I'm an Associate Professor in the Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism at the University of Illinois Urbana-Chamapaign. I am excited to be teaching an online class this semester.
I suspect this link will generate some interesting commentary, so lets have it! Now, just like the "large person" post earlier I'd like you to really focus on the ethical issues of touirsm promotion, not the visceral reaction to it.
First and foremost, I did not see anything in the video clip that even mentions about visiting Denmark except for the fact that the Denmark Tourism Authority produced it. In a marketing aspect, this video would fail miserably since it would alienate tourists traveling as a family. However, it could attract a group of single male hoping to look for some fun. Obviously, sex is a touchy subject and marketing campaigns should avoid incorporating it but that doesn't mean that the sex industry doesn't draw visitors. Sex tourism is a huge industry in today's world even though it isn't talked about openly. If sex tourism were allowed to be promoted openly, I would have to assume that it will create an abundance of visitors for a destination while creating more jobs for the area. This video clip was certainly a strange promotional clip and was definitely a misstep for the Denmark tourism but I did not see it as unethical. If the whole purpose of this promotion was to show how liberal Denmark is, they are probably better off showing a group of tourist partying and having fun with the locals. Demonstrating that Denmark residents are very welcoming to tourists is a good way of attracting vacationers though and a hint of sex doesn't hurt anybody. It’s just that portraying a woman with a baby who doesn't know the father's name is not a very big turn on especially in the United States where unprotected sex has destroyed so many teenagers’ lives.
This was very strange to me. How did they think this was a promotional message to get people to come to Denmark. It's very sad for this young woman to have to do this. If they are trying to promote sexual fun, I don't think any young man going on vacation want to know they have left a child in the wake of their vacation. If they are trying to prevent people from doing this kind of thing, like unprotected sex maybe they should use someone that has a sexually transmitted disease. But it obviously doesn't get the targeted audience since everyone has to guess what their intentions are. You really can't tell this is an advertisement about Denmark at all. It looks like someone trying to help this young lady find the father of her child. Maybe they are advertising for adoption agencies or surrogate mothers or something? I don't know but I don't get it.
What a bizarre marketing campaign! I did not see or hear anything in the video that promoted travel to Denmark and, unless told beforehand, would have no idea it was a tourism commercial. I do not see how this clip was supposed to encourage anyone to want to visit the country. Even if the hook was supposed to be that Denmark is full of attractive women that are interested in a fling (which I would be upset about if I were from Denmark and this was the image being portrayed) the message is also "don't think you are going to come and be irresponsible without repercussions, because we will attempt to hunt you down." In my opinion, using sex as a lure to your country is marketing to the lowest common denominator when, surely, Denmark has way more to offer than a lurid "good" time. I do not understand what the goal of this ad is, and the message, ethical or not, is unclear at best. It seemed to me that this would be a better fit for an after-school special about being responsible and not making poor decisions that could affect you the rest of your life - not vacationing in Denmark.
From first glance of the video, instantly I did not link her video to tourism. If I had not read the commentary and was aware of the story, I would have thought that this was an audacious woman trying to find the father of her child. Now, if you thoroughly think about the situation when it relates to tourism, if can raise some ethical issues. Usually, people categorize or stereotype a situation, meaning that one incident applies to all situations. So outside tourist may feel that this one situation of promiscuity that happens often in Denmark. For instance, take a family planning a vacation. When looking at this video, they may perceive Denmark as being a sex driven city, because there are several countries that are notoriously known for these lewd activities. Instantly, families may decline visiting there because they don’t want to take the risk of exposing their families to those behaviors, leading to a decrease tourism activity. I perceived this as an isolated incident. I truly believe that this was a case of a tourist who had an affair with a local resident dealing with the consequences of that affair. Yes, promiscuity was involved, but I don’t think this incident represented what Denmark is about.
For many of us, we are aware that sex sells. Just look at some of the tourism videos we used for our discussions where the women were dressed in bikinis. However, Denmark took the “sex sells” beyond the extreme. Knowing that the advertisement was supposed to be "a nice and sweet story about a grown-up woman who lives in a free society and accepts the consequences of her actions," it could have been done in a much more ethical manner. For instance, maybe the woman gambled everything away and was homeless. I think this would have been much easier to accept than, “I had a one-night stand and am trying to find my baby’s father.”
I define ethics as what a particular society considers right or wrong or good or bad. From my personal standpoint, I don’t agree with it. However, considering that this is a country whose values are much different from mine, I don’t think it was unethical for the message they wanted to get across. If they had been pushing prostitution, it would have been unethical unless of course it is legal there. In that case, I would have considered it ethical based on their standards. They pushed the envelope with the large shock factor and it didn’t prove to be effective. In the end, I don’t know how this was intended to promote tourism to Denmark.
Hi folks, great comments and about what I expected. When I showed it to my undergrad tourism development class there was widespread agreement that the Danish Tourism Bureau did this so they would get lots of "free" publicity after it hit YouTube - and obviously it worked. Now the question is, and you have raised, would it backfire? Given the YouTube audience to whom it was directed I'm guessing it would not. However, as noted they did pull it off the web but not until many thousands of views and occurred.
And BTW, since this was an advertising stunt that may not even be her baby.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteFirst and foremost, I did not see anything in the video clip that even mentions about visiting Denmark except for the fact that the Denmark Tourism Authority produced it. In a marketing aspect, this video would fail miserably since it would alienate tourists traveling as a family. However, it could attract a group of single male hoping to look for some fun. Obviously, sex is a touchy subject and marketing campaigns should avoid incorporating it but that doesn't mean that the sex industry doesn't draw visitors. Sex tourism is a huge industry in today's world even though it isn't talked about openly. If sex tourism were allowed to be promoted openly, I would have to assume that it will create an abundance of visitors for a destination while creating more jobs for the area. This video clip was certainly a strange promotional clip and was definitely a misstep for the Denmark tourism but I did not see it as unethical. If the whole purpose of this promotion was to show how liberal Denmark is, they are probably better off showing a group of tourist partying and having fun with the locals. Demonstrating that Denmark residents are very welcoming to tourists is a good way of attracting vacationers though and a hint of sex doesn't hurt anybody. It’s just that portraying a woman with a baby who doesn't know the father's name is not a very big turn on especially in the United States where unprotected sex has destroyed so many teenagers’ lives.
ReplyDeleteThis was very strange to me. How did they think this was a promotional message to get people to come to Denmark. It's very sad for this young woman to have to do this. If they are trying to promote sexual fun, I don't think any young man going on vacation want to know they have left a child in the wake of their vacation. If they are trying to prevent people from doing this kind of thing, like unprotected sex maybe they should use someone that has a sexually transmitted disease. But it obviously doesn't get the targeted audience since everyone has to guess what their intentions are. You really can't tell this is an advertisement about Denmark at all. It looks like someone trying to help this young lady find the father of her child. Maybe they are advertising for adoption agencies or surrogate mothers or something? I don't know but I don't get it.
ReplyDeleteWhat a bizarre marketing campaign! I did not see or hear anything in the video that promoted travel to Denmark and, unless told beforehand, would have no idea it was a tourism commercial. I do not see how this clip was supposed to encourage anyone to want to visit the country. Even if the hook was supposed to be that Denmark is full of attractive women that are interested in a fling (which I would be upset about if I were from Denmark and this was the image being portrayed) the message is also "don't think you are going to come and be irresponsible without repercussions, because we will attempt to hunt you down." In my opinion, using sex as a lure to your country is marketing to the lowest common denominator when, surely, Denmark has way more to offer than a lurid "good" time. I do not understand what the goal of this ad is, and the message, ethical or not, is unclear at best. It seemed to me that this would be a better fit for an after-school special about being responsible and not making poor decisions that could affect you the rest of your life - not vacationing in Denmark.
ReplyDeleteFrom first glance of the video, instantly I did not link her video to tourism. If I had not read the commentary and was aware of the story, I would have thought that this was an audacious woman trying to find the father of her child. Now, if you thoroughly think about the situation when it relates to tourism, if can raise some ethical issues. Usually, people categorize or stereotype a situation, meaning that one incident applies to all situations. So outside tourist may feel that this one situation of promiscuity that happens often in Denmark. For instance, take a family planning a vacation. When looking at this video, they may perceive Denmark as being a sex driven city, because there are several countries that are notoriously known for these lewd activities. Instantly, families may decline visiting there because they don’t want to take the risk of exposing their families to those behaviors, leading to a decrease tourism activity. I perceived this as an isolated incident. I truly believe that this was a case of a tourist who had an affair with a local resident dealing with the consequences of that affair. Yes, promiscuity was involved, but I don’t think this incident represented what Denmark is about.
ReplyDeleteFor many of us, we are aware that sex sells. Just look at some of the tourism videos we used for our discussions where the women were dressed in bikinis. However, Denmark took the “sex sells” beyond the extreme. Knowing that the advertisement was supposed to be "a nice and sweet story about a grown-up woman who lives in a free society and accepts the consequences of her actions," it could have been done in a much more ethical manner. For instance, maybe the woman gambled everything away and was homeless. I think this would have been much easier to accept than, “I had a one-night stand and am trying to find my baby’s father.”
ReplyDeleteI define ethics as what a particular society considers right or wrong or good or bad. From my personal standpoint, I don’t agree with it. However, considering that this is a country whose values are much different from mine, I don’t think it was unethical for the message they wanted to get across. If they had been pushing prostitution, it would have been unethical unless of course it is legal there. In that case, I would have considered it ethical based on their standards. They pushed the envelope with the large shock factor and it didn’t prove to be effective. In the end, I don’t know how this was intended to promote tourism to Denmark.
Hi folks, great comments and about what I expected. When I showed it to my undergrad tourism development class there was widespread agreement that the Danish Tourism Bureau did this so they would get lots of "free" publicity after it hit YouTube - and obviously it worked. Now the question is, and you have raised, would it backfire? Given the YouTube audience to whom it was directed I'm guessing it would not. However, as noted they did pull it off the web but not until many thousands of views and occurred.
ReplyDeleteAnd BTW, since this was an advertising stunt that may not even be her baby.