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The attractiveness of uniqueness

Hello everyone and all the best from beautiful Stockholm!

I am so lucky to have a few days ”off” from school and all the thesis worries. Last Thursday I went to Copenhagen together with a German friend who lives in Stockholm, before moving on to Malmö for a day and now finally having arrived in Sweden’s wonderful capital.

Copenhagen from its best side - the sunny side. We enjoyed hot chocolate in one of the restaurants at Nyhavn.
Copenhagen from its best side – the sunny side. We enjoyed hot chocolate in one of the restaurants at Nyhavn.
Here you can see a typical building in Nyhavn. Isn't it charming?
Here you can see a typical building in Nyhavn. Isn’t it charming?

While being in Copenhagen, I was especially fascinated by the area of Nyhavn, which is located at a canal and lined by beautiful old and colourful houses, housing many cafés and restaurants. One of them is on the picture above. To me this was so special that I would call it unique – a word that many destinations use to market themselves. And this reminded me of a very interesting presentation that I saw back in October or November, during ”Näringslivsdagarna” in Helsingborg.

The presentation was given by Roger Brooks – a ”guru” in destination marketing, who talked about immutable rules of destination development. He explained for example how our society is nowadays suffering from an advertisement overload, especially with many destinations choosing similar buzz words for their marketing: explore, discover, or unique are some examples. He advises destination marketers to avoid such words and really find something specific that makes them special and attractive. Standing for everything means standing for nothing, but he observed that too many destinations are trying to market themselves according to what has worked well with other destinations, rather than looking at what actually is special about them. For Copenhagen, this definitely could be Nyhavn, but maybe also Christiania, an autonomous neighbourhood close to the city centre. An important lesson to learn for me and others interested in destination development.

Watch this video: Phrases to avoid – Roger Brooks

If you are studying or working with tourism, and interested in destination development you should definitely have a look at Roger Brook’s tips and tricks!

 

11 mars, 2013

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