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In my opinion and in my experience Creativity is THE marketing secret. Wikipedia defines creativity as “Creativity (or “creativeness”) is a mental process involving the generation of new ideas or concepts, or new associations between existing ideas or concepts.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creativity My former marketing professor, now one of my Facebook friends, and author of the book DigiMarketing: The Essential guide to New Media & Digital Marketing (http://www.digimarketingnow.com/home.html) once defined creativity as (I’m paraphrasing) “putting things together that normally don’t go together”. A contemporary example of this concept is the mobile phone that combines music and telephony. The iPod products are examples of creativity at its best in the area of consumer products.

While both definitions are helpful, I define Creativity as “a new way of looking at something (a product, a destination, a piece of music) and presenting it or expressing it in an unexpected and/or innovative way. At the core of creativity is the verb to create from the latin root crescere meaning to grow. Therefore Creativity is also the process, the intellectual tool, by which something new is created.” A painter like Picasso, perhaps the most creative artist in history, could look at bicycle’s handlebars and a saddle and turn them into a bull’s head. An artist like Warhol looked at consumer products like Campbell’s cans of soup and turned them into (very valuable) works of art.

When it comes to tourism, clearly creativity matters and it will matter more in the future as competition for travelers’ share of time and walled intensifies. The most successful tourism businesses of the future will be those that are the most creative. Richard Florida became famous for his belief that the most successful cities in the world are and will be the creative cities. From a tourism perspective, it is also the most creative cities the ones that attract the most tourists. Whether it’s New York, Bilbao, Barcelona, Paris or Las Vegas (creativity does not necessarily mean ‘high-brow’) when it comes to urban experiences, the more creative a city, the more visitors it will attract. (Toronto is trying hard. I love the Ontario College of Ar & Design’s “building in the air” - http://www.ocad.ca/about_ocad.htm. The ROM Crystal gallery - http://www.rom.on.ca - is a good step forward as is the Gehry designed AGO renovation, though not nearly as bold as the Guggenheim in Bilbao -http://www.guggenheim-bilbao.es/- or the Walt Disney Concert Hall in La - http://www.disneyconcerthall.com/- ) Creative cities attract creative residents and creativity thus retro feeds itself. Many hoteliers and restaurateurs have tapped the creativity in themselves or in others they hire to better compete in the marketplace. A restaurant that only focuses on food these days is at a disadvantage. Joso’s in Toronto (http://www.josos.com/) , for example, has not only thrived because of it’s marvelous Mediterranean cuisine, but also because it’s a unique art gallery within the restaurnant (or vice versa).

Another great example of creativity at its best in tourism is the Museum 21C Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky (http://www.21chotel.com/). This property is a hotel within a museum. Comfortable, clean rooms with great showers and “designer” toiletries are the minimum standard for today’s hotels (most mid and high-end ones at any rate). After that what makes a hotel different? The 21C goes beyond the usual: iPods with a wide variety of music for guests’ listening pleasure, award winning design and décor, poster art, 42″ HDTV flat screen televisions, WiFi, 500 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets imported from Italy crowning the exquisite bedding, silver mint julep cups, gourmet coffee makers, mini-bar refrigerators, Malin + Goetz bath amenities, and nightly turn down and Concierge services.

What makes a hotel more attractive to prospective guests and, more importantly, what makes guests want to return to that hotel is the key success factor and creativity is the solution. The 21C Hotel does a fantastic job at wowing guests with its art collections and exhibits from living artists. The amenities are first class and the service is welcoming, professional and friendly.

But don’t think that in order to be creative you need the resources of a 21C or a W Hotel. I know a small family owned suites hotel in Morelia, Mexico, that came up with a creative and artistic way to differentiate itself from the competition. Every apartment suite (and these are simple, clean, spacious apartments) in Suites Galería - http://www.galeriasuites.com - is decorated in the style of a famous Mexican painter. This simple yet creative idea gives the apartments a flavour and ambience that makes them more attractive than other accommodations in their class.

Then there’s the sno limo, a Canadian innovation (as far as I could tell from its website - http://www.sno-limo.com/ - for non-skiers. Someone had the creative idea to come up with a comfortable sleigh/lounge-chair on skis that allows non-skiers to enjoy the slopes and magnificent vistas of Canadian ski resorts (available also in Japan).

In my business (Canada en Español) I rely on creativity to attract more visitors to my websites and those of my customers/clients/partners in order to generate business. Constrained by limited resources I cannot afford to hire expensive designers and/or software programmers. I need to rely on creative content, creative SEO techniques as well as affordable SEM on occasion. By far the most important element of the above is creative content. This can take many forms. As Steve Wright (of Radar DDB), correctly pointed out during his presentation at the first Canada-e-Connect conference (Nov 2007), people are not thinking about travel all the time. They are going about their lives. My websites’ focus is Canada in Spanish (www.canadaenespanol.ca), but not just travel to and within Canada. I know that my audience is interested in many aspects of the country, thus articles about Canadian hockey or Canadian politics or Canadian business attract Hispanic readers who may not necessarily be thinking about a vacation in Canada at the time, but once they’re on my site they may navigate to the tourism section. Another example, of creativity as I use it is to feature non-stereotypical “tourist attractions” in my content. For example, in my recently launched community Canadamigos.com (www.canadamigos.com) I featured a video about me and my wife buying food for New Year’s Eve dinner at Toronto’s St Lawrence market. I knew this would be of interest because I know my audience (potential travelers to Canada) and their culture. Showing them the market and relating what I saw to their culture or country (e.g. the fantastic Spanish cheeses one can find there) is a creative way of introducing them to Toronto as oppose to doing a video of the CN Tower. The following are comments from viewers of this video:

“Sabes? En el 2007 viaje de vacaciones a Canada…y es una làstima que en los recorridos no incluyan cosas como lo que muestras en este video! Me parece que seria atractivo que asi fuera…Gracias por mostrarlo” (“You know? In 2007 I went on vacaction to Canada…and it is too bad that the city tours don’t include things like these you show on your video! I think it would be good if they did…thanks for showing this”)

“Excelente video Jaime, en unas dos semanas estare por alla de vacaciones y me asegurare de visitar este mercado, el poder apreciar tu video me provoca un deseo irresistible de conocerlo. Gracias.” (“Excellent video Jaime, in a couple of weeks I will be there for vacation and I will make sure to visit this market. Being able to appreciate your video gives me an incredible urge to see it”)

In conclusion, my “secret” marketing tip is to use creativity whenever possible and in accordance to your tourism business objectives. Creativity calls for taking risks. If you are not willing to take risks you’re risking making your business (destination) vulnerable to the competition and putting it in danger of sinking into a sea of mediocrity whose bottom is called oblivion. This applies equally to small businesses, DMO’s and governments. Whether it’s a hotel like the 21C, a DMO like Australian tourism (“Where the bloody hell are you?”) or a city like Bilbao (Guggenheim Museum) the leaders in tourism will be those who make the best use of creativity.

Jaime Horwitz MBA
T-List Member
www.canadiantourismblog.ca

Unfortunately a lot of travel organizations are not able to arouse any kind of emotions during a visit at their websites. Our research found out that evoking the right emotions triggers travelers to book online and increases their customer satisfaction. This will also change customer behavior from to price driven to more emotional values.

rene vaartjes - author of Designing Emotions in Online Travel
www.sotopia.com/book