I came across an article recently at tourismus.org (in German only) about a hotel in the South Tirol. To cut a long story short, there is a site extolling the benefits of staying in the South Tirol. The main entrance is www.urlaub-suedtirol.it and you’ll find there a full and informative page to help you book your stay in the South Tirol.
However, there is another url pointing at the site: http://sex_in_suedtirol.hotel-4-stelle-it.it/
The second link is safe to visit at work* and simply leads you back to the original URL. As a knock on effect, Google will also point you in this area should you be using search terms such as ’sex in sudtirol.’
A couple of minor observations before I launch into the bigger idea this provoked:
1) it has generated a lot of publicity for the site but does it water down or confuse the brand message?
2) do all the reports drown out the original site or are they augmenting it?
One thing the site really does fail on is its lack of ’scent’ - if you are wanting to find that perfect place for a saucy getaway, the landing page gives you no instructions on how to follow the trail and make a booking based on your criteria (this is something we’ll blog about specifically in a future post).
Mainly though I read the article in light of scenarios and trends affecting the tourism industry and wondered where this cheeky attempt at publicity actually fitted in.
On the one hand, this is little different from the something like Sandals with their ‘vacations for two people in love’ - it’s just more blatant appeal. And the ‘dirty weekend away’ is hardly a recent concept. What I’m left wondering is whether this actually fits into the themes of greater liberalism, greater hedonism and a greater emphasis on personal wellbeing - all of which are expected to become more important customer drivers.
In other words, is the ‘dirty weekend away’ is becoming respectable and repackaged as a ‘rejuvenating all-body and senses’ break?
Looking a little further down the customer lifecycle, ‘procreation vacations’ are of course a well developed concept. I think its possible this type of holiday could be a flip side of the issue of the aging (and/or shrinking) population as people look to address demographic challenges as well as taking time off from increasingly busy lives (in part caused by the need of the post-Boomer generations to support the retiring Boomers).
But lets look further ahead still. Medical tourism is a familiar concept but is it possible to imagine this medical tourism serving a rich aging population for an ‘end of life’ tourism experience?
Put simply, is there a market for people wanting to die in a nice place?
I’m not especially thinking of euthanasia here although it could be argued that this is indeed a form of medical tourism when carried out away from the patient’s home area. For example, the activities of Dignitas will probably have a small impact on the local accommodation sector.
What I’m thinking of is when people might decide that they want to come to the end of their natural life in more pleasant surroundings, such as a better climate, while others might feel the need to be in the lands of the ancestors, for example.
I probably have more questions than answers to many of these issues. For what it’s worth, I think the concept of ’sex tourism’ has a looooong way to go before being a positive term but it’s something that has always happened in reality. But I do think that the more overt marketing to ‘couples in love’ along the lines of liberated wellness will increase.
To my mind ‘procreation vacations’ will only increase as demographics bite.
And who knows about the ‘death tourism’. Like ’sex tourism’, it already happens although probably not in a way that it can be marketed as such.
My feeling is that death is mainly local/unpredictable/expensive (take your pick) and there would be considerable risk attached to this market (after all, you’ll probably expect a high number of your guests to die) meaning that the costs could be very high indeed. If it did emerge, I suspect that it might morph out of the hospice system worldwide but, as the link suggests, there are considerable hurdles to overcome.
Any thoughts?
*The URL was safe for work at the time of writing on the 21st Jan - apologies if I become responsible for the dismissal of tourism industry experts worldwide on account of the page changing!
This entry was posted on Monday, January 21st, 2008 at 2:34 pm and is filed under Future trends, Marketing strategy, Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.