My new years resolution is to create more post and throw in the odd brain dump. Why wait?

A few years ago it made sense for DMO’s to create content. It filled a void because there weren’t a lot of players. Airlines, OLTA’s and businesses were only putting out product information. And guidebook producers limited the amount of destination information online to protect their book sales. Destinations had a role to play. Destinations even talked (and still do) about syndicating content to third parties.

But now there is an copious amount of destination information. OLTA’s try to grab consumers earlier in the funnel by providing destination/inspirational content and a bazillion blogs, user generated guides, review sites, forums and other social created content covers every corner of any destination.

Consumers still trust DMO’s, for their content. But they trust Google more, and their search behaviour is long tail focussed. That means searching for very specific things and trust Google to point them to the most relevant content. Wherever that might be.

In order to stay relevant DMO’s need SEO. Because SEO drives traffic. Google will drive more traffic to your website than any advertising campaign can ever deliver. Ever. And you need content for SEO. And the competition is fierce.

At Tourism BC, we had double digit growth in SEO year-over-year for years in a row because content was a priority (and smart people were producing it). And the amount of unique search queries was well over 50% of all searches. That’s the long tail for you.

The discussion I’m having with digital strategists at DMO’s lately is about aggregating content. Because why create content that already exists? Just go get it somewhere in social media. I’m not arguing against it. Not at all. It makes a lot of sense.

What most DMO’s miss is an editorial process. Content is not *just data*.

Clay Shirky once said about, “It’s Not Information Overload. It’s Filter Failure.”