Holiday destinations all over the world are working every perspective to get as many tourists and their pocketbooks into their hotels and restaurants as possible, making seasonality a serious challenge for similar summer hotspots.
The United Nations World Tourism Organization recently commenced a project to analyze the concept how to turn a summer getaway into a year-round destination. That initiative is part of UNWTO’s Affiliate Members Programme, which aims to share lessons and help destinations work towards sustainable economic and social tourism development.
Taking Uruguay as a test case, the UNWTO focused its efforts on the summer beach city of Punta del Este where association leaders met with private and public representatives to plan and test a sample for reducing seasonality and attracting visitors 365 days out of the year.
Tourism revenues have quadrupled in Uruguay in recent years to reach more than $2 billion dollars; however, three-quarters of it come during the summer months.
720,000 people visited Punta del Este in 2013, in the summer and only 277,000 people visited throughout the rest of the year.
The recommendations drew by the UNWTO to beat seasonality in Punta del Este include raising the profile of the destination’s culinary and agricultural sectors, developing sports and wellness tourism, creating themed events to attract certain demographics, and attracting businesses to the new convention center.
The UNWTO plans use the Punta del Este 365 as a case study, which, if successful, will be applied to other destinations.
Croatia which has a similar problem recently started to fight its summer stereotype with a new marketing drive designed to educate prospective visitors about the cultural, wellness, culinary, outdoor and business opportunities available in 22 destination throughout the year.
Switzerland in an effort to change its perception more than 80 percent of Switzerland Tourism’s marketing initiatives and funds support summer campaigns.