Tourist Quests as Branding Tool
Maria S. Shiro
a
Volgograd State Socio-Pedagogical University, Volgograd, Russia
Keywords: Tourist Quest, Place Branding, Place Brand, Place Marketing.
Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the world economy. Due to the closure of borders,
tourism sector is the most affected. Many countries have focused their efforts on domestic tourism. Place
branding tools allow creating an appropriate image for consumer (in this case, tourists), which let monetize
cultural, historical or natural objects. It is important that modern tourist service consumers have become quite
demanding and often want to go beyond usual excursion routes. An innovative tool to attract tourists to the
place is to carry out tourist quests. Despite its popularity, tourist quests have not been widely developed yet
and often remain a part of short-term sightseeing tours. This paper examines the economic potential of tourist
quests for branding places and developing domestic tourism. The "Let's meet Russia" tourist quest technology
is revealed. Public-private partnership that can ensure the economic effect of place branding is also identified.
The article formulates requirements for places that are seen as locations and can trigger tourist behavior. Main
objective of the "Let's meet Russia" project is to make popular those places that are out of popular tourist
flows. As a result it supports small and medium-sized businesses in the hospitality industry.
1 INTRODUCTION
The issue of forming a place brand today is perhaps
one of the most discussed both in the scientific
community and among practitioners in the field of
regional development. Geo-branding allows us to
solve a whole range of regional development
problems, including attracting investors and tourists,
and increasing population loyalty to state authorities.
Despite the fact that place branding and place
marketing concepts have appeared relatively recently,
they have already become widespread and have fairly
extensively applied a methodological terminology
(
Anholt, 2005
).
Nowadays, place branding is used to attract
tourists, to increase the region investment potential,
to preserve labor resources and attract new human
resources, to strengthen local product position in the
foreign market. This paper has considered one of such
directions – tourist branding (Ward, 1998). However,
in our opinion, it is the driving force for place
positioning, since when visiting a particular place,
people get acquainted with it for subsequent decision-
making about moving, training, investing or
purchasing any product.
a
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9430-8131
2 MATERIALS AND METHOD
This research makes use of general scientific methods
including analysis, synthesis, generalization,
systematization of data and information. Also, the
given study is based on the works by foreign and
domestic scientists on place marketing and place
branding, as well as on digital tools in this process.
3 TOURIST DESTINATION
BRANDING
Globalization process has largely manifested itself in
new thinking way in human minds. Travel has
become an integral part of human life. Growing
demand for tourist service has led, in turn, to an
increase in competition and, as a result, to the need to
attract to a particular place. In this regard, the
authorities, entrepreneurs and the population face the
task of ensuring that the place is competitive and
attractive for tourists. Meanwhile, for a long time, the
main destination branding has attracted tourists from
Shiro, M.
Tourist Quests as Branding Tool.
DOI: 10.5220/0010593705490552
In Proceedings of the International Scientific and Practical Conference on Sustainable Development of Regional Infrastructure (ISSDRI 2021), pages 549-552
ISBN: 978-989-758-519-7
Copyright
c
2021 by SCITEPRESS Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
549
abroad, while domestic tourism has been considered
as an auxiliary one.
For the first time, Philip Kotler in his work
"Marketing places" raised the question of marketing
tools for place branding in the market (Kotler, 2005)
in the early 1990s. At this stage, in the scientific
community and in practice, a number of customary
terms are sometimes perceived as synonyms:
"regional marketing" (Gutman, 2002), "territorial
marketing" (Pankrukhin, 2002). Despite the fact that
some scientists agree that these terms are
interchangeable, most scientists and practitioners
believe that these concepts should be separated. First,
marketing is a more general process that involves
positioning a place in the relevant market. Thus, this
is an exclusively economic process that has clear and
measurable performance indicators (Vizgalov, 2008).
In turn, place branding involves a certain image
created in the minds of direct consumers, which
encourages certain actions to commit. Accordingly,
branding has less measurable economic indicators,
which are often delayed.
3.1 COVID-19 Pandemic Influences
Tourist Service Market
Most economists agree that countries have yet to
assess the national economy losses after the
coronavirus pandemic in 2020-2021. However, it is
already possible to identify industries that have
suffered enormous losses. And in this sense, the
tourism sector is the most vulnerable. The closure of
the borders has made it impossible to develop
external tourism. In turn, this process has had a
positive impact on domestic tourism. Now the regions
are faced with the task of maintaining domestic
tourism rate and not losing it after the borders opening
and the tourist market returning to its usual course. In
this regard, it is the tools of place branding that will
ensure tourist destination in the post-crisis period.
Small and medium-sized enterprises that are
somehow connected with the hospitality industry
have become the most vulnerable during the
pandemic. Many businesses were forced to close,
while others found internal reserves and retained
business; however, its turnover has largely decreased.
In this regard, place branding should be
considered not only as a tool for a region or city
positioning, but also as a supporting and developing
strategy for small and medium-sized businesses in the
hospitality industry.
It is important that stakeholders, including public
authorities and key enterprises, consider the
destination branding process as a set of measures used
to stimulate small and medium-sized enterprises
(Moilanen, 2009).
Given the circumstances prevailing the
coronavirus pandemic, traditional methods of
marketing territories cannot fully provide a way out
to the economic problems (Brand City, 2007). The
current situation requires complex non-standard
solutions. In this paper, we propose to consider tourist
quests to solve these problems.
3.2 Tourist Quest as Complex Place
Branding Tool
Throughout the world tourist quests are increasingly
used as an innovative way to attract visitors and
explore the site. The general development of tourism
service marketing and increasing consumer demands
makes search for suchlike new methods.
The word "quest" is originally English and refers
to search, a subject of the search, search for
adventure, knight's vow fulfillment. As a computer
game genre, quests have become widespread and
therefore naturally transported to the reality. Its
integral element is overcoming difficulties that in the
game format involve solving puzzles, which makes
the quest even more attractive for tourism industry. It
is worth noting that there is problem solution without
which it is impossible to achieve results. American
teachers Bernie Dodge and Tom March identify such
solution as the basis for maintaining interest in the
object of study. From this we can conclude that
dynamic and changing quest nature will ensure a
stable interest in the branding object, in this case the
place.
At the present moment, short quest excursions are
mostly popular as they help to inform and entertain
visitors.
3.3 Economic Effects of Tourist Quest
as Place Branding Tool
Like any other game format, tourist quests are based
on interest and competition, so this format often
involves several teams to participate. The main task
is to consistently pass through several "stations", and
each one gives a riddle for the next game stage. The
technology for conducting tourist quests is quite fully
revealed in various scientific and applied works.
Despite the fact the vast majority of them consider
a tourist quest as a short-term entertainment and
education, the questing methodology does not change
if game time is up to several days.
Quests make it possible to direct people's actions
in accordance with certain scenarios and it is an
ISSDRI 2021 - International Scientific and Practical Conference on Sustainable Development of Regional Infrastructure
550
advantage of organizing tourist processes in the quest
format (Svistunov, 2015). This is especially
important for those territories that are not tourist
centers and therefore are hardly known to the public.
So, if a person travels according to his own plan, he
usually includes well-known accessible objects found
on tourist routes. However, one of the place branding
main goals is to develop the territories that have not
yet become popular tourist sites. This is due to the fact
that popular places do not need additional
highlighting and are often themselves triggers of
tourist behavior.
Thus, quest technology can allow expanding
tourist flows towards the places that need additional
positioning and ensuring their popularization
(Borisova, 2010). In turn, if such territories are
attractive for visiting it stimulates investment inflow
necessary for appropriate infrastructure construction.
Quest target audience is mainly young people
aged 18 to 35. This category is the most active and
ready for innovative leisure activities. In addition, one
of the category priorities is to learn new places and
open their horizons, because young people are more
willing to "invest money in impressions". As
innovators, young people are not interested in visiting
well-known places. On the contrary, they want to
discover something new and unique.
In this regard, attention should be paid to small
and medium-sized businesse potential, which involve
small hotels, cafes and restaurants (including ethnic
and themed), souvenir shops and craft workshops,
and etc. For such enterprises, attracting tourists is a
significant problem, since they are often located
outside of well-known tourist flows.
In turn, small business development focused on
servicing and accompanying tourists encourages the
place development as a whole. In addition, place
branding for such territories allows solving a number
of socially significant tasks, such as preventing the
outflow of the young, improving the life standard,
reducing social tension and, as a result, increasing life
satisfaction.
3.4 “Let’s Meet Russia” - Tourist
Quest Technology
In the coming years the Russian Federation socio-
economic development sets one of the priority tasks
to develop tourism potential for the country regions
in the coming years. In accordance with this task, the
authors have proposed the tourist quest project "Let's
meet Russia". It is focused on domestic tourism
development by attracting attention to little-known or
unknown sites.
The main project objective is to attract small
places with appropriate potential (cultural, natural,
ethnic and historical values) to the tourist flow.
"Let's meet with Russia" quest participants will be
directed to promising locations and destinations
within the region tourist development.
In this regard, it is essential to build a public and
private partnership. Common interest coordination
will allow using the quest potential for the
development of certain territories. Thus, building the
game storyline should include building relations
between the state authorities responsible for the
economic and tourist development, commercial
organizations, cultural institutions and scientific
community.
When designing a storyline, the main stakeholders
should stick to the following principles:
state and local government authorities: should
select sites that need additional support in
attracting tourists (popular sites should
possibly be considered as a starting location,
but not make it the basis of the storyline);
historians, cultural scientists, local historians:
one should choose such places as locations that
can be obtained from sources available to
participants (the Internet, museum expositions,
mass media, etc.);
organizers: all locations should be related to
each other by similar topics, locations should
expect accessible transport service;
small and medium-size businesses serving the
hospitality industry should provide access to
the location and make it available for
participants to receive points for moving to the
next location.
In order to achieve economic efficiency from
place branding by including it in the tourist quest
program, the location must meet a number of
requirements:
the place is should be accessible to transport
(the tourist quest "Let's meet Russia" isn’t
supposed to include hiking routes);
the location must hold an object of cultural,
historical or natural significance, its
positioning corresponds to the general concept
of the tourist potential development within the
given territory (for example, if the region is
positioned in terms of its historical potential, it
is not advisable to attract quest participants to
natural sites);
the location infrastructure should be equipped
by small and medium-sized businesses, whose
development will be facilitated by holding
tourist events (during the course, participants
Tourist Quests as Branding Tool
551
must interact with this organization and
purchase certain products and post in social
networks).
Locations should be selected comprehensively,
and the storyline construction ought to ensure the
following task solution:
getting to know the territory (in completing the
quest course, participants are required to
independently find key information about the
place, both from open sources and through
contacting the relevant cultural institutions
museums, ethnic centers, etc.);
place popularization (the prerequisite for
passing the "Let's meet Russia" tourist quest is
to leave digital evidence score is awarded
after posting on social networks. Thus, there
the target audience is expanded in proportion to
the number of subscribers for each participant);
stimulating demand for small and medium-
sized businesses in the hospitality industry
(according to the "Let's meet Russia" tourist
quest terms, to get points for buying tips and to
move to the next stage, a tourist has to make a
corresponding purchase using a QR code and
leave digital evidence in social networks).
Thus, the "Let's meet Russia" quest storyline
should ensure both place economic efficiency and
popularization. Only if the stakeholders coordinate
their interests it is possible to form a tourist place
brand capable of monetizing.
4 CONCLUSION
Creating a brand place is a complex process that
involves the many stakeholders interaction, each of
them is obliged to understand the economic efficiency
degree made from their actions (Buyanova, 2021).
However, for a long time, place branding was
perceived as a kind of auxiliary tool. The COVID-19
pandemic has brought society into a state of
turbulence, and therefore, participants in economic
relations have become more careful in choosing the
appropriate tools.
One of the most vulnerable industries during the
pandemic was the tourism sector, and it made
domestic tourism popular in most countries. New
challenges require the innovative tools use, including
place positioning. A tourist quest can be used as such
a tool. Despite the fact that this format has become
quite trendy in recent years, it has grown to be
widespread only as a type of short-term sightseeing
tours. In our opinion, this format has a significant
potential as a tool for place branding. This article
describes the basic principles of organizing the "Let's
meet Russia" tourist quest. This quest main goal is to
ensure the positioning and branding of territories that
are not in the path of popular tourist flows, which in
turn will stimulate the economic development of
these territories by increasing the efficiency of small
and medium-sized businesses representing the
hospitality industry. Tourist place branding will allow
solving a number of socially significant tasks. The
primary one can be considered an increase in the
living standard of small territories population, a
decrease in the level of outflow of population and, as
a result, an increase in the level of life satisfaction.
REFERENCES
Anholt, S. (2005). Brand New Justice: How Branding
Places and Products Can Help the Developing World.
Buyanova, M.A., Kalinina, A.A. and Shiro, M.S. (2021).
Smart city branding massively expands smart
technologies. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems,
155: 1063–1069.
Moilanen, T. (2009). How to Brand Nations, Cities and
Destinations: A Planning Book for Place Branding.
Ward, S. (1998). Selling Places: The Marketing and
Promotion of Towns and Cities 1850-2000 (Planning,
History and Environment Series).
Borisova, O. M. (2010). The birth of an attractive
mythology: features of the formation and evaluation of
the city brand. Eco, 5:105-115.
Vizgalov, D. V. (2008). Marketing of the city: practice in
search of theory. Marketing in Russia and abroad, 3:
78-65.
Brand City: Geographical Ratings by Simon Anholt.
(2007). Marketer, 6: 32.
Gutman, G.V. Miroedov, L.L. and Fedin, S.V.-M. (2002).
Management of regional economy, Finance and
Statistics, 105.
Kotler, F., Asplund, C., Rein, I. and Haider, D. (2005).
Marketing places, StPb, 378 p.
Pankrukhin, A. P. (2002). Marketing territories: a
textbook. М.: 20042 p.
Svistunov, A.V. and Afanasyeva, N. V. (2015). Quest-
excursion as an innovative direction of regional
tourism development. Modern scientific research and
innovation. Category «Economic Sciences», 11(55):
417-422.
ISSDRI 2021 - International Scientific and Practical Conference on Sustainable Development of Regional Infrastructure
552