Destination marketing organization

A destination marketing organization (DMO) is an organisation which promotes a location as an attractive travel destination. DMOs are known as tourist boards, tourism authorities or "Convention and Visitors Bureaus".^[1] They primarily exist to provide information to leisure travelers. Additionally, where a suitable infrastructure exists, they encourage event organizers to choose their location for meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions, collectively abbreviated as MICE.^[1][2]

DMOs are generally tied to the local government infrastructure, often with supporting funds being generated by specific taxes, such as hotel taxes, membership fees, and sometimes government subsidies.^[1] However, in many cases, the observed decline in tourism following cutbacks to public-sector expenditures has motivated the tourism industry to create a private sector coalition in order to provide the functions of a DMO.^[3][4]

With the arrival of the internet more and more Destination Management Companies adopted the term "visit" and added it as a prefix to their city or country name. The phenomenon started in America in 1995 / 1996 and spread over the world with major organizations like the London Tourist Board adopting the concept after the turn of the century.^[5][6]

DMOs seek to build a destination image to promote their destinations.^[7] For any given travel situation, consumers are spoilt by choice of available destinations, and the images held of destination play a critical role in purchase decisions. Destination image therefore plays a major role in the competitiveness of travel destinations.^{[8][9][10][11][12]}