Market your destination : An investigation of how destination marketing organizations can reach generation Y

Sammanfattning: Background: The tourism industry and especially those that market destinations, destination marketing organizations (DMOs), face challenges to meet generation Y, with an uncertainty of how to do it. DMOs need to be adaptable to an everyday changing market in order to attract visitors to their destinations. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore how destination marketing organizations can market their destinations to reach domestic tourists within the population of generation Y. Method: A literature review was made in order to explore previous research regarding DMOs’ marketing strategies and tourists’ information search behavior. The literature review has been used in order to make hypotheses and a research model which lay the foundation for the design of a survey to test the hypotheses. An interview guide, based on the literature review, was made to address potential tourists and get deepen understanding of the field. Contrast and compare have been made between potential tourists’ opinions and the theoretical part, in order to draw conclusions on the subject. Results and conclusions: Results of this study have shown that for the chosen population, generation Y, are search engines and DMOs’ websites seen as the best way to reach tourists. DMOs have high possibilities to be seen on the web (their website and social media sites) if they actively use search engine optimization. Social media sites are also important, but in a different way, and DMOs need to work harder and cleverer on these sites to market their destinations.