David Symes
London
What I do
A professional Destination Marketing and Strategy Specialist with over 10 years exeprience in successfully promoting one of the toughest regions in the world for both leisure and business travel, the Middle East in the UK and subsequently Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
Destination Marketing
As Director of the UK and Ireland office for the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan between 2001 and 2011 there were many challenges to overcome in promoting Jordan as a safe, exciting and welcoming holiday destination. These included the second Intifada, 9 - 11, war with Iraq, terrorist incidents including the bombing of three hotels in Amman and the shooting of a British tourist, a tourist bus crash killing 9 people and the ongoing Arab Spring!
By utilising brands, marketing and PR many of these incidents were sufficiently overcome to maintain and grow the number of UK and Irish tourists by over 100%.
Strategy
A strong and implementable strategy is imperative in the promotion and marketing of destination. The key is in the word IMPLEMENTABLE as without this the strategy is worthless. Many destinations employ very expensive international consultants, who write strategies that cannot be implmented in the core generating markets from either a trade or consumer perspective.
Moving Ahead
Why not drop me a line and see if we can work together in promoting your country, region or tourism product to the English Speaking world.