Destinations: Time to Focus on Multicultural Travelers

Since the beginning of the year, tourism activity has been put to a halt. The unexpected hit of a pandemic has made destinations worldwide finding ways to continue generating revenue amid tourists locked in their houses.

With important markets closed, destination marketing organizations had to target new countries. Which has been a challenge, once borders are opening and closing in different places at different times.

One solution is creating campaigns with a multilingual and multicultural approach. The idea is to call the attention of a larger audience and become less dependent on tourists from a few countries.

Targeting a diverse audience is a change that was happening slowly before the pandemic. But after movements such as Black Lives Matter, more and more travelers are looking for visiting places that value diversity.

How to create a campaign for a multicultural audience?

There are different strategies a DMO can use in order to entice multicultural tourists.

A simple and effective one is creating a campaign in their native language. But forget the subtitles, for better results, opt for real people talking straight to your potential customers.

DMOs should also consider that travelers want to create a connection with the places they are visiting.

To do that, have the local community in your campaigns. Show how diverse it is, and also make sure that visitors from different nationalities are represented in the promo material.

Another marketing strategy consists of incorporating cultural elements of the audience in the campaign. For that purpose, use traditional music and personalities that are meaningful for the audience you are targeting.

To get inspired, check out three examples of multicultural marketing campaigns created by tourism boards.

Pure Grenada

Grenada’s minister of tourism and civil aviation has created a video in Spanish inviting travelers to visit the country. The video is one of a series that will be shared on social media in different languages.

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Tourism New Zealand

The country has chosen to show its multiethnic community in order to connect with diverse travelers. In their video, we can see people from different ages and backgrounds talking in different languages with the audience, passing a message that New Zealand is a land for all.

Visit Isreal

Recently Israel has normalized relations with the United Arab Emirates, and to invite the new market to pay a visit, they have launched a multilanguage campaign using traditional Emirati music while showing beautiful Israeli landscapes.

How to prepare a destination for multicultural travelers?

Attracting multicultural visitors to your destination is only part of the job. Once travelers arrive in your territory, it’s important to make them feel comfortable and safe, especially during the pandemic.

Implementing different languages to touristic service platforms and offering health and emergency services in multiple languages, is something that destinations should take into consideration.

Orioly also can help you preparing your destination to receive international travelers from different markets. Besides providing a contactless solution for booking tours and activities, our software allows users to book in more than 10 different languages.

Check out our solution to learn how we can help you with developing a smart tourism project for your destination and attracting travelers from all over the world.