Breaking destination stereotypes

In recent months India has been running a major tourism marketing campaign across a wide range of international media and with several themes. Some of these themes including wellbeing, spiritual and eco tourism all help to diversify their offer and fit it to recent tourism trends.

One of the most unique however is medical tourism - come visit us and you can have a cheap operation and a nice holiday while you recover - though they may be up against some pretty strong stereotypes. I'm not sure that most Westerners' mental imagery of Indian hospitals is particularly favourable - though logically in a country as diverse as India standards must range from excellent to, well...

A seemingly underground phenomenon, medical tourism apparently has quite a long history, as patients chase cheaper, better care. From New Yorkers jumping the pond to go to their London dentist, plastic surgery 'getaways', Portugese mums-to-be slipping across the border to superior Spanish hospitals, or the attractions of these same hospitals for the thousands of Europeans who retire to Spain each year. India is leading the way in taking medical tourism mainstream.

Galicia is attempting to doctor their tourism marketing in a different way. In discussing tourism destination marketing last year with one of the regional tourism authorities they expressed their dismay at the consistently negative portrayal of Galicia in the Spanish media. This sad situation reflects several factors including stereotyping of the region, the media's thirst for negative news and some of the climatic and social challenges faced by Galicia. In recent years Galicia has been assaulted by oil spills, fires, floods and the decline of traditional agricultural industries. Attracting less attention has been success in fields as diverse as fashion, pharmaceuticals, tourism and cultural industries.

One suggested response has been to latch onto every national and international event possible that portrays Galicia positively, though unfortunately most often the Galicia link gets lost in the reporting and publicity these events attract. People are more interested in this season's collection than where the designer came from. This approach adds a few drops of differentiation here and there but the destination marketing campaign continues to portray traditional Galicia, and the crucial state tourism website remains 'average' at best.

The strongly held stereotype of Galicia as the wild and somewhat backward north can only be shifted by communication and events that break away from the traditional and cut through. Or focus on developing European markets newly accessible by low cost flights and whose travellers know little of the region and represent an opportunity to build a more positive image of Galicia.