Category

Marketing

• Marketing, Travel & Tourism

  The destination branding illusion

  11.24.09 | Permalink | 16 Comments

  Perhaps the most annoying thing you can tell me is that some DMO is re-branding their destination.

  A destination brand is:

  1. The sum of experiences of a traveler during a trip (but not all experiences are equal)
  2. The sum of all stories somebody has hears about a destination (but not all sources are equally credible)

  That’s it.

  To re-brand a destination, you need to change the stories people tell when they get home. In order to do that you need to change the experiences travelers have. Changing your story doesn’t mean anything if yours is different from the real one.

• Marketing, Travel & Tourism

  Mickey’s 10 Commandments

  11.16.09 | Permalink | 2 Comments

  I’m working on an idea I’ve had for a long time with the working title “Disneyworld as the perfect DMO”. Here’s a piece of knowledge from Disney every DMO or travel business can copy-and-paste and hang on their walls.

  Mickey’s 10 Commandments

  1. Know your audience – Don’t bore people, talk down to them or lose them by assuming that they know what you know.
  2. Wear your guest’s shoes – Insist that designers, staff and your board members experience your facility as visitors as often as possible.
  3. Organize the flow of people and ideas – Use good story telling techniques, tell good stories not lectures, lay out your exhibit with a clear logic.
  4. Create a weenie – Lead visitors from one area to another by creating visual magnets and giving visitors rewards for making the journey
  5. Communicate with visual literacy – Make good use of all the non-verbal ways of communication – color, shape, form, texture.
  6. Avoid overload – Resist the temptation to tell too much, to have too many objects, don’t force people to swallow more than they can digest, try to stimulate and provide guidance to those who want more.
  7. Tell one story at a time – If you have a lot of information divide it into distinct, logical, organized stories, people can absorb and retain information more clearly if the path to the next concept is clear and logical.
  8. Avoid contradiction – Clear institutional identity helps give you the competitive edge. Public needs to know who you are and what differentiates you from other institutions they may have seen.
  9. For every ounce of treatment , provide a ton of fun – How do you woo people from all other temptations? Give people plenty of opportunity to enjoy themselves by emphasizing ways that let people participate in the experience and by making your environment rich and appealing to all senses.
  10. Keep it up – Never underestimate the importance of cleanliness and routine maintenance, people expect to get a good show every time, people will comment more on broken and dirty stuff.

  Martin Sklar, Walt Disney Imagineering, Education vs. Entertainment: Competing for audiences, AAM Annual meeting, 1987

• Marketing, personal, Travel & Tourism, Uncategorized

  I am the media and the message: Remarkable experiences in Riga

  11.11.09 | Permalink | 9 Comments

  Word-of-mouth is the core of tourism marketing. Remarkable tourism product and experiences drive word-of-mouth. No amount of advertising can build credible awareness or brand like word-of-mouth.

  While in Riga for the ETC eBusiness academy, I came across a few great examples of remarkable experiences that I’ve told to at least 50 people. Plus the people in my social networks have seen videos and photos. Many of these people asked follow-up questions. What are the people like? Is it expensive? Where is it?

  I had dinner in 4 or 5 restaurants while I was there. They were all good. But I don’t remember their names. Except one: Hospitalis, a soviet style hospital themed restaurant. The video I took of my Austrian friend Martin below will explain why.

  My new friend Maija from Riga invited me and Martin to “go flying”. No idea what she was talking about but how can you say no to that? About 20 minutes outside Riga was the Aerodium. Hovering 10 meters over a huge ventilator was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. I would fly back the 12 hours just to do that again.

  

  I’ve talked to people. I’ve posted photos and videos on Facebook, Flickr and YouTube. I am the media and the message for Latvia Tourism. I wonder how many of the people I’ve connected with have  heard of Riga before? And I wonder how many have Googled either Riga, Latvia, Hospitalis of Aerodrome. Will you?

• Internet, Marketing, social media, tourism bc, Travel & Tourism

  The DMO site as a social platform; moving closer

  11.05.09 | Permalink | 1 Comment

  The future of DMO websites needs real time and social content. Yesterday, our Torch Relay Field Reporter program is a good example of a step towards real time content. And I use social in a broad sense. It means collaboration with people who have a personal or commercial interest in assisting potential travelers to visit a destination.

  In our case, our province is a collection of regions, cities and communities; most with their own DMO. Last year our regions took a bold step and decided to use their region on HelloBC as their website. Instead of both spending time and money on development, content, SEO, SEM, etc, we’re now collaborating and HelloBC is better for it.

  Most DMO’s are also using Twitter now. Twitter is a great way to connect our website visitors with local experts and give them real time information about regions and communities. So we’re starting to add the local DMO twitter feeds to the relevant pages of HelloBC.

  

  Parksville Twitter feed on HelloBC

  Another step towards a more social and real time website.

• Marketing, social media, tourism bc, Travel & Tourism

  Leveraging the 2010 Games with our Torch Relay Field Reporter

  11.04.09 | Permalink | 4 Comments

  Chris Wheeler is our Torch Relay Field Reporter. He will travel with the torch throughout BC and Canada and document the relay, the celebrations while showing off the amazing places the torch passes.

  One of our objectives for leveraging the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games is maximizing exposure surrounding the games for all of British Columbia and Canada. And the Torch Relay is a perfect way to do so.

  Big kudos to Chris, the Tourism BC team (Paul, Jose and Mike in particular) and our regional staff for doing an amazing job and bringing the vision to life.

  Chris will product a video for every day the Torch is in British Columbia and key places throughout Canada.

  Follow Chris on Twitter and around the country by subscribing to his YouTube channel.

• Internet, Marketing, Travel & Tourism

  The end of the DMO/CVB website? Europe says yes.

  10.23.09 | Permalink | 7 Comments

  
  With websites such as Tripadvisor, WAYN, Google Maps, Facebook, etc., do DMO/NTO/CVB’s need websites at all 10 years from now? Brand new director Armands Slokenbergs from the Latvian Tourism Development Agency asked for a show of hands and nobody raised even a finger. After 3 days of presentations and discussions it’s hard to ignore the fact that we need to go where the consumer is, instead convincing the consumer to come to us.

  I was fortunate to have the opportunity to present some of my ideas and join about 50 online marketers from 25 European National Tourism Organizations for 3 days during their annual eBusiness Academy. The theme of the conversations was focussed on working with 3rd party websites to provide content and in the case of social networks, join the conversation. Isabel Mosk from Holland noted that “instead of asking to ‘please buy Holland’, we should be asking ‘how can Holland help you'”.

  And the message from consumers is clear. You don’t help anybody traditional advertising but by adding value through relationships. Slokenbergs’ limited budget is focussed on encouraging word-of-mouth recommendations (bravo!). He shared some really cool research and one the conclusions was that the best opportunities for word-of-mouth is the though positive interactions between local people and their traditions. A great example is encouraging the celebration of your “Name Day” in Latvia; a local tradition that’s celebrated by everybody.
  WAYN and Tripadvisor showed case studies of DMO campaigns. The WAYN campaign with South Africa was particulary impressive. A contest to win a trip (of course) resulted in 20,000 additions to South Africa’s consumer database at a very reasonable cost. The added bennefit was the community engagement who selected the winner and will probably be living vicaruasly through the (Canadian) winner when she goes on her trip soon.

  To go where the consumers are is working well for some NTO’s. VisitBritain receives 18.5M visitors to its consumer websites and an equal number of visitors via syndication partners. Other NTO’s are doing interesting things well including Slovenia who works with local search angines and portals. Many syndicate to Google Maps and have developed widgets.

  Joobili co-founder Jared Salter shared some interesting thoughts. Not every destination is a top 5 destination year-round. But many destinations are the best destination at least one day a year during a really cool festival. Joobili satisfies the for consumers need who plan a trip based on what the best place to visit is for a particular date or dates. Great way to provide a sense of urgency as well.
  Google’s Andrew Pozniak tried really hard to convince us that Google has no intentions to enter the travel vertical but we all know they already have. Not through a big bang, but slowly though Google Maps, Streetview, Place Pages, YouTube and secret Android activities.

  Isabel tweeted that we all might work for Google soon. But hey, if anybody is taking over from us, I hope it’s Google.

• Internet, Marketing, Travel & Tourism

  The Role of DMO and CVB Websites – Start with your website user

  09.07.09 | Permalink | 2 Comments

  The role of our website is a favourite topic among senior management at Tourism BC and has been for a long time. PhoCusWright’s Destination Marketing: Understanding the Role and Inpact on Destination Marketers flared up another round last summer. I’ll spare you those details but here are some of my thoughts.
  PhoCusWright rightfully notes that almost every DMO is different they way they’re structured, funded and organized but that key issues and challenges are very similar. I’ve been talking to my peers around the world for 10 years now and that’s definely true.

  And it’s becoming more challenging all the time. Online innovation continues are a rapid pace while a DMO website is now at the heart of all marketing activities. My perspective a user centered one. If you don’t meet your website user’s goals, there’s no hope you’ll ever meet any of your organizational or stakeholder objectives, because your visitors won’t stick around.
  One place to start is to figure out where a person’s place is in the planning (or purchase) cycle.

  Find out if somebody:

  1. knows about the destination but is not considering a trip yet
  2. is considering a trip but doesn’t have concrete plans yet
  3. has decided to visit but hasn’t booked yet
  4. has booked and it filling in the details
  5. is in the middle of the trip, continuing planning

  The answer to the question posed above could radically change the approach you should take. If most people are in the first group, they’re looking for a reason to visit. They need to be inspired. Big imagery, videos that connect on an emotional level and experiential stories work really well in this phase. Most DMO websites serve consumers in this phase very well.

  But if somebody is in the third group, the role of the website is not to lose the sale. They’re already inspired and motivated. Most DMO websites don’t do very well here. When somebody visits a DMO website in this phase, it probably means there’s just a few nagging questions and they need answers. Details. How long does it take to drive there? How expensive is everything?Is the museum open on Mondays? Is there enough to do for the whole family?

  Forget the emotional video and big images. The website can look like Craigslist. They just want detailed information (they could also be looking for a deal by the way, but that’s another poll to run).

  PhoCusWright has polled consumers and their report includes valuable information about where consumers say they visit DMO websites in the process. We’ve polled our website visitors about this for a while now and our numbers are a bit different from PhoCusWright’s. This leads me to believe that it might vary based on the destination.

  It’s super easy to find out where your visitors are in the process. Poll them. Find out. And use it internally as you discuss the role of your website. And get the PhoCusWight report, it’s worth the money.

• Internet, Marketing, social media, tourism bc, Travel & Tourism

  Tourism BC and Field Reporter videos as an example of industry collaboration

  09.03.09 | Permalink | Comment?

  Last year, I posted about our online video strategy. It’s been one exciting year. Ten field reporters have created more than 120 videos. With an average time of 3 minutes per video, it’s the equivalent of 4 feature films! Videos are posted on YouTube, our blogs, and they’re incorporated into the appropriate places of the website. In less than a year, our field reporters are approaching 200,000 views.

  That alone is enough reason to call these videos a success. But I think the most interesting piece is the way we’re extending our Field Reporter program and leveraging the long tail. Tourism BC can never create videos for every place, event and activity in British Columbia.

  Our Field Reporter videos are cost-effective. It’s a one person operation. The host also operates the camera and does the editing. Producing videos is no longer a big budget operation.
  That means they’re affordable for smaller destinations and tourism businesses. So we’ve made our Field Reporters available for our industry. We’ve taken care of the process and format of the video. All the industry has to do is pay the Field Reporter and the videos can be used as any other on YouTube and HelloBC, but also on the DMO or operator website.
  This concept is working well and a good example of using a collaberative approach to online marketing between a DMO and it’s industry.
  
  The video above was created by Chris on behalf ot Tourism Nanaimo.

  
  This video is created by Ivan on behalf of Canadian Mountain Holidays.
  More about our Field Report program soon…

• Internet, Marketing, Travel & Tourism

  The paradox of choice

  08.06.09 | Permalink | 6 Comments

  Interesting posting (as usual) from Stephen Joyce from Rezgo. He touches on a few things I’ve thought about a lot over the years. Especially the paradox of choice.
  He makes a good point.

  In an industry where there is so much choice, how do you reduce choice? One answer is to specialize. Yes, that’s right, when you specialize in a destination or a product type, you reduce your customer’s choice and increase their ability to make a decision.

  He’s right. And the internet allows operators to find a very specific niche segment of consumers. This just wasn’t possible 10 years ago. By finding a profitable niche, it allows operators to tailor the product or experience and make it remarkable. And soon, your niche product, targeted and tailored to the Italian fly-fishing audience is being talking up on the Italian fly fishing social networks.
  One of my dilemmas as a online destination marketer is: do I carve the destination up in niche websites (a cheese specialty store), tailored and targeted at specific segments, or do stock all product in one big website (a supermarket). Since travel is a multi-product experience, we’ve opted for the supermarket concept (like most DMO’s). No two trips consumers make are the same, because they all have unique preferences. Even the Italian fly-fishers will need a place to stay, eat and fill their time with other things, and that’s where we come in.
  But the paradox of choice does creep into my mind every once in a while. That’s why I think the approach to allow consumers to make incremental decisions that won’t overwhelm them with too many options is a way to overcome this. That’s where regions, cities and sectors are useful. But it remains tough.
  I think websites like Kayak do a good job of giving their users tools to limit a consumers choices based on personal preferences. I want a 4 star hotel, downtown, with a pool for example will reduce choice and make the decision process easier. The industry needs more of that. It will also stop the process of commoditizing tourism product.

• Internet, Marketing, social media

  Why businesses should use Twitter – by Japadog

  03.14.09 | Permalink | Comment?

  Japadog is taking Vancouver by storm. The Japanese style hot dogs are weird but delicious. Japadog is also active on Twitter and here’s why:
  
  Awesome. Couldn’t have said it better in less than 140 characters myself.

William Bakker's Destination Marketing blog