CASE STUDY
Visit Sedona
A video storytelling campaign to help shift Sedona from a destination marketing to a destination management approach supporting their sustainable development work centering around the outdoors, arts, and health and wellness.
Campaign Highlights
DESTINATION STEWARDSHIP
GLP produced stories around the three key themes of the outdoors, arts, and health and wellness.
OVER-TOURISM + TOURISM CONFLICT
GLP helped Sedona, a destination struggling with over-tourism and tourism conflict, to come together as a community focused on destination management.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
GLP worked with all stakeholders to enhance local community engagement.
Details
Partner: Sedona Chamber of Commerce & Tourism Bureau
Location: Sedona, Arizona, USA
Key Themes: Destination Management | Sustainability | Outdoors | Culture | Wellness
CHALLENGE:
While many global destinations experienced a decrease in visitation during the pandemic, the lockdowns and travel restrictions in the US brought a record number of travelers to Sedona. This increase placed a sizable amount of pressure on the destination, leading to crowded trails, degraded landscapes, and an uptick in off-trail bikers and hikers that have damaged local habitats–all of which threaten the health of the area that tourists seek to enjoy.
Sedona was forced into a complicated and multifaceted problem: it had an economy dependent on tourism, an ecosystem damaged by too much of it, and a beleaguered local community that was increasingly inconvenienced by it.
To mitigate these issues, Visit Sedona partnered with GLP to develop an innovative and engaging video series not to promote and sell the destination but to promote responsible travel practices in support of their existing destination management plan.
SOLUTION:
To develop a comprehensive plan for responsible destination management and content strategy, GLP started with community input. Involving community voices allowed GLP to personalize the messaging to viewers by providing a more local perspective. The authentic stories of local community members and tour operators helped to connect travelers to the human side of the destination, elevating tourist’s sense of responsibility to be good stewards of the landscape and environment.
GLP’s strategic video campaign consisted of three, 2-3 minute videos, focused on the three key drivers for tourism identified by Visit Sedona: outdoor recreation, spiritual transformation, and the arts. The videos feature interviews with local community members and tourism industry stakeholders and encourage visitors to think critically about the positive role that they can play during their visit to Sedona. These videos were strategically distributed through the local stakeholders directly to visitors who had already booked travel through channels such as email booking confirmations, tour reservations, or equipment rental at outfitters. By connecting with travelers during the planning process, a gap was bridged between anticipation and expectation when visitors were in the market.
Key Goals
HELP UNIFY LOCAL INDUSTRY STAKEHOLDERS AROUND DESTINATION STEWARDSHIP AND MANAGEMENT FACING OVER-TOURISM.
SHOWCASE DIVERSE COLLECTION OF SEDONA’S OFFERINGS CENTERED AROUND ARTS, NATURE, HEALTH AND WELLNESS, AND SUSTAINABILITY.
PROMOTE SEDONA AS AN ALL-SEASON DESTINATION, HIGHLIGHTING THE IMPORTANCE OF SUSTAINABLE TOURISM PRACTICES FOR THE LOCALS AND VISITORS ALIKE.
“Destination management has increasingly become an important part of the work we do with our partners. We were excited to use our video storytelling to support Sedona’s strategic communications. We directly engaged key community stakeholders to craft stories that were educational as well as inspiring.”
Video Storytelling
THE SOUL OF SEDONA: STEWARDSHIP
Destinations are pivoting their mission from marketing to management. If tourism is supposed to benefit the local community, economy, and environment, then community voices need to be centered in the narrative. Sedona chose visual storytelling to educate and inspire visitors to embrace their positive role as stewards to support community initiatives.
PRESERVING SEDONA’S NATURAL WONDERS
Is breathtaking Sedona being loved to death by tourism? While locals and tour operators in Sedona, Arizona, are eager to share the beauty of Sedona, Arizona with visitors, they are also challenged to influence positive behavior change. Balancing a healthy tourism economy and a healthy ecosystem is a daily challenge that needs to be met collaboratively.
Media Coverage
GLP’s Sedona campaign was highlighted in the distinguished Destination Stewardship Report (DSR). A joint project of the Global Sustainable Tourism Project, Sustainable Travel International, and the Center for Responsible Travel, the DSR provides insights and cutting-edge research on improving destination stewardship in the post-COVID era.
The article, “To Market Stewardship, Use Local Voices,” written by journalist Holly Prievo, zeros in on how a strategic video campaign can leverage local participation to shift a destination away from “destination marketing” and toward “destination management.” This shift can help destinations all over the globe avoid overtourism, increase responsible stewardship, and ensure long-term sustainability.
