These are special times for tourism. And not just because countries like Spain or Japan are breaking visitor records amid the post-pandemic rush, or because the UN expects this year to reach (or even exceed) 2019 levels of influx, before COVID-19 came into force. In this context, there are destinations that are doing something that goes against basic logic and any marketing guidelines in advance: “dissuading” tourists from visiting them. As strange as it may sound, it makes perfect sense and actually tells us how profitable (and competitive) tourism has become.

Oslo and Saint-Tropez left behind good examples.

“To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t come here.”. That bolded quote you just read is an advertising slogan. That’s a very good thing, considering the enormous visibility it gives to those responsible, namely Oslo’s tourism promoters. The phrase is part of the script for a promotional video titled ‘Is this even a city?’ published by Visit Oslo in June.

In the course of the video, which lasts less than three minutes, 31-year-old Halfdan walks through the Norwegian capital and portrays his city as the antithesis of what everyone would think of as a great tourist destination. The young man, indifferent, describes Oslo as a simple metropolis with no special attractions, which can be visited in barely half an hour, where it is not unreasonable to run into the Prime Minister in the middle of the street; museums where there are no queues or where, for example, Munch’s ‘The Scream’ can be seen. “This is not exactly the Mona Lisa,” the protagonist assumes.

Promotional video? Yes, you read that right. Aside from Halfdan’s neutral delivery, the video doesn’t show any extreme close-ups of Oslo’s landscapes or architecture, and it doesn’t brag about the local cuisine, museums, or parks. At least not in the way that smears usually do. And yet, yes, it is a promotional video. It was so effective that it caught the attention of media outlets like the BBC and Skift, and racked up millions of views in just two months. All with the tagline, “Even the City?”, remember?

Strategy question. The Visit Oslo campaign is looking for the obvious: to encourage people to visit the Norwegian capital. Its strategy and the profile it appeals to may not be so obvious. Amidst the debate over the massification of the sector and the limits of tourism, with major destinations such as Amsterdam, Seoul, Kyoto, Venice or, currently in Spain, Barcelona, ​​the Canary Islands and Balearic Islands, Oslo has chosen to present itself as an alternative.

No hordes of travellers. No stress. If there were no queues at museums, Halfdan himself says in a video that begins with an almost compelling hook that is much better understood in context: “I wouldn’t come here, to be honest.”

In fact, throughout the recording, nothing is shown except clear, calm areas without crowds. The exact opposite of what you would expect from St. Mark’s Square in Venice, the geisha district in Kyoto, the Buckchon Hanok Village in Seoul, the red light district in Amsterdam, the Eiffel Tower or Las Ramblas. The irony of 21st-century tourism is that if Oslo presents itself as an unsaturated city, it is precisely to attract tourism. Of course, a very specific kind of tourism: a tourism that is showing signs of being fed up with traditional and crowded destinations.

Part of the Visit OSLO video.

Target: (other) travelers. Oslo is not the only city that wants to discourage visitors in one way or another. Amsterdam has done this before, launching a campaign asking British tourists interested in drugs and “wild nights” to stay away from the city. In the Scandinavian capital, the strategy and approach is completely different. The focus is not on who it wants to alienate, but on the audience it aims to attract: young people looking for alternative, “authentic” places, not copying their parents’ holidays.

“I don’t want Disney World. I want to sit at someone’s kitchen table and drink wine from a glass of milk,” August Jorfald, a 30-year-old Oslo resident who was responsible for directing his city’s promotional video, told the BBC. He got his inspiration during a holiday with his girlfriend in Paris, arguably the biggest mecca for mass tourism. “I said the trip would be a success if I didn’t see the Eiffel Tower.”

New but not that newWith the media spotlight on “bad tourists” and the still-fresh memory of Barcelona protesters dousing visitors with water guns, alternative destination searches are gaining traction, but in reality, it’s not a completely new trend. Almost a decade ago, blogger Elena Paschinger included it in her article The Creative Traveler’s Handbook , where she encouraged “seeing life instead of traveling.” She also tries to “avoid tourist traps” and emulate the locals on her trips.

She’s not the only one appreciating the trend. Lauren A Siegal, a tourism expert at the University of Greenwich, recently told the BBC that there’s been an interest in offline travel among Gen Z travellers. “Generations are changing. People are getting a bit fed up with it.”

Oslo is not the first to ride the wave. Vienna already launched a campaign in 2018 to encourage visitors to experience the city by putting hashtags and smartphones aside and opening doors to new neighborhoods beyond the city’s most emblematic museums and palaces. The powerful hook: “Enjoy Vienna. #NotVienna.”

“Don’t come in the summer”. Ironically (or not), Oslo isn’t the only city that has realized that the key to establishing itself in the industry and attracting certain types of travelers is to move away from its image as a successful tourist powerhouse. Copenhagen recently rolled out a campaign encouraging visitors to participate in non-tourist activities in advance, such as cleaning the canals or maintaining city gardens. Something similar to what the authorities of a popular destination like Hawaii have been doing for some time now.

But there’s another case that’s been generating almost as much interest as Oslo in recent days: the popular fishing town of Saint-Tropez in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region. And here’s why: during an interview with the BBC, its mayor, Sylvie Siri, asked the reporter not to visit the town during high season. “Don’t come in the summer,” she said, without taking half-measures.

Again, the aim is not to scare off tourists. Or at least that is not the aim. The key is to find a way to differentiate yourself and mark distances without becoming too massive. In this case, the bet is on off-season travel and trips beyond July and August. “Come in the spring, when it’s like the Saint-Tropez of our childhood,” said the councillor of the small town in southern France.

Another case of saturation. Saint-Tropez is an interesting example because it perfectly reflects how a small and remote coastal town can become a top tourist destination. The town has only 6,000 inhabitants and until the 20th century it was nothing more than a small town between Marseille and Nice, with no easy access. Today, its beauty and, above all, the visibility it receives from the stars of the silver screen have made it a coveted destination; according to figures collected by the BBC, it receives more than 80,000 visitors per day in the busiest months, between July and August.

Images | Maria Bobrova (Unsplash) and Visit OSLO

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