New Trends in Tourism Destination Branding by Means of Digital Marketing

Abstract

Contemporary business is largely based on digital information. Traditional media forms lose battle in a new global surrounding. Therefore, knowing specific terminology and postulates of new conditions in the digital information market is essential. Globalization is an inevitable process overtaking all economic activities, including tourism sector intertwined with various advertising activities in order to place and sell its products and services. Digital marketing is thus more and more used. In that context, world tourism organizations and national tourist agencies play a role of communicator, trying to create desired mental image of a specific country as a tourism destination in the minds of final consumers. They use branding to make one country uniquely recognizable in the market. The aim of this paper is to present new trends in tourism destination branding process by using the means of digital marketing. The main purpose of this research was to analyse marketing activities and communication strategies of European countries, perceived as the largest tourism market, and compare them with the tourism promotion of Croatia in various markets. The results of the analysis of Croatian activities in promoting its tourism destinations imply there is still a large potential to improve implementation of digital marketing means by preparing the strategy of integrated market communication. The analysis of marketing activities of tourism developed countries shows trends in digital marketing that can serve as a model for development of Croatian tourism brand in global digital surrounding.