Leading The Transformation of Destination Marketing: Strategies and Tools to Stay Relevant in a Technology Dominated Era

Come learn from Mo Parikh, the founder of Bandwango, the mobile experience passport company, about the big picture of tracking historical destination marketing trends to insights for the future, and to get a pulse on strategies and tools that empower destination marketers to embrace the next generation of travel technology. In his presentation, Mo will draw connections between search marketing, mobile engagement, data analytics, travel content, augmented reality and personalization, all while speaking to the greater purpose of destination marketing, its unique positioning and strengths, and who it’s capable of serving. Destination marketers will learn to draw on their unique sets of skills and resources including local authority, relationships with local businesses, and a deep knowledge of the destination, to envision ideas, services and products that deliver the best of a destination more effectively to locals, visitors and would-be visitors on the platforms and mobile devices they already use.

Transcript

1. Strategies and Tools to Stay Relevant in a Technology Dominated Era Mo Parikh, CEO mo@bandwango.com (973) 941-7727 P R E S E N T E D B Y Leading The Transformation of Destination Marketing:
2. “The only path to profitable growth may lie in a company’s ability to get its loyal customers to become, in effect, its marketing department.” -Harvard Business Review, 2003
3. We Believe Travel is conversational, experiential, and memorable Our Company Helps destinations create curated mobile experiences through stakeholder collaborations Our Focus Drive measurable revenue and visitation to local businesses

4. What is a “destination”? A place people want to be A reason people travel
5. Why do destination marketers exist?
6. Not to only buy attention anymore. 
 (We are all hooked to our devices)
7. To provide value
8. What’s Your Competitive Advantage? Local relationships Deep destination knowledge Resident ambassadors Budgets to support innovation
9. The DMO/CVB/Association/Guild "Collective" is the glue that brings
 stakeholders together. The "Collective" should focus on things that other stakeholders can’t do
 to benefit the destination in the short and long term.
10. Traditional destination (push)marketing: Content, content, content.
11. We are in the digital information age It’s everywhere, easy to find, and there’s a LOT of it
13. The industry is changing because the way people travel (taste) is changing. It’s always changing.
14. Consumers crave authenticity. Traditional advertising portrays the ideal. Consumers expose the real.
15. Idealized destination portrayal.
16. Houston, we have a problem.
17. This.
18. A Unique Campaign to Portray the Real
19. "We felt like our lives were in our own hands. Make a wrong turn and you're stuck on a double black diamond. It took us 90 minutes to shimmy down the Peruvian Gulch before we could even find a blue square safe enough to ride.” --Jeremiah, Manchester, NH
20. "Are the people who operate the grooming equipment on strike or something? Was hoping for a little more corduroy to dig my skis into." -Elizabeth, Dallas, TX
21. “I’ve heard Snowbird is a tough mountain, but this is ridiculous. It felt like every trail was a steep chute or littered with tree wells. How is anyone supposed to ride in that? Not fun!” Greg, Los Angeles, CA
24. Technology has shifted the balance of power between businesses and customers. 92% of customers trust social media over all other forms of advertising. 52% of Facebook users said their friends’ photos inspired their travel plans 76% of travelers post vacation photos to social networks Source: World Travel & Tourism Council
25. Evolving the business model to focus on authentic experiences built through partnerships & collaboration
26. Focus more on two-way conversations
 instead of one-way pushes
27. Focus more on personalization and curation
28. Focus more on mobile engagement
29. Focus on impacting and affecting other people’s stories Other people’s stories Your stories
30. Focus more on locals They are the heartbeat of your destination
31. Rethinking the destination marketing funnel
32. Destination Experience Marketing
33. Give them the golden ‘gram moment (Instagram, that is) Prioritize adding value to people’s lives
34. Is technology really the solution?
36. Affecting the entire consumer journey AWARENESS CONSIDERATION PURCHASE EXPERIENCE ADVOCACY
37. Destination Marketing Toolbox
38. Measurement & Analytics Critical to understanding your customer, measure ROI and generate insights for growth, analytics tools provide deeper analytics to understand marketing campaigns.
39. Marketing Automation Scale direct marketing efforts and deliver different content and campaigns to different visitor segments.
40. Social Media Management Scaling social engagement by automating workflows, measuring performance, and “listening” to conversations
41. Programmatic Advertising Helping digital marketers purchase digital advertising without interacting with sales reps / media buyers - helps to test larger number of outlets with lower time investment.
42. Visual Marketing Travelers are highly influenced by visuals - these tools give marketers the ability to easily source, acquire rights to, organize, and publish visual content across channels - both owned and user generated.
43. Personalization Deliver custom content and experiences to website visitors - A/B testing to complete personalization tailored to different traveler segments.
44. Destination Commerce & Lead Gen Deliver curated travel experiences - both free and paid - to customers by developing partnerships between stakeholders. Integrated into many booking systems, combing the best of content and commerce worlds.
47. Free Passport Discounts @ 26 Breweries, Distilleries, Cafes Gamified Program Rich Data Reporting ~8,000 leads generated in 5 months ~7,000 redemptions recorded Check it out: crafts.visitcos.com
48. Technology Trends
49. Artificial Intelligence This is a glamour term that is used very broadly. Possibilities are numerous. Crowdriff uses Google Vision AI to auto-tag and apply keywords to images at scale. AI can also be used in conversation technologies to better “understand” the customer.
50. Augmented/Virtual Reality Pokemon GO brought this to the mainstream. In tourism, enables customers to virtually experience your destination to gain inspiration and excitement, or elevate their experience within the destination. Visit Houston is pioneering the DMO-powered augmented reality push through their recently release AR browser - visithoustonar.com
51. Chatbots Deliver information to customers through the real-time communication channels.
52. Fail forward, my friends Failure is the path to success Incremental gains lead to monumental shifts
53. Thanks! Mo Parikh mo@bandwango.com (973) 941-7727