Destination Management: the case of wine and food in Milan and Copenhagen

Abstract

Because of the increasing competitiveness in tourism, destinations are now struggling to distinct themselves and deliver added value in order to meet market's needs. On the other hand, thanks to the diffusion of ICT and the consequent information democratisation, tourists are now much more empowered and could size their own vacation, surfing destination informative websites while still at home. In the light of these considerations the present work aims to evaluate how Milan and Copenhagen are responding to the need of a structured marketing approach in selling the city as a tourist product. After an analysis of the tourism organisation and the on-going marketing and communication campaigns, I‟ve focused on wine and food and the valorisation of local productions. Through a qualitative comparison of the current on-line communication carried out in Copenhagen and Milan, with Spain as a benchmark, this paper underline the differences in the strategies highlighting strengths and weakness of each approach. Moreover, being Milan the next city for Expo 2015 "Feeding the planet, energy for life" this research offers suggestions and future ways of action in order to valorise at best Milan's enogastronomy, and offers cues for Copenhagen next moves.