DESTINATION

In the prior article, I offered my impression of ‘community’.  Now I would like to delve briefly into the notion of ‘destination’.  Then, in the next article, I will attempt to tie the two concepts together – ‘communities-as-destinations’.

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Not all communities are destinations in the traditional sense, nor do all want to be. There are multiple personal and individual reasons for visiting a community beyond tourism, though some and the places in between cannot help but be pass-by or pass-through, while others desire anonymity and refuge from the mainstream and social media influencers. 

Some, however, may not be precluded from becoming destinations.  They merely represent desirable (necessary or special) places (business locales or sites for connectivity, collaboration or comradery) where people want (or have) to visit and be, are going (back to my roots), or are being sent to, regardless if they have been invited or not.  The fact that they offer the right amenity mix of essential and complementary goods, services and attractions may necessitate visitation, though they don’t have to be a journey’s end point.  They could easily be one of many stops or roadside attractions included in a journey or a tour’s itinerary along dedicated tourism corridors – perhaps part of a route or region that is renowned for some activity, pursuit, or natural beauty.

Additionally, some destinations (natural or sacred sites, parks, and resorts, for example) and places for activities (trekking along trails) may not even be communities, though they could be served by people residing in nearby communities – sometimes making these communities synonymous with, or dependent upon, highly specific activities and attractions often in outlying or regional areas, suggesting the need to be cognizant of regional requirements when undertaking planning and development.  

There is another pertinent meaning to “destination” that represents the act of appointing or setting aside.  It’s not unusual for some communities to classify some areas within their jurisdictions as “tourist zones”, whether raw or refined.  In this sense, popular destinations, or those in ascendancy, tend to identify particular locales considered trendy, worthy of a visit, places where people tend to congregate, gravitate and escape to, or want to be. 

In this sense, destinations are often a series of visitor-centric services and enterprises based in specific areas, downtowns or unique neighborhoods, around marquee attractions, classified or signature places (events, artifacts, cultures) that are on display and part of the political economy of showing and exhibitionism…or more approachable and inclusive places designed to provide rich experiences based on entertainment, sensory aesthetics, rhythmic or emotional arousal. 

Tourist zones, however, represent a concentration of activity, and could be problematic without alleviation or some sort of diversification.  Regardless, tourism clusters represent a collage of influences and hubs of activities for visitors and out-of-towners.

Delineation or concentration of specialized economic (tourism) development may be strategically powerful, but it can potentially limit opportunities for inclusiveness and/or lead to aspects of (adverse) gentrification (e.g. Vanishing New York and the threatening of entertainers in New Orleans, despite many unaccounted for benefits), detachment, and preferential access and treatment. 

Nevertheless, by privileging “experience”, often managed and manipulated in accordance with themes, sensory stimulation, and reasons for visits, destinations get to choose from endless niche forms of travel and tourism (whether related to culture, nature, adventure, religion, pilgrimage, business, meetings, sports, education, volunteerism, music (night songs) or nighttime economies.  While these may be differentiated in organic ways, it’s possible that they may not coincide with preferred goals and identities, or perceived strengths.  Indeed, it’s possible that “tourism’s narratives can defeat a community and its surroundings”

It is important to emphasize that these niches tend to be composed of an assemblage of complementary, adjacent and reinforcing individual branded enterprises – a mix of shops, attractions, restaurants, galleries, museums, and so on – that are, or aim to be, destinations in their own right. 

While it often requires an agglomeration or a critical mass of business and cultural offerings to generate interest and drive visitation to an area, every individual enterprise has to be on-top-of-their-game and community-centric.  

Rarely, however, is that the case.  Cash-strapped and poorly managed enterprises or those that lack sophistication and insight about community or customer centricity, the creation and capture of value, or fail to evolve and differentiate their offerings or provide worthy (shopping, dining, performing) experiences, can deaden the appeal of a community. 

With retail landscapes being disrupted by on-line activities and an ever-widening elixir of experiential choices, as well as a down current of adverse public policies furthering the demise of many local and small enterprises, many communities-as-destinations seem trapped between a rock and a hard place. 

Hope need not be lost.  Every community-as-a-destination can be a boutique destination if more individual enterprises adapted their concepts to new realities, and reinvented the shopping or entertainment experience (often combining the two).

Re-purposing or a resurgence of interest can reinvigorate districts and neighborhoods, reviving places, communities, and individual enterprises as destinations-of-distinction.  Changing the retail story is possible, as this example from Portugal poignantly reveals. 

The challenge, however, lies in determining how every business or small town can elevate the ordinary and become the best version of themselves (not succumb to notion of becoming the “big fish”).  

What actually drives people to patronize individual businesses (and hence communities) is the extra effort and instinct to connect, care, share and support, which in turn attracts people to communities.  Imagine if coaching, training and funding programs were in place, as in the sports world, to help entrepreneurs and enterprises “own the podium”.  What if such initiatives, activities and events could be supported and streamed by DMOs and business associations?

If specific venues can be revived and become destinations-of-merit (e.g. public markets), what additional steps have to be taken if places or communities are to be fashioned in accordance? 

Everyone these days seems to be employing versions of place branding, but perhaps a sense of “purpose” should come first…deep purpose dictated by context that regales the notion of destinations-as-communities.  As for individual organizations, purpose clarifies that which a person or business does, values, stands for, seeks to achieve, and endorses.  In this sense, purpose would clarify “destiny” which need not be associated with a divined order of things. 

Communities-as-destinations, for example, might want travel and tourism to support and help grow local or regional economies, others might go so far as to recognize tourism’s role in creating and supporting third places and a local ethos, achieving peace, or being an exemplar of universal human rights.  

Ultimately, though, a destination’s destiny is intermediated by agency, through peoples’ desire to create, demonstrate, perform, decide, cooperate or act, often supported through content-marketing strategies or resonant state-of-the-heart stories – narrative framing that springs from, or is dictated by, that which is local (like the terroir of wine) and designed to convey meaning and desirable outcomes of importance to visitors, communities and their citizens.

Sadly, so many stories tend not to be true to higher ideals.  Many follow scripts that exaggerate and fake (lost) authenticity in support of a competitiveness rationale for tourism, putting into question the extent to which purpose or the “why” of travel and tourism has been thoughtfully conveyed, and accurately portrayed and pursued.

Despite the fact that many aspirations are economically-inspired, many never rise beyond being hygiene factors because insufficient attention is paid to the full scope and scale of value visitors and hosts actually seek, including their higher callings or desired forms of enrichment and endearment, involvement, fairness, authenticity, and integrity. 

Indeed, questions often arise as to whether particular purposes are appropriate, acceptable, or should even be permitted.  For example, tourism is known to cause, or be the genesis to a wide range of faux offerings, unplanned consequences or outcomes (even though the decision quality might have seemed appropriate at the time). 

If most communities or destinations seem compelled to stress an economic rationale for tourism, what is being communicated?   Purpose, after all, represents an accessible “aspirational reason for being”; it should inspire, help set direction, and provide calls to action of mutual benefit to communities-as-a -whole.  But, if overt emphasis is just given to jobs, profits, and taxes, can a wider and deeper sense of purpose be muscled out?  

Surely it begs the question as to whether communities should be giving more careful thought to what it means to be a destination – the extent to which it fosters more appropriate or transcendent approaches to providing experiences, creating value in all directions, and achieving a higher degree of unity within community.