Goodhart’s law states that “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure”. What this means is that once a specific measurement is set as an objective people will lose the real intent behind the measure or start gaming things in order to artificially inflate the results, sometimes at the expense of other results.
The problem is that in order to simplify reporting executives look for an easy thing to measure and benchmark over time and against the ‘competition’. But in the desire for simplicity, real results get lost. And especially at a DMO where real impact is tough (or impossible) to measure, this can easily lead to distorted tactics.
Examples of Goodhart’s law at the DMO:
Website traffic
Often only the number of (unique) visitors is reported as the single measure of success. It’s easy to understand and can be benchmarked against other websites using online services. This can lead to a terrible obsession with building web traffic while what visitors do when they’re on the website becomes irrelevant. It also impacts other activities in a negative way, for example by sacrificing Facebook or Twitter success by using it as a web traffic generator.
Facebook fans
It’s almost impossible not to look at your number of fans and look at the DMO next door without wanting to beat them. Money is thrown at ads to generate more fans without much consideration about who and where. Proper community management is ignored because nobody in management cares. Just beat the other guys. The inclusion of ‘people talking about this’ only marginally improved this.
# of media/influencers hosted
My bedtime reading includes DMO annual reports. And you’d be amazed how often I see “# of press trips hosted”. This leads to hosting anybody who asks being hosted, regardless of any criteria.
# visit to a Visitor Information Center
Often the most populair activity as a visitor center is using the bathroom.
Awards won
It’s great to get recognition by winning an award. We like it as well. But sometimes
Media impressions
