Sustainable Destination Management
Strategies in the OIC Member Countries
11
Table 10: Funding - Best Practices versus OIC Examples
Best
Practices
- The routes of the Council of Europe diversifying funding from internal and
external sources, including country corridor public and private contributions,
as well as EU funding.
- Smaller towns part of Destination Napoleon raising funds from tourism
professionals and local communities.
OIC - Silk Road diversified funding from external sources such as international
organizations and internal sources in the form of TC countries' public and
private sector contributions.
- Holy Family TC, in Egypt, dependent on government funding.
- Abraham Path dependent on external funding through the World Bank and
bilateral donors.
- Umayyad Route 80% funded by EU instruments.
Best Practices versus OIC Marketing of MDTCs
Branding: Best practices from global MDTCs show the use of various branding strategies, from
designing logos to creating a narrative highlighting the TCs story and characteristics as well as
capitalizing on storytelling and user-generated material to reinforce branding - as illustrated
by the GMS TC example. Consistency of branding is also another critical element, with the
Wadden Sea TC providing an example of best practices with its development of a brand manual
for stakeholders.
In comparison with best practices, the OIC corridors seem to be performing equally well in
terms of creating narratives for the corridors and disseminating them through documentaries.
However, no data support their use of storytelling or user-generated material to reinforce their
branding. Concerning logo design, on the one hand, the current logo for the Silk Road, created
by the UNWTO as a logo for its program, is not used consistently in the various TC countries.
On the other hand, the Umayyad Route has more consistent logo use in all its communication
materials.
Table 11: Branding - Best Practices versus OIC Examples
Best
Practices
- The “Mekong Moments” platform using storytelling to complement GMS
branding strategy by aggregating, curating, and filtering social media posts by
tourists visiting the TC and sharing them on the platform in the form of a
searchable interactive map.
- The Vennbahn Cycle Route creates a story using the railway history of the
road and its transformation into cycling routes and linking it to generations
passing on stewardship of things of value to each other.
- The Wadden Sea, ensuring consistency of branding messages by developing
“Stakeholder Toolkit for Communication and Marketing,” comprising a brand
manual, fact sheets, and brochures.
OIC - Silk Road Programme logo not uniformly used. Silk Road documentaries to
increase awareness of the history of the road and put forward the narrative
associated with the TC on the global stage.
- The Umayyad Route uses its distinct logo in all communications. The route has
also created its own narrative and produced a documentary for the TC to
facilitate storytelling.