At an age when taking a plane or going for a car or bus ride has become a chore, at a time when the security industry has taken every traveler hostage, at a period when climate changes are wreaking havoc with travel plans, the tourism industry is reinventing itself.
Finding the hot button to initiate a new wave of customers is certainly not easy. Quebec City mayor, Labaume, has hired Dr. Clotaire Rapaille, a well-known marketing guru, to carry out a sort of makeover exercise to rediscover the essential “code” of the city. (Dr. Rapaille claims marketing success with his unorthodox methods applied to other large cities, such as Singapore and Hong Kong, as well as to the auto industry and several fortune 500 companies that he names at every turn – thus marketing himself via traditional, repetitive, branding techniques.)
An old obsession resurfaces to the delight of the press
In the Canadian press, we see mixed reviews: some comment on the $300,000 contract with Rapaille, while others are happy to refuel the French-English saga that has always been an easy subject for the press. Rapaille points out that Quebec City’s obsession with French-English relations is a love/hate relationship and, according to him, makes for a very long-lasting “couple”. (He says: “There is pleasure in sadomasochism,” but, as we well know, he also likes to spice up his own image and play to the press.) All that is lots of fun to observe, but the reality is quite desperate. This destination needs reinventing.
The game
Quebec’s population is quickly aging (something that tourism is facing worldwide) and, as a result, the city is in danger of losing its market share as a desirable destination. It is tempting to say that this poking at the French-English, emotional button in the Quebec affair is possibly Rapaille’s way of creating a media buzz, polarizing attention on his notoriously theatrical ways of proceeding (the marketer selling the marketer). But it works. Everyone, or at least the Canadian press, is thrilled with it: “the cost”, “the controversy”, “the flamboyance of Rapaille”, etc., are all superficial snippets, with little to no analysis, reflection, or much attention paid to the fundamentals or to the urgency of the exercise. Nevertheless, the need to reinvent, reaffirm and keep marketing alive is certainly part of the game, and this on all levels, including journalism – a game, I must add, Rapaille plays like no other.
Marketing with a “code”
When we look at the tourism industry across America, it is by and large facing an urgent need to reinvent, to re-launch itself into a quest for the hot tourism button. To re-discover the “code” that would literally move people to travel to a destination. So, I applaud the initiative and the boldness of Quebec’s mayor, and what I find particularly positive is that the exercise is not a superficial undertaking, but, rather, that the intent is really to gain a better understanding of the product’s culture, before launching into yet another marketing campaign. It is a look into the core of this destination. Looking into what it is in contemporary terms, what is its very make-up, its actual product culture. The point is not that this specific exercise or the use of Dr. Rapaille may not be the right way to go, but, rather, that it positions knowledge of product culture squarely as the priority over doing advertising as usual with the risk of a focus that is no longer relevant.
