‍

We are really excited to finally announce the start of our first DMO Journey: Dolomiti Paganella! Over the next months, we'll post different articles about them: who they are, what they are working on, etc. All of this, from a Digital point of view and with the objective of giving other DMOs real examples of what happens in other organisations and how they deal with their projects.

‍

‍

‍

For this DMO Journey, we will be in touch with two members from the Dolomiti Paganella Tourism Board: Alessandro Altomonte, Digital Marketing Manager; and Valentina Tonidandel, Content Writer & Tourism Services.

Where is Dolomiti Paganella?

‍

Dolomiti Paganella is a mountain resort area situated in Trentino Alto Adige, Italy’s Northernmost region bordering Austria and Switzerland. It encompasses the villages of Molveno, Andalo, Paganella, Cavedago and Spormaggiore, but most significantly, it is located right at the feet of the Brenta Dolomites which are part of the Italian UNESCO World Heritage sites.

‍

The Dolomiti Paganella Tourist Board is an organisation that has as its primary objective the development, innovation and coordination of local actors to strengthen the positioning of Dolomiti Paganella as a tourist destination, and at the same time plan strategies to build a more touristy future that is balanced and sustainable.

‍

What have Dolomiti Paganella done until now?

‍

For the last 4 years, the Tourism Board of Dolomiti Paganella has witnessed a complete restructuring after Director Luca D'Angelo joined the organisation. With his arrival to the organisation, a new plan and strategy for the destination, focusing on specific products and experiences.

‍

Their new strategy is based on 4 different key points:

1. To be competitive in the market, the destination has to focus on specific products.
2. Identifying these key product areas meant a strong collaboration was required between the DMO and relevant stakeholders of the area to develop new joint experiences and products.
3. Understanding that the DMO is not only meant to promote the destination. The new role of the DMO has shifted from a marketing approach to a product and experience development approach.
4. The internal structure of the DMO had to change following the new product development approach.

‍

After proving the success of the implementation of their new strategy, Luca D'Angelo highlighted the most important takeaways from this strategy, relevant for any DMO:

• ‍Having a common vision for the destination made it possible to create common efforts around the development of products. Therefore, the role of the DMO is to lead this strategic vision and process for the development of the destination. Is it critical for any DMO to understand what is the destination’s focus and let the stakeholders follow you.
• The destination evolves and improves through the creation of products and experiences; all the marketing efforts of the DMO to promote tourism follow this approach. With a strategic restructuring of operational departments following the product clusters, the tourism board found an improved productivity system, which enables a circular collaboration among team members. Each product cluster has highly specialised people to guide the operations and marketing and communication follow the clusters.
• Performance evaluation is necessary to guide and adjust the development of a destination. Focusing on a different aspect such as product development might lead to an improved performance evaluation strategy because results are more easily quantifiable.

‍

If you want to learn more about their strategy...

‍

We recorded a case study together with the Dolomiti Paganella Tourism Board in their destination and made a more detailed and extensive article about their strategy, so make sure to check it out if you'd like to have a better understanding of what they did and how they developed their new and successful strategy.

‍

‍

Coming Up

‍

In the next article regarding Dolomiti Paganella's DMO Journey, you can look forward to an insight of their 2019-2020 Digital Report, that is, an overview of the campaigns they implemented during those two years, the results they achieved, and first-hand comments from Alessandro Altomonte, the DMO's Digital Marketing Manager.