy and simultaneously inspire in young children 1) a sense of pride in being Tasmanian, and 2) a sense of confidence that they can succeed in anything they choose.
As part of the program, every newborn in Tasmania gets a library bag filled with Tasmanian branded goodies that are both useful and inspirational. Besides a library card voucher and helpful information for parents, the bag’s contents vary, containing things like a Little Tasmanian board book and playmat, as well as a onesie that proudly proclaims the newborn’s origins:
With this program, Tasmania is creating future tourism ambassadors in its kiddos and current tourism ambassadors in their parents. It’s instilling a sense of pride in the state and giving them positive reasons to share stories. Indeed, I discovered this program because someone shared a photo on LinkedIn of her newborn in his Tasmanian onesie and she was enthusiastic about the Little Tasmanian program.
And Tasmania isn’t alone in cultivating future ambassadors from birth. The Italian soccer team Atalanta gives a newborn-sized signature Atalanta shirt to all babies born in the team’s home town of Bergamo through a program called Progetto Neonati Atalantini (Atlanta Newborns Project).
Newborn gifts may not be a good fit for you or your budget, although I strongly encourage tourism destinations to consider it and look for government or other funding partners. Even for-profit tourism entities (like hotels) who may not have access to government funding can partner with clothing companies, authors, toy companies, bookstores, and more to make it happen.
But aside from newborn gifts, there are other ways to show locals that they are not just your Plan B, but rather they are a valued part of your tourism family. This is true whether you’re a tourism destination or a tourism operator within a destination.
This goes beyond just sponsoring the local little league team and supporting local charities. Show them that they matter to your business. Some ideas:
- Lots of tourism entities offer loyalty programs to tourists. But do you have one for locals? You could put together a program with special benefits for locals…you could probably even charge for it if the ROI to them was significant enough.
- Offer a special “locals only” drink (at a special price) at your bar. You could offer this every night or just one night or just weeknights or just at happy hours. Whatever works for you, as long as it’s a regular thing, and they have to show their license with a local address to be eligible. Or, they have to be a member of your locals loyalty program if you go that route. (If you’re in a big city, you can make this more of a neighborhood thing with a clear block perimeter.)
- Give them a sneak peek of new things…renovations, products, menus, activities, offerings, and more. Experiencing it first makes them really FEEL like part of your tourism family.
- If you have consistent annual slow seasons, create value offerings for locals they can count on each year so they plan for it. It doesn’t matter to them if the weather is crappy and a lot of local businesses are closed. I personally would take an “Escape Your Chores” vacation in a heartbeat at the right price. Someone else cleans my room and cooks my meals and I’m not sitting in my home looking at all the closets I keep meaning to clean out and the bookshelves I keep meaning to organize? Sign me up.
- How about hosting a “thank you party” at the end of tourism season for the locals?
- You could organize a regular “locals only” drawing for swag and other giveaways – hotel rooms, spa treatments, meals, golf rounds, ski passes, and more. If you’re a destination, you can get your local operators to contribute the giveaways…it’s a win-win.
You may say to yourself “why should I give locals discounts when they might pay full price if I didn’t?” That’s because you’re thinking with your REVENUE HAT on, not your MARKETING HAT.
You’re courting the locals, not for their money (though that will come) but for their ambassador potential. You want them telling their friends and family about you with pride. You want them to be an unofficial part of your tourism team, sharing good things about you on social media. And you want them to WANT to see you succeed in your tourism effort…because it is also THEIR tourism effort.
Then, the next time “regular tourism” dips for whatever reason, the locals will feel a sense of community in supporting you instead of resentment over being your Plan B.
And heads up: you definitely want to nip local resentment in the bud before it escalates, or else you may find that locals are banding together and proactively doing what they can to STOP tourists from coming.
For additional tourism marketing ideas:
How to inspire word-of-mouth in tourism marketing.
