Finding "The Pulse" for a New Kind of Destination Marketing and Management Organization

Equipt with data and insights, and the viral nature of digital and social media, Destination Marketers have struck gold in recent years in their ability to create and leverage digital media and user-generated social content to pull the heartstrings of travelers looking to experience adventure, culture, and the hidden, off the beaten path “local gems.”  In fact, many DMO’s have done such a great job at creating and promoting these Instagram-worthy travel experiences that it has led to overcrowding, disappointed tourists, and unhappy residents.

We have come a long way with data and digital marketing in a short time, and this has led to some big challenges for the industry.

The DMO’s role has always been to generate more demand for new and more tourists, no matter what it took to get them into the market.  In the past, the DMO was primarily responsible for and measured against:  

• Proving Attribution, or measuring and reporting on what DMO programs, Campaigns, and Events drove proven economic impact. 
• Driving Visitation, or keeping ahead, and understanding who is coming, where they are coming from, and what are they doing while they are in-market.

Today, the DMO has expanded beyond this to include the managing of the ebbs and flows of visitation and the overall impact (both positive and negative) that tourism has on its community.

The DMO of today has responsibilities that now include:

• Leading digital transformation and technology
• Organizational change management internally, and as in the community
• Managing the impact of Over-Tourism, visitor-flow and residence satisfaction
• Sustainability 

The DMO of today operates more as a “DMMO”, or Destination Marketing and Management Organization, and needs to focus on striking a balance between increasing revenues from tourism into the market, driving economic development, and managing the distribution of visitors while in market, to making sure that the community is moving toward sustainable long-term growth.

This is no easy task.

The good news is that today we have the technology, the data and the infrastructure that was not available even just a few years ago to measure more than just website visits and campaign ROI. Data has become more accessible than ever before, which has led to a secondary challenge for DMO’s.

Too much Data, and not enough intelligence.

Today’s Destination Marketing Organizations are still being held accountable for increased tourism revenues, but in some cases are also being challenged with managing too much growth, or the disproportionate share of visitation to certain regions or stakeholders. And in most cases, they are dealing with these new challenges with the same resources and infrastructure they had in the past.  

Although there is more data than ever before, the data architecture and indices for measurement have not evolved with the new responsibilities.  Beyond this, the access to data is often fragmented across the organization with legacy organizational structures getting in the way of innovation and the sharing of information that is needed in a faster-paced organization.  

In many cases the Marketing, PR, Sales, Research, and the Executive teams all require data and reports to help them make decisions and report on economic impact, and yet data is often sitting in an annual report on someone's desk, or in excel spreadsheets that are out of date before any action can be taken. 

The DMMO of today needs to have a “single source of truth” data center that is a reliable indicator and predictor of success in all tourism programs and activities, and across all departments, both internally and externally.  

In order to thrive now and into the future, the DMMO needs to have the pulse not only on incoming visitation and on what campaigns are performing best, but also on the impact of those visitors on the larger community, as well as the sustainability of their programs over the long-term.  

The “too much data” challenge can be easily overcome when datasets are brought together and overlaid in a consistent and visual way.

The DMMO of the future will need to be on “The Pulse” of the destination, building the narrative in almost real-time using multiple datasets (such as Google Analytics, Weather, Tax Revenues or average ADR by region) to drive strategy and report on the economic impact of tourism.

With this single source of truth data center, DMMO’s can dramatically shorten the time it takes to be more agile in their decision making, as well as more reactive changes that need to be made in marketing programs, in responding to visitor needs, and in managing stakeholder and community expectations.

DMO’s don’t need any more data. They need better insights that drive action, and they need it in real-time.

In order to keep the gold rush of tourism going, forward-thinking Destination Marketers will rethink organizational KPI’s, consolidate datasets, ensure the accuracy and transparency of their data, and make data and insights accessible and actionable across the organization and outward to stakeholders and the wider community.  They will come together across the organization to build the narrative that will direct action. They will become forward-thinking and predictive instead of reactionary.

Beyond driving visitation and revenue, the DMMO of the future will find the pulse of the destination they serve, and they will provide the stability and foresight to navigate through more change to come.

About Entrada Insights: Entrada Insights provides the world’s best destinations with strategy, the data platform, the insights and the expertise they need to thrive today, and into the future. Entrada helps DMOs become more efficient in managing and understanding the narrative of performance across multiple datasets including; Google Analytics, Adwords, Social Media Insights, Star Reports, Expedia Market reports, Tripadvisor, Weather data, Tax reports, location data, Attribution data from platforms and more.  

Entrada’s Destination Intelligence Platform and Data Management Suite provides Insights-as-a-service to destination marketing organizations to enable confident, agile data-driven decision making.