Try this simple thought experiment. If you could only choose one, would you rather have: 1,000,000 followers who are connected to your tourism destination or 10,000 followers who talk about you every week? Think about it this way: your most engaged visitors and residents are your best marketers. They have the experiences that turn into stories […]
Place DNA (TM)
Place DNA™ airs resident viewpoints to aid tourism planning in Big Sky, Montana
Can you define your destination’s community identity? Do you know your residents’ greatest hopes and fears about tourism, and do they impact your planning? There can be no destination branding without residents. To build lasting credibility and authenticity, a destination needs to work outward from its identity. This means identifying and articulating the core of […]
White papers
Now available: 4 RFP questions your destination brand agency must answer
Is it time to update or rebuild your destination brand? This work is not for the faint of heart. A place branding project will expose your destination marketing organization (DMO) to public criticism from residents, politicians, news media – anyone with a stake in the place you represent. It’s difficult to find the right agency […]
Measuring success
10 U.S. tourism markets ranked by online word of mouth
Data shows that, among 10 major cities, the volume of online conversations about tourism has increased by an average of 40%. This past year, our team working on Tourism Sentiment Index (TSI) has crunched enormous amounts of data – more than a billion online conversations about 420+ tourism destinations. TSI solves a fundamental problem for […]
Case studies
Banff National Park communications plan shifts traveller behaviour amid record-smashing visitor numbers
As more tourism destinations sustain high visitor volumes, some are using innovative strategies to manage visitation. Banff National Park (BNP) is one such place. It is Canada’s oldest and most visited national park, offering scenic outdoor adventures in the Canadian Rockies. The park anticipated record visitation for summer 2017. More visitors would bring in more […]
Sustainable tourism
How Tourism Bay of Plenty turns The Love of Tourism into action
“The only way forward is to fundamentally change,” says CEO Kristin Dunne, describing Tourism Bay’s ambitious destination plan called The Love of Tourism. To make fundamental changes, destination marketing organizations (DMOs) often require an expanded organizational mandate, and this case is no different. In part one of this two-part interview, Dunne explained why regenerative tourism […]
Visitor centres
Are DMO visitor centres making a Blockbuster mistake?
“I’ve been frankly confused by this fascination that everybody has with Netflix […] Netflix doesn’t really have or do anything that we can’t or don’t already do ourselves.” -Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes, in a 2008 interview with CBS News In the mid-2000s, Blockbuster Video was the world leader in movie rentals. The famous blue and yellow stores […]
Always-on content
Why you can’t depend on viral stories to achieve your DMO’s goals
500,000 people saw this viral dolphin story on Facebook, but did it help the DMOs? Let’s be honest. Some days, we marketers look to the sky for that perfect lightning strike of media attention that gets everyone talking about the place we love – the kind of sizzling story that spreads virally online and delights […]
Shareable experiences
Destinations are shifting to digital-first marketing to improve word-of-mouth promotion
The destination marketing world is changing as consumers use technology to share their experiences online through word of mouth, and organizations are trying to adjust to the shift. This 2003 quote from Harvard Business Review remains relevant today: “…the only path to profitable growth may lie in its ability to get its loyal customers to […]