I was travelling earlier this week and passed a community book exchange at a Train Station, the exact location will remain a secret! You all know the sort of thing. A small bookshelf, a printed sign (in this case with a spelling mistake!) inviting you to “take a book, leave a book”, and the promise of a tiny moment of shared culture in an otherwise busy, soulless, functional space.
On paper, I agree it's a lovely idea.
In reality, it was almost empty. I'd go as far as to say embarrassing. One lonely paperback sat on the shelf. No signs of life. No fingerprints of a community. No sense that anyone felt it belonged to them.
And it made me think about how often we see this in destination marketing.
So many well-intentioned initiatives. So many creative ideas. So many installations designed to “bring people together”. Yet without a real community behind them, they quietly wither away. They become background furniture. Something people walk past rather than participate in.
The problem is not the idea.
The problem is the identity.
There is a concept called Social Identity Theory which explains that we define ourselves through the groups and places we belong to. Our cricket club. Our town. Our local high street. Our favourite restaurant or our regular holiday spot.
When a place becomes part of who we are, we behave differently towards it. We look after it. We talk about it. We recommend it. We feel proud of it. We in fact want it to succeed.
When it does not, it becomes anonymous. A corridor. A convenience. A shortcut.
You cannot build loyalty to a shortcut.
This is why destination marketing is such a unique and powerful discipline. You are not selling a product. You are shaping a relationship. You are building a story that people want to be part of. You are creating something that lives in memory, nostalgia and routine.
At Destination Marketing, this belief sits at the heart of everything we do.
We do not just run campaigns. We build cultures.
We do not just drive footfall. We create belonging.
We do not just activate spaces. We turn them into destinations.
Because destinations are emotional ecosystems. They live in first dates and family days out. In childhood memories and teenage independence. In weekend rituals and annual traditions. In “we always go there” and “where everybody knows your name” (one for the Cheers fans out there).
And when you get that right, marketing stops being persuasion and starts becoming participation.
A campaign is something you launch.
A movement is something people join.
When a destination becomes part of someone’s social identity, something remarkable happens. Visitors turn into advocates. Shoppers turn into ambassadors. Families turn into loyalists. Communities turn into your marketing team.
People create your content.
They tell your story.
They defend your reputation.
They invite others in.
The destination stops being something you promote and becomes something people are proud to belong to.
That lonely book exchange was not a failure of design. It was a failure of identity. Nobody felt responsible for it. Nobody felt proud of it. Nobody felt it was theirs and so it existed in a vacuum.
A destination without community is just infrastructure.
A destination with community is a living, breathing organism.
And that is the difference between a place people pass through and a place people return to.
In destination marketing, community is not a nice-to-have.
It is the brand.