As you read this, people are boarding planes, trains, or taxicabs to visit your destination. Why are they travelling? How did they plan the trip? What experiences await them? How will they relive the adventure? What stories will they tell, good or bad, and to whom? These questions describe the customer journey. Your destination marketing […]
Tips from Destinations
90% engagement? Passionate kiteboarders show what’s truly possible in winter Bermuda campaign
There are nice vacations, and then there are life-altering trips that you can’t resist because they activate your greatest passions. This story is about the latter. This is also a story about marketing dollars well spent. In 2018, a group of destination marketers and professional kiteboarders joined forces to give a specific group of people […]
How Visit Flanders affects lives through social media, inspiring people to visit Flanders Fields
Your destination’s most passionate advocates care deeply about the place where they visit or live. Often, this passion goes beyond a destination’s bucket list experience; the destination’s very identity (as described by its Place DNA™) can become deeply meaningful. Flanders Fields is a place where family heritage and world history converge. The region of Flanders […]
Help travellers choose your destination with eye-popping visual content
Step out of your destination marketing shoes and into those of a traveller. Have you ever paused to think about how difficult it is to choose where to visit next? With so many beautiful destination photos and videos filling our feeds everyday, narrowing down the list to one location can seem impossible. How will you […]
Calgary spurs visitor and influencer stories in national campaign by positioning the city as the Basecamp to Adventure
In Calgary, you can enjoy the world-famous Calgary Stampede, a vibrant music scene, and sled down the popular luge and bobsleigh tracks, part of the legacy of the 1988 Winter Olympic Games. Canada’s third-largest city has plenty to offer, but what truly sets it apart from other Canadian urban destinations? Proximity and ease of access […]
An insider look at how to work with influencers
The traditional role of the travel journalist is changing faster than your PR agency can get an influencer on a plane. As destinations transition to digital-first marketing, influencer trips are becoming ever more common. Your DMO is likely already working with influencers, even if you don’t yet realize it. But influencers are quite different than […]
How Holland builds and executes its social media strategy: Tips for destinations of any size
Ever wonder how other destinations do it? During Destination Think!’s 2015 Social Media Tourism Symposium in Amsterdam, Tessa Dirks from NBTC Holland Marketing outlined her day-to-day challenges and triumphs as the organization’s international Social Media Manager. From having limited budget to working with a team of international ambassadors and reporting on the value of her […]
Learn about San Francisco Travel’s always-on approach to content marketing
It can be easy for any organization to become siloed and lose sight of its goals. Dan Rosenbaum, Senior Manager of Content and Social Media Marketing, faced exactly this challenge with his team at San Francisco Travel (SFT) in 2013. At that time, the team’s primary objective was to drive traffic to the SFT website, […]
3 ways to use social media to successfully connect with potential visitors
Conversations and content shared on social media can play a crucial role in inspiring would-be visitors to finally book a trip, especially to an aspirational destination from their bucket list. Tourism and Events Queensland (TEQ) knows exactly how this works, as a destination that continues to build consumer-led, experience-focused campaigns. Kylie Smith, TEQ’s Marketing Manager […]
4 ways Chinese DMOs use Weibo to humanize their brands
Dr. Jing Ge, PhD, is a research scientist at the Laboratory for Intelligent Systems in Tourism, U.S. She has studied Chinese DMOs and how they use social media to engage travellers using humour and a playful, creative language. Her 2016 dissertation, “The use of humour for customer engagement on Chinese social media – a rhetorical […]
Lessons from a digital and social-oriented organization
What can we learn from a destination marketing organization (DMO) that was able to start afresh? Formed in 2014, VisitBrabant had the rare opportunity to reorganize and redefine its role as a DMO. Under the leadership of General Director Heleen Huisjes, VisitBrabant made a remarkably clear-cut choice for digital marketing, with social at the heart of their […]
3 insights on today’s connected visitor and digital marketing
The destination marketing organization (DMO)’s role in promoting a destination is changing. As DMOs find their new footing in the holiday planning cycle, this will mean a significant shift from focusing on campaigns promoting a destination to instead connecting with a consumer across the full cycle. In his presentation at the 2015 Social Media Tourism […]
Social media innovation for destination marketers
How is your organization harnessing the power of social content? You don’t need a reminder that the world of content is changing and that visitors are creating content that used to come from the destination marketing organization. But with all that brilliant, user-generated content out there, what do you do with it? At Social Media […]
Tips for smarter digital marketing from Tourism New Zealand
Destinations need a strong, differentiated product that inspires consumers to share stories about their experiences. Tourism New Zealand has truly embraced digital marketing to amplify their visitors’ stories – so much so that 90% of their global marketing spend is digital, and in some markets, 100% digital. Andrew Fraser, Director of Marketing at Tourism New […]
Content marketing for DMOs: How Visit Philadelphia creates, repurposes and measures its award-winning content for maximum engagement
Today, DMOs are called upon to be content strategists, employing writers, photographers, web strategists, technologists and more. To hear Caroline Bean, Director of Social Media at Visit Philadelphia describe it, content is the lifeblood of her organization’s marketing: “We have always invested in content. If our budget was cut so much tomorrow that I could […]
Humour in destination marketing: Denmark and Sweden had a Twitter scrap and people went wild. But what was the point?
The official channels of Denmark and Sweden (not to be confused with the countries’ official destination marketing organizations, though they work toward similar objectives) took to Twitter in what was obviously a pre-planned and somewhat odd “beef” that included memes, gifs, news articles, random facts and sly digs. For English-speaking locals, expats, and people who […]
Small budget, huge impact: Content marketing success in Inuvik, Canada
Destinations work hard every day to build their communities on Facebook. But imagine the challenge when your destination faces some of the most detrimental factors in tourism: inaccessibility, lack of name recognition, high costs, low hotel inventory, sub-zero temperatures, and an entire month of 24-hour-a-day darkness. You read that correctly. There is, in fact, destination […]
Connecting with communities: Amsterdam Marketing’s approach to using emotion in social content
What makes a community tick? During a presentation at a Social Media Tourism Symposium event in Amsterdam, Colleen Geske, head of social media marketing at Amsterdam Marketing and bestselling author of the book Stuff Dutch People Like (based on her popular blog that has 250,000 fans) talked about the power of emotional connections in social […]
How Whistler Blackcomb uses Snapchat, plus key tips for destinations
While travel writers and Instagram influencers feverishly embrace Snapchat for its compelling visuals and real-time storytelling capabilities, destinations have been much slower to warm up to this popular social app. Why is that? During roundtable discussions at a recent Travel Media Association of Canada event, many industry members shared their challenges and questions around the […]
Case Study: How Toerisme Gelderland shifted to consumer engagement by focusing on a niche experience
What if you could explore an entire province by bicycle – including a trail system the length of Chile – with the help of a passionate (and athletic) guide? Toerisme Gelderland’s “5000km Gelderse streken” campaign allowed community members to participate with Mirre, an intrepid destination ambassador for the Dutch province of Gelderland, in a 100-day […]
Case study: How Destination British Columbia encouraged visitors to share their #exploreBC experiences through one-to-one conversations
A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, particularly if it’s straight up a mountain. Few destination marketing organizations (DMOs) know this better than Destination British Columbia (DBC), and in particular, Leah Poulton, DBC’s Social Media Manager. Since 2011, Leah has been the driving force behind the growth, development, and strategy of […]
Case study: How Tourism and Events Queensland’s innovative online listening campaign added “Surprise & Delight” to visitor experiences via Twitter
Tourism and Events Queensland (TEQ) is a bold and ambitious global destination renowned for its remarkable campaigns. One such campaign, “24 Hours in Queensland,” brought international filmmakers to Queensland to experience the Australian state for only 24 hours before being flown back home. Another campaign, “Room 753,” invited busy travel influencers to rejuvenate for a […]