Presentation on Destination Management by Roger Carter at the E-Tourism Africa Summit in Johannesburg

1. Destinations Online
Dr Roger Carter
Managing Director
TEAM Tourism Consulting
eTourism Africa, Joburg
1-2 December 2009

2. Speaker background
• Spent 25 years working for tourism organisations – national,
regional and city – within the UK
• In 1997, established TEAM, a consultancy in strategy, business
planning and operations management for destination
management and marketing organisations – with a strong focus
on e-business
• Involved in more than 225 consultancy projects, throughout the
UK and in Saudi Arabia, Oman, Australia, South Africa,
Seychelles, Estonia, Ireland, Portugal,
• Co-authored the UNWTO Business Council publication,
“Marketing Tourism Destinations Online”, 1999, + successor
publication “E-Business for Tourism, published in October 2001
• Two new publications in 2008: “A Guide to Destination
Management” for the UNWTO; and “eMarketing Handbook for
the UNWTO and the European Travel Commission
• TEAM operates the ‘New Media Trend Watch’ Web site for the
European Travel Commission
• Managing Editor of ‘DMO World’, a newsletter for tourism
destination professionals around the world

3. Destination World e-
e-
newsletter
www.destinationworld.info

5. E-Marketing Handbook for Destinations
• E-marketing for Tourism Destinations – The Big Picture
• Content Is King – How to Build and Manage Content that
Convinces the Customer
• Social Networking and User-generated Content (UGC)
• Make a Winning Website – The Keys to Success
• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – Getting Better Search
Engine Results the ‘Natural’ Way
• How to Acquire and Develop Customers – Marketing
Channels and the Use of Customer Relationship
Management
• Branding – Project the Essence of the Destination
• E-commerce for Destinations – Turning Enquiries into Sales
• Mobile Marketing – Exploiting the Essential Companion to
Everyday Life

6. E-Marketing Handbook for Destinations
• The New Television – Convergence of Media: Interactive TV,
Video, Internet
• and Gaming
• Online Destination Media Relations – How to Gain Online
Coverage and Be Ready for a Crisis
• Supporting the Travel Trade in Source Markets
• E-marketing with the Destination’s Tourism Suppliers
• Income Sources for DMOs – Raising Income from Your E-
marketing Services
• Measuring Success – Methods for Reporting of E-marketing
Activity, and Continuous Measurement of Performance Quality
and Outcomes
• Web Analytics – Boost Your Online Impact with Data-driven
Optimisation
• How to Manage Your Domain Names – Choosing and
Maintaining Domains that Support a Wide Range of E-marketing
Activities
• Market Trends

7. Destination Web Watch

9. UNWTO Practical Guide to Destination Management
1. An Introduction to Destination Management
2. Devising a Destination Strategy and Action Plan
3. Positioning and Branding the Destination
4. Marketing Your Destination
5. Developing Destination Products
6. Ensuring the Quality of the Visitors’ Experience
7. Destination e-business and Information
Management
8. Organising for Destination Management

10. Agenda
• Ten challenges to destinations online –
and some solutions
• Some illustrations
• The Destination as a community
• Conclusions

11. Challenges to destinations online
1. To maximise distribution, especially through
third parties – content and bookings
2. To apply CRM properly - maximising the
lifetime value of customers
3. To engage in social networking and user
generated content
4. To ensure high quality, rich content
5. To create a compelling website
experience, supporting the destination
brand

12. Challenges to destinations online
6. To decide how to deal with online
bookings
7. To enable dynamic packaging
8. To obtain real time inventory for selling
online
9. To demonstrate return on investment
10. To Ensure effective electronic distribution
of information to travellers and visitors
And Google. The strategic challenge?
Google Places, Geographical search, etc

13. Destinations – The e-marketing survival kit
e-
Reach as many
• Search engine optimisation
potential customers as
• Distribution partnerships
possible
Maximise the lifetime • Customer focus – know your customer
value of customers - • CRM systems
CRM • Social media/user community section of destination
site
Engage with social • Social media/UGC functionality on website
media and facilitate • Distribution through UGC sites – Trip Advisor,
user generated content YouTube
• Engagement with UGC and social media sites
• UGC tracking for destination + products
Ensure high quality • Content management plan and system for
content acquisition and distribution of content
• Quality assurance of content
• Combine official content and selected UGC
Create a compelling • User focused, creative design, efficient
website experience, functionality, interactivity with UGC, third party
supporting the brand content/services

14. Destinations – The e-marketing survival kit
e-
Deliver sales, directly or • Booking engine and customer orientated booking
indirectly processes or
• Meta-search comparison engines with ‘polling’ for
availability and price or
• Commercial partnerships
Offer dynamic • Sophisticated, multi-product destination system, or
packaging • Major commercial partner(s) or
• Meta-search to access wide range of destination
products
Engage tourism • Partnerships with ‘availability’ aggregators
businesses to deliver • Interoperability with multiple operators/PMS
real time inventory • Low cost PMS to supply inventory dynamically
Evaluate and
benchmark • Site performance measurement
performance, • Web analytics
demonstrating return on • User surveys
investment
Ensure effective • Podcast destination guides
electronic distribution of
• Location based services
information to travellers
and visitors • Wide area WiFi (WiMax)

15. Maximising the lifetime value
of your customers through CRM

17. Agenda
• Ten challenges to destinations online –
and some solutions
• Some illustrations

18. Tourism NZ on You Tube

21. VisitVictoria blog/forum

22. Tourism Montréal - Homepage

23. Montréal TV

24. Montréal TV

25. Montréal TV

26. Montréal locals’ blogs

27. Montréal locals’ blogs

28. Spain - Multimedia (1)

29. Spain – Multimedia (2)

34. Visit Victoria – Mobile content

36. Tourism New Zealand: target marketing
• New Zealand is a small country with limited
budget and finite resources
• TNZ is marketing to the ‘right’ visitors whose
motivations, aspirations, expectations and values
best match the New Zealand tourism offering
• The right visitors will have a higher likelihood of
being satisfied with their NZ experience, and will
highly recommend NZ as a visitor destination to
others
• The segment has had the fastest growth (9.1%
per annum growth, compared with a 2.8% per
annum for all international visitors)
• The ‘Interactive Traveller’

37. 100% Pure appeals to the Interactive Traveller
• The Interactive Traveller:
• Consumes a wide range of tourism
products and services
• Seeks out new experiences where they
can engage and interact with natural,
social and cultural environments
• Is keen to share these experiences with
others
• Values authentic products/experiences
• Respects the environment, cultural and
societal values of others
• Is considered a leader by his/her peers
• Uses technology to enhance their lives

42. Live it. Visit Scotland

43. Live it. Visit Scotland

44. Live it. Visit Scotland

45. Agenda
• Ten challenges to destinations online –
and some solutions
• Some illustrations
• The Destination as a community

46. The destination as a community
• The destination represents the focal point for all
the players in tourism whose interests are
interdependent – government, residents,
suppliers, carriers, major corporations,
intermediaries, consumers
• The DMO is at the heart of the community,
which may be represented like this …

47. Travel
Trade/ Group Travel
Organises Media
Conference
Buyers
Visitors –
Mobile
Consumers
at home
Transport
The
Community Destination
– Residents, & the DMO
Schools, etc Conference,
Exhibition,
function
venues
Police,
Health &
other
services Attractions
and events
Local
Accom &
Authorities
catering
RDA &
suppliers
© TEAM 2006 Govt
© TEAM 2000

48. Travel
Trade/ Group Travel
Organises Media
Conference
Buyers Visitors –
PC PC
Handheld
Handheld
Mobile
PC
Kiosk
Handheld PC/TV
Print
CMS/ (Hotel)
Consumers Info mgmt
Web Handheld
at home PC search
Publishing
TV Call
Reser- Image
Handheld vations Databases PC Centres
library
Internet
Product Customer
PC Online CRM/
Community surveys Contact
mgmt PC
– Residents, Handheld
Knowledge Tourism
Schools, etc MIS/ ‘Push’ Information
Handheld evaluation marketing Centres
Impact Market PC
PC
Analysis analysis
Tourism
Facility
Operators
PC Tourism
PC
PC Handheld Marketing
Major
Tourism
Partners – Visitor Development
Public & Services & & Business
Private Manage- Support
© TEAM 2002 © TEAM 2000
ment © TEAM 2000

51. Conclusions
• E-marketing is paramount in all mature markets
• You need to engage actively with social networking and UGC
• Mobile access and commerce represents a major new
dimension to e-marketing to consumers at home and in the
destination
• In a multi-channel world, get the blend of channels right for
your target market
• Re-evaluate every year – adjust budgets to reflect changes in
channel cost-effectiveness
• Watch what the competition is doing
• Partnerships make sense in the electronic world
– Content acquisition
– Distribution
• Scale down/consolidate traditional channels in line with the
market
Does your marketing plan give enough weight to e-marketing?
Is it flexible enough to exploit the latest opportunities?

52. Thank you for your attention!
For further information:
Dr Roger Carter
RogerCarter@team-tourism.com
+44 7932 739 453
Web sites of interest, prepared by TEAM
www.newmediatrendwatch.com
for analysis of Internet and other new media use in all major markets
www.destinationworld.info
for news and feature articles relating to destination management
and marketing