(Forbes) - If you’re planning a vacation, you probably got more than a little
help from the Internet, whether it was searching for inspiration, buying
tickets, reserving accommodations or researching attractions. According
to a 2014 survey by PhoCusWright,
consumers use an average of 6.5 sites and devices for online research
before booking travel. That number is even higher for frequent travelers
(taking more than six trips a year) and higher spenders (spending more
than $6,000 annually), who do more research than average before making
reservations.
As consumers move their trip-planning process online and leave data trails in their wake, destination marketing organizations have found innovative ways to use a variety of data resources to connect with potential visitors at every stage of the trip.
“The data is super important because, obviously, if you’re able to
get that from as high up as possible in the funnel [from a travel
agency], you’re able to do some re-marketing,” said Frederic Gonzalo, a tourism marketing consultant. This will enable organizations to target shoppers who have looked at a specific destination on an online travel agency, he added.
Destination marketing organizations can also find data on the national level–for example, from Brand USA,
the U.S. destination marketing public-private partnership, or the
Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration data, which
the Maine Department of Tourism used to better understand its fastest-growing visitor demographics, according to a blog post by the Department of Commerce as
part of its “data month” campaign. State tourism organizations also
provide more targeted data for city and municipal region destination
marketing organizations.
“There are all kinds of vendors out there in our industry that do an
excellent job of providing [data],” said Rick Vaughan, senior vice
president and managing director of the Destination Marketing Association International‘s Destination Arena,
a benchmarking tool that shows destination marketing organizations how
their metrics compare to others’. “Some of it is custom data, some of it
is general statistical, consumer data. So we’re trying to find the best
practices around the United States to use data to better target our
audiences.”
How that data is used varies depending on the size of the marketing agency. First-tier agencies like New York City’s NYC & Company are
well-known for incorporating data analysis into multi-faceted marketing
plans, as experts interviewed for this article agreed, while smaller
tier-two and tier-three destinations use data analysis to get the most
value from more limited budgets.
Fort Worth, Texas, is a second-tier destination with some cutting-edge big data techniques.
“We fashion ourselves as the ‘Moneyball’ CVB [convention and
visitors bureau] of the tourism industry,” said Mitch Whitten, vice
president of marketing communications for the Fort Worth Convention and
Visitors Bureau. “We are looking into a lot of different data and
looking for general impressions, so that’s been important for us not to
rely on one source, like our own website.”
According to Whitten, the bureau has moved its focus away from
brand-awareness campaigns toward targeting fans of niche interests
connected to Fort Worth in campaigns that have increased conversion
rates. One example is a social media partnership with the local NASCAR
track, Texas Motor Speedway, which even targets fans of specific NASCAR
drivers. Another activity-centric advertising effort focuses on events
taking place on the nearby Trinity River.
The ideal combination of big data and destination marketing would be
to integrate data and in-person experience, said tourism consultant
Gonzalo. Even after making a profile and planning a trip on a
destination marketing agency’s website, “once I get to the destination, I
might go into an information bureau, and then I’m John Doe once again,”
he said. The people who are on the front line don’t necessarily have a
way to cross that information from the website profile to create a
personalized experience, he added.
Even though data analytics are becoming an essential tool,
and marketing organizations like Fort Worth’s bureau have discontinued
much of their print marketing materials in favor of digital media,
Whitten said that the business still isn’t entirely numbers-driven:
“Data informs our marketing, but there’s still a place for intuition and
both the left and right sides of the brain.”
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