What is the Destination Marketing Fund (DMF)?
The Destination Marketing Fund (DMF) is a fund voluntarily charged and collected by an agreed-upon organization and used to support tourism development, marketing and/or infrastructure for the region. The DMF is usually in the form of a percentage charge on room rates for accommodations. The DMF has been introduced in several regions across the province. The decision whether or not to implement a DMF is a local or regional one often involving key operators, the Destination Marketing Organization (DMO) and the municipality. In 2004 hotels in Ottawa, Toronto and Kingston introduced a 3% Destination Marketing Fee (DMF) to generate funds for the local tourism promotion agency to allow cities to market themselves to potential visitors, tour operators and convention planners. Since the introduction of the DMF in these cities, the tourism industry in a number of other Ontario cities have introduced or are studying the introduction of a DMF. The fee is 3% of the room only portion of the guest
Destination Marketing Fund or simply DMF is a fund that was organized to promote tourism in certain cities and attract new visitors. Now, it’s commonly applied in certain provinces and cities in Canada. As far as I know, event organizers and possibly some hotels can apply for grants from this fund. When I used to live in Winnipeg in Canada, they had different festivals, folklores, and other events almost every week during the summer. Also, they had some winter activities, and as I remember, most of those events were for free for visitors, or entrance tickets were very cheap. Different organizations, restaurants, and stores also participated there, and it was used for the promotions, so the whole city community could gain benefits from those events. This is some sort of marketing technique. Martin Boeddeker discusses marketing in his blog, maybe he also said something about DMF.
