Historical Context

Ten years ago I was part of Tourism British Columbia’s team who was envisioning the technology needs for the organization. Based on a lot of research we concluded that in order for British Columbia to compete, a Destination Management System was needed that provided  “one version of the truth” for tourism information and product. Technology was envisioned to collect, store and distribute this information with a priority on websites. New business units were desinged to gather, collect, input and produce the information and keep it current. We effectively created a content machine.

It made complete sense at the time. The research made it perfectly clear that information about BC’s tourism information on the internet was lacking both in quality and quantity. The far majority of It was our role to fill that gap. Consumers already relied on us. It was the reason our call centre, visitor centres and printed guides existed. A website simply offered us a vehicle to go further down the tail and reach more potential visitors in a cost effective way.

By the time I left in 2010 we had built the system to support our vision. We also gathered and produced thousands of pages of content, translated and localized in in 7 languages. From Vancouver to tiny BC communities, we had produced good quality content on our websites through a collaborative process. Our usability testing constantly improved the user experience of our websites. Search engines drove millions of people to the content, both organic and through a sophisticated PPC program. We measured the number of visitors to each website and measured their behaviour. Our most important KPIs were product listing pageviews, click-throughs to industry operator websites and consumer database acquisition. The strategy worked very well. It cause a seismic change in our marketing department.

Ten years is a lifetime on the internet and it’s time to review that strategy. This is not about Tourism BC (now Destination BC) specifically. That was just my personal experience. And after speaking with dozens of DMOs around the world over the last few years I’ve concluded that most have gone through a very similar process. The next few posts will explore this further.