Reference Modelling for Destination Marketing Organisations - The Case of Austrian National Tourist Office

Internet and e-Commerce have provoked major re-configurations of the tourism value chain. Especially Destination Marketing Organizations (DMO) as marketing and information service providers have to face the threat of disintermediation; and they need to respond with higher level services and products. This paper presents our findings from a knowledge management project with Austrian National Tourist Office (ANTO). We introduce affinity group marketing as a means to leverage ANTO’s core competence in cross-cultural match-making and discuss how affinity groups as a market segmentation concept can be exploited for ANTO marketing projects. Furthermore, we develop a metamodel capable to support affinity group marketing in DMO. This metamodel, the so-called MINT Model (from Market INTelligence), has been evaluated for its flexibility and generality in 25 ANTO offices. Accordingly, it may serve as a reference model for affinity group marketing that can be used as an information system blueprint for other DMOs.