Approach:Read the questions and answer them fully, as directed.

1.Beaches Open for Business

In March, 2009, during hurricane Hamish, the MV Pacific Adventurer spilled 260 tonnes of fuel, along with 31 shipping containers housing 620 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, into the Coral Sea, just north of Brisbane, Australia. The following week the spillage washed ashore along 60 kilometres of coastline that included 4 popular beach destinations: Sunshine Coast, Moreton Bay, Bribie Island and Moreton Island. Affected areas included surf beaches, reefs and wetlands. Many of these areas has also already been battered by the cyclone. The ship continued through into the Port of Brisbane, leaving a 500 metre oil slick at the mouth of the Brisbane River. A state of emergency was declared by the Queensland state government, with Premier Anna Bligh describing the event as 'the worst environmental disaster Queensland has ever seen'. The spillage took 16 months of work by over 1,400 people to clean, at a direct cost of millions of dollars, along with the ensuing loss of revenue by affected businesses.

Nine days after the spill, Tourism Queensland announced details of a coordinated, cooperative campaign involving the STO and three RTOs: Brisbane Marketing, Tourism Sunshine Coats and Fraser Coast South Burnett Tourism. The aim was to reassure the domestic market an local residents that most beaches in south-east Queensland were open for business. The initiative was anchored by a AUD$750,000 television advertising campaign in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and northern New South Wales. Other tactics included:

-A three-week newspaper campaign

-A local radio blitz featuring celebrities

-A special travel promotion via the STOs email newsletter to a database of over 400,000 contacts.

-Updates to the local tourism industry encouraging them to make sure their staff had accurate information about the unaffected beach areas and operations.

-A dedicated STO email account and phone hotline for tourism operators with any tourism related questions or concerns.

Today, the impacts of Covid-19 on the tourisms sector worldwide is unprecedented with the UNWTO reporting that every destination in the world having been affected by travel restrictions of some sort. Canada has not yet had the high numbers of Covid-19 cases that other countries are reporting although many borders are restricted or closed and Canada's NTO is describing the conditions as 'catastrophic'. One of the ways the NTO and local DMOs tried to counterbalance the steep tourism decline in the summer of 2020 was to target their promotions to the domestic audience - somewhat like Tourism Queensland did after the oil spill of 2009.

Discussion questions:

1.Why did the DMO's target communications toward local domestic markets as a result of the crises described above?

2.The future will see increasing DMO use of social media. Find and provide a social media example of a destination that targeted domestic markets in 2020 in response to Covid-19.

Sources: Pike, S. 2016 and Destination Canada, 2020

2.Visit Ierapetra

Ierapetra is one of the least known towns on the Island of Crete an has a population of approximately 20,000 residents. Tourism is second to agriculture in terms of economic contribution.

Visit Ierapetra is the official e-marketing campaign for this small town and began in 2012 as a practitioner/academic collaboration between the municipality's DMO and the Technological Educational Institute of Crete. The aim was to use Web 2.0 technology in a cost-effective way to improve perceptions in key European target markets and increase visitor arrivals at a time of increasing economic uncertainly in Greece. All municipalities faced public sector faced funding cuts, and the local tourism board made the decision to reduce traditional promotional activity in favour of social media marketing.

Most of the strategy was directed toward Facebook, with one profile page for municipality issues and an English language site for tourism information. The plan was to post a photo or story three times daily and to collaborate with related pages to facilitate sharing. Profiles were also set up for trials on other social media platforms such as Flickr, Pinterest, YouTube, Foursquare, Scribd, ISSUU and Twitter. Since the tourism board's photo library was not of suitable digital quality, a group of local volunteer amateur photographers was used to generate appropriate content at little cost. The decision was also made to have the photos watermarked with the destination name, but available under Creative Commons license, to enable free sharing.

Preliminary results:

-In less than two months the tourism page had attractive over 3000 followers

-A summer festival brochure on Scribd was viewed 8000 times in four months

-After 500 tweets the Twitter account had only attracted 55 followers

As of 18 January 2015, the Visit Ierapetra Facebook page had attracted 4390 likes. The first page had remained unchanged since 2 June 2014 and had attracted 11 likes. Prior to January 2015, the most recent activity had been five months previously when three posts were made in August 2014.

Discussion questions:

1.What are the possible reasons for the slowdown in Facebook activity by the DMO in 2014?

2.If you were hired by the DMO to improve their results, what would you do to accomplish that task?

Sources: Pike, S. 2016

3.Cape Breton Island - your heart will never leave.

Located on Canada's east coast, Cape Breton Island has long been lauded as one of the most beautiful islands in the world, attracting visitors interested in outdoor adventure, recreation, touring, fresh seafood, heritage, music, culture and most recently, some of the highest quality golf in the world.Cape Breton is part of Mi'kma'ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi'kmaq people. Home to five First Nation Communities, the Mi'kmaq people represent important aspects of the Island's tourism and cultural experience. Cape Breton Island is served by a well-established Destination Marketing Organization, supported, in part, by an accommodation tax, or levy, and four levels of government involvement - Federal, Provincial, Municipal and Indigenous.

Cape Breton Island Room Nights is 17.5% of the Provincial total, and the estimated Cape Breton Tourism Revenues are approximately $448,000,000. In 2016, the Tourism sector in Cape Breton with 5,675 employees represented 10.56% of the total employment on the Island

Cape Breton Island has long been lauded as one of the most beautiful Island's in the world. Its dramatic natural landscape, rich cultural traditions and quaint seaside villages are joined by highly sought after tourism experiences including two acclaimed World Top 100 stunning golf courses, the largest historical reconstruction in North America, Fortress Louisbourg, the first single malt whiskey distillery in North America, the only Gaelic College in North America and authentic Mi'kmaq cultural experiences to be discovered and enjoyed by visitors from far and wide.

While heavily dependant on seasonal employment, collectively the tourism and hospitality sector are comprised of small and medium sized enterprises predominantly located in rural areas.

The DMO for Cape Breton Island is Destination Cape Breton Association (DCBA).

Find the DMO website and answer the following questions:

1.In your opinion, explain whether or not the DMO for Cape Breton Island is a marketing organization or destination management organization.

2.Review the DMO's website for Cape Breton Island and tell what other roles or responsibilities they deliver in addition to marketing or promoting the destination?

3.Can you describe the DMO's response to the impacts of Covid-19?

4.Do you think the DMO for Cape Breton Island does a good job branding the destination? If so, why? If not, why not?

5.Name a few of the stakeholders that DCBA serves.

6.What initiatives could DCBA use to stimulate stakeholders to promote the destination image in their own marketing and communications?