Why Most Destination Marketing Plans Fail (and how to fix yours)
If you've ever sat down to write a marketing plan and ended up with a 40-page document that nobody looks at again, you're not alone. We see it all the time. Destinations and tourism organisations put real effort into planning, but the document ends up in a drawer while the team goes back to posting on Instagram and hoping for the best.
The problem isn't the plan itself. It's that most destination marketing plans are written to be impressive rather than useful. They're full of goals that can't be measured, strategies that aren't connected to real budgets, and audience descriptions so broad they could apply to anyone. Here's how to build a plan that your team will actually use — one that drives real results for your destination.
The difference between a marketing plan and a content calendar
These two things often get confused and it creates real problems. A content calendar tells you what you're posting and when. A marketing plan tells you why, for whom, and to achieve what. Without a solid strategy, a content calendar is helpful, but not strategic. Things still go awry when this is the only planning tool - creating content for the sake of creating content.
A good destination marketing plan answers four questions. Who are we trying to reach? What do we want them to do? How are we going to reach them? And how will we know if it's working? Everything else should flow from those answers.
The three most common mistakes in destination marketing
We've worked with tourism organisations across Australia and the same issues come up again and again.
Trying to appeal to everyone. Whilst this feels like broadening your potential audience, it’s actually more powerful to narrow the focus to attract more of the right type of visitors. The traveller planning a family beach holiday has completely different motivations to the couple looking for a remote outback experience. Your marketing needs to reflect that.
Setting goals that can't be measured. 'Increase awareness' is not a goal. 'Grow our Instagram following by 20% and increase website traffic from social by 30% over the next six months' is a goal. When your targets are specific, you can make smart decisions about where to invest your time and budget.
Confusing activity with results. Posting three times a week and running a monthly email newsletter is activity. What matters is whether that activity is actually moving people closer to visiting your destination — booking accommodation, searching for experiences, sharing your content with friends.
How to define your destination's unique story
Every destination has something that makes it different. A DMO’s (or ours if you’re working with us) job is to find it and tell it clearly, with passion and creativity. Start by asking: what do visitors say about us after they leave? Not what we hope they say — what they actually say. Read your reviews, talk to your operators, pay attention to what people share on social media. That's your real story, told in your visitors' own words.
From there, think about what you offer that nobody else does. It might be a landscape, a community, a food culture, an experience. The goal isn't to make something up, it's to find the truth about your destination and amplify it.
At Wanderlust Communications, we call this the 'story first' approach. Before we talk about platforms or formats or posting schedules, we make sure we know what we're trying to say. That clarity makes every other marketing decision easier.
A simple framework for setting measurable marketing goals
We use a straightforward framework with our clients as it keeps plans focused and makes reporting much easier.
Start with your business goal. What does your destination or organisation actually need to achieve? This might be increasing overnight stays, growing awareness in a new visitor segment, or driving more bookings for local operators during the shoulder season. Then set your marketing objective — the specific, measurable thing your marketing needs to do to support that business goal. Then identify the tactics (the channels and content types you'll use), and finally the metrics you'll track to know whether it's working. Most plans skip straight to tactics without ever clearly defining the goal. That's why they fail — or rather, why nobody can tell whether they've succeeded.
A quick checklist to get your plan on track
Before you finalise any destination marketing plan, run through these questions:
Have you defined your primary visitor audience in specific terms (not just 'families' or 'domestic travellers')?
Does every goal have a number and a timeframe attached?
Is your budget allocated across tactics, not just listed as a total?
Do you have a reporting rhythm — monthly, quarterly — to check what's working?
Is the plan short enough that your team will actually read it?
If you can answer yes to all of those, you're in good shape. If not, that's where to start.
Need help putting a strategy together? We work with destinations, tourism organisations and local governments across Australia to build marketing plans that are practical, focused and built for results. Get in touch with the Wanderlust Communications team in Perth — we'd love to hear about your destination.