Marketing the Unseen: Ignoring Same-Day Visitors Damages Destination Strategy
(A2026-133969)

AUTHORS

Magali Dubosson, HEG Fribourg / Hes-so; Samuele Meier, Haute école de gestion de Fribourg; Marilyne Pasquier, HEG Fribourg / Hes-so

ABSTRACT

This study examines how regional tourism measurement systems shape destination marketing, visitor experience management and strategic planning. Using the canton of Fribourg as a qualitative case, it reveals that despite abundant data, key segments, especially same-day visitors, remain statistically invisible. These blind spots distorts market segmentation, weakens branding and communication strategies, and limits the capacity to anticipate flows or improve satisfaction across the full tourist journey. Interviews with regional tourism operators highlight fragmentation, inconsistent definitions and limited analytical capacity, which undermine data-driven marketing. We argue that measurement systems determine which segments become strategically “visible” and which are ignored. The study calls for multi-source, territorially grounded monitoring capable of capturing same-day mobility to strengthen customer insight, sustainability and the overall coherence of destination strategies.