Another familiar complaint in Destination Marketing (see yesterday's post) is that an "out of town" (or out of country) firm or CEO can't possibly know how to market a region.
This, of course, assumes that someone who lives in a place can be objective about what will attract a visitor to that place.
While this is, by no means, a criticism of homegrown talent...there is a certain logic to having someone from your target market (let's say America) lead the resurrection of a Destination Marketing effort in a nearby country (such as Bermuda). Without deep research, most resident marketers wouldn't know what motivates an American to choose one island over another. Bill Hanbury and Vicki Isley, of the Bermuda Tourism Authority, do (and, his recent podcast explanation on how they are developing Bermudian talent to one day take the reigns is sensational).
And, then there is this rant from a businessman in Belize that (among other complaints) the firm that created his country's destination website wasn't Belizean. While true, whoever did it (and their sensational video content), certainly understands what motivates.
Local talent is critical for content creation and storytelling. But, just because someone isn't from your town, state or country is no reason to disqualify them from working on your destination's behalf. They might just see things that a local doesn't.
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