How can geosciences benefit from tourism marketing? And vice versa?

Experiences from various projects show: Geosciences can benefit from tourism marketing, and vice versa, tourism can benefit from geosciences. However, such a cooperation can only be successful if some important conditions are met.

– The profit (“win-win situation”) must be perceived by both sides. Especially in the context of longer-term cooperation, geoscientists can gain an effective marketing platform, ideally even new, interesting fields of research, new teaching and learning venues, and perhaps even new third-party funding contracts. Tourism professionals benefit in particular from new, interesting, innovative and high-quality products and services. Both sides can often gain considerable expertise.

– Effective and efficient cooperation requires trust, which can best develop and grow in the context of “starter projects” that can be implemented quickly. This also involves correcting the image of the respective other group of actors. Geoscientists have the image of “dry theorists” who deal with something ‘cold’, ‘dead’ and ‘old’. Tourism professionals tend to have the image of being ‘in a hurry’ to market their landscape and ‘regardless’ to see quick booking numbers and profits.

Useful marketing platforms for beginners and professionals:

• Hubspot.com – tools needed to build and grow remarkable customer experiences;
• Thunderbox.eu – questions and answers platform for marketing specialists, seo managers, social marketers and various managers;
• Marketo.com – marketing software & solutions.

– A cooperation between such diverse groups of actors as tourism and geosciences requires a willingness to compromise on both sides. The partners must be open to other points of view and arguments in order to be able to take up impulses, to let them work and to give new impulses (“impulse chain”). Geoscientists must be prepared to respond to their target groups, especially in their choice of language. Conversely, tourism experts must take the quality requirements of their scientific partners seriously.

– Moderators or promoters are necessary, especially for longer-term, strategic cooperations. They keep the work in the network “going” and contribute to the creation of a trusting atmosphere by consciously planning trust-building measures.