How DMOs Can Stay Relevant
Posted by D'Arcy McKittrick on Wed, Mar 11, 2009 @ 01:33 PM
Once upon a time in tourism land, it was very expensive for small and medium size tourism enterprises (SMtE) to promote their brands and offerings. The most effective media channels with the largest reach were expensive and usually more than the SMtEs could afford. So, a number of smart SMtEs decided to pool their resources for the purposes of marketing communications and place co-operative advertisements.
Over time, these SMtEs co-operated on more and more marketing initiatives to further leverage their resources. Soon they decided that there might be some benefit in formalizing their marketing collaboration and recruiting some assistance with the administration of their co-operative marketing activities. From this idea, most local and regional destination marketing organizations (DMOs) were born.
And the model worked well, for the most part. The SMtEs didn’t always agree on what a particular advertisement should look like, or which photos to use in the visitor guide, or which trade shows to attend this year. Nonetheless, on the whole the SMtEs were happy with their DMO creation, convinced that it was generating business for them even though they had little objective data to confirm that.
Life was good and the universe was unfolding as it should.
One day something called the internet and its sidekick the worldwide web showed up, and everything began to change.
The cost of getting messages out to large numbers of potential clients fell dramatically, almost to $0. It was still expensive to use traditional media and trade/consumer shows to broadcast messages, but now there were effective alternative approaches for communicating with potential customers — websites, e-mail and e-newsletters. Over time, the alternatives grew in scope and effectiveness to include pay-per-click ads, YouTube, Flickr, blogs, Facebook and now Twitter.
Suddenly, the primary reason that many DMOs existed had disappeared. Some tried to cling to their old model by creating web portals and creating homes for their less tech savy SMtE members. But as the SMtEs learned more about the internet and web tools, even this reason for being dissipated.
Now at this point the story ends sadly for some DMOs as they become more and more irrelevant focusing on SMtEs as their customers, because the customers stop buying.
The good news is that some DMOs understand what is happening (or has happened) and have reinvented themselves. They understand that while individual SMtEs are using the web to market their individual services and experiences within a destination, no one is effectively using the web to market the destination. And as potential visitors search, and plan and make travel decisions they want to know more and more about the destination.
- What is it like?
- What else is their to do if I go there?
- What experiences have other visitors had there?
The smart DMOs “get” that there customers are web savvy, information hungry, potential visitors.
So, to remain relevant, the smart DMOs are finally growing into their name — destination marketing organizations. And they are using the full arsenal of web tools to do it. Need proof? Have a look at these DMOs and their web innovations:
- Bay of Fundy — blog, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter
- Portland Oregon — e-newsletter, YouTube, Twisitor Centre
- Baltimore Maryland — e-newsletter, interactive map, video, Facebook, Twitter
- Chicago — e-newsletter, blog, hosted social network (GoSeeChicago), Facebook, Twitter
- Philadelphia — e-newsletter, web radio (hearPhilly), TripAdvisor
- Oregon (State) — e-newsletter, Travel Journal, blog, hosted social network (GoSeeOregon), Twitter
If you are a DMO, how will the story end for you?