Destination Planning
As a key part of our sustainable communities’ tool-kit, destination planning helps
communities highlight the unique characteristics of their towns and to develop the
unique selling points through a marketing strategy and other mechanisms to secure
agreement on the best way to promote the town’s distinctiveness. Destination planning
also helps to build the capacity of each town to deliver its vision and encourage
entrepreneurship thereby securing the long-term sustainability of the project rather
than rely on grants.
A key place-making tool which Miller Research has developed is the Visitor Journey
which in the case of its work in South Oxfordshire, workshop participants were encouraged
to see their town as a first time visitor might. The stakeholder group is split
into a number of groups and each is charged with the task of assuming the identity
of a particular segment. Each group was then asked to identify the expectations
of their market segment, upon a visit to their town. Personalities and a brief for
each of the market segments are developed to make them more easily identifiable.
The visitor journey experience helps people to understand their assets and their
personality which informed the branding of their town.
Developing a destination and promoting its individual charms invariably involves
change and in particular, change in people’s perceptions. A well informed town brand
can be an effective catalyst for achieving widespread buy-in to a town’s ambition
to achieve its altered state. Whether the town plans to undergo immense physical
changes or if it simply requires a change in the attitudes of the people who live
and visit the town, a brand can provide the impetus.