Tourism in Greece: the fallacy of putting marketing first

Outdoor advertising campaign from the Greek National Tourism Organisation

I’ve been reading quite a lot lately regarding this year’s advertising campaign for tourism in Greece, organised – as it happens every year – by the Greek National Tourism Organisation (GNTO). The campaign has been presented (and defended) in the media by politicians and criticised in the media and blogosphere. Interestingly I’ve only seen the debate in Greek (which, for an “international” campaign I would assume kinda beats the purpose?)

I don’t want to go into the campaign itself nor do I want to discuss the creative element. Advertising is not my domain. However, I know policy and communications. And I think it’s a mistake when marketing is used as an attempt to cover up bad or non existent policy.

Greece is a lovely country, granted. Montenegro is an equally lovely country. It is impossible for tourism nowadays to be based on a model that is antiquated and redundant, that of beauty, sun and sea. In other words, for Greece to actually make a difference and continue being a tourism destination, as well as develop the industry more for the future it needs a number of competitive advantages.

What those competitive advantages should be is a decision for the market AND the regulator/ ministry. Incentivising the tourism industry to develop a number of characteristics and offerings requires robust policy planning and development as well as stakeholder engagement both on a national and international level. All parts of the market need to work together on this and realise that Greece is competing on an international plateau of destinations and traveller preferences.

Taking advantage of Greece’s natural beauty has been a haphazard process so far; we seem to have assumed that people will come, disregard all other elements that make up a holiday experience, and just stand in awe of a scenery that is already being destroyed by over-development and inadequate environmental safeguards.

Without robust and well-developed policies any industry will fall into disorganisation and at some point into disrepute (if it hasn’t already). Big players make the market their own, new players and innovation is discouraged. A culture of short-sighted money grabbing schemes prevails and in the long run the whole industry suffers.

This is where policy development and stakeholder engagement comes in – and critically it will need to come in before marketing campaigns. Policy is the building block of any industry and it is currently missing from Greek tourism. Any marketeer who is worth their salt will tell you that advertising is all very well and good but if it misrepresents the product it will ultimately cause more hurt than profit.

I am hoping that the debates on the latest marketing campaign will slowly shift from the advertisements themselves to the underlying structure of the market.

Otherwise, I can’t see how the country can secure the tourism industry and encourage its further development.

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Full disclosure: I work for SoMaFusion, a digital comms agency which also works in the hospitality and travel sectors.

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