Tourist Destinations Face Dilemma Switching From Quantity to 'Quality' Visitor Strategies
Photo Credit: Tiger’s Nest, Taktsang Trail, Paro, Bhutan. The country of Bhutan is implementing a more quality-based approach to tourism. Unsplash / Aaron Santelices
Skift Take
In the pursuit of higher quality tourists, destinations need to make sure they maintain a diversity of tourists and local businesses.
When destinations pursue a quality over quantity-based visitor strategy, they risk excluding local mom-and-pop businesses from tourism development, and heightening destination inaccessibility for lower income groups.
More destinations, however, are chasing fewer but “higher quality” (or “high value”) tourists instead of raw visitation numbers. Hawaii, Uganda, Rwanda, and Bhutan are some examples, said G Adventures Vice President of Product Yves Marceau.
Other destinations are quietly taking a wait and see approach to see how other destinations implement this strategy.
In the past, a big focus was on increasing the number of visitors. More visitors meant more success.
“Heads in beds” was the game, said Chris Seek, CEO of Solimar International, a sustainable tourism consultancy. Now, more destinations are focused on the high-quality or high value visitors, which some say is largely just a substitute for a high spender. “You
