DestiCorp 2.0

10 technology trends for 2010 - a strategist's perspective

While I have (for good or ill)  occasionally been described as ahead of my time, I resist describing myself as a futurist as the latter label sounds so pretentious. On the other hand, I do invest many hours a month reading, scanning, searching information that enables me to sense patterns so here are some things to watch in 2010. I’ll follow each of these topics over the next few weeks and identify what i think might be the consequences for places then – so stay tuned! The anticipated "buzzwords" for 2010 are highlighted in red. PLEASE feel free to point out serious omissions. Comments welcomed!!

 
 

1. Social Media Morphs into Social Business – you don’t need a social media strategy in 2010. That won’t be enough. You  will have to socialize your entire business, starting at home by engaging your employees, then your customers, in that order.  Keeping an eye on cost and returns  will be as important as it always was but more tools and metrics will emerge in response to the need to fine tune strategies and tactics and demonstrate accountability. Enterprises that remember it's all about people before process; purpose before profit, and passion before protocol tend to come out on top.
 
2. Integration & Identity - Thanks to widespread application integration and consumer desire to use multiple, diverse applications seamlessly and together,  identity will become a key issue in 2010 – who owns it, stores it, has access to it and under what terms? Could 2010 denote the "death of the login?" 
 Without  sharing my profile, how can I expect for the information I seek to be relevant and customized? But to whom  will I entrust data about me and who else should benefit from accessing it? Will we finally see travel-specific "widget" or web services shops to facilitate aggregation and smart mash-ups that can be used by amateurs and professionals alike?

3. Place-based Communities - we've seen the importance of community to people in the offline world and global connectivity has, in many respects, divorced community from geography. But thanks to the ying & yang of life, every trend has a counter-trend and technology will now enable people who share a common address (ie live in physical proximity) to find each other. I had no idea that YELP (one example of a hyperlocal site) attracts more visitors than Twitter. For whatever reason, I think we might slow down in 2010 and take more time to enjoy what is under our noses. Fed up with irresponsible national leadership, we'll see more community self-determination. Place brands won't be created - they'll emerge from the collaborative efforts of people identifying aspirations in common. They'll be recognized as social and emergent - now that is an important word. DMOs will recognize that they are, in fact, community facilitators, experience orchestrators and stage managers for a visitor's narrative. They'll invest in "destination webs" - the neural network that binds community members together and enables them to share intelligence and respond collectively to external threats and opportunities. 

 
3.Mobile phones and mobile apps will spread in number and intensity i.e., we’ll use them for more tasks; their content will get more real-time and richer, (more augmented);  more pleasurable to access; and smarter and more relevant to my activity, place and purpose.
They'll be used as content generators and payment devices just as often as communication devices - they might, one day, solve the identity issue identified in Trend # 2. But do you trust your mobile phone company more than Facebook. It's a tough call.
 
4.Content Curation. Content will threaten to bury us so the emphasis will be on curation, filtering and managing in and out of the cloud... Expect to see a number of companies try to bite at Google’s heels with more relevant, personalised, customisable search parameters that reflect the content being searched and the browser’s objectives. 

 
5. Video – it seems everyone wants to be on X Factor or a reality show. In 2010 their dreams will be fulfilled. Cheap HD cameras, Like FLIP,  that can stream to the internet in real time (UStream) will add to the mountain of pixels already clogging the airwaves. The new word for this is Vlogging and Cisco is leading the charge – well they would be, wouldn’t they? 
 

6. Customer Engagement & Crowdsourcing - while in 2009 content was being generated spontaneously by consumers, expect brands and destinations to take a more proactive approach to engaging customers in generating useful content and supporting their brand advocacy. BTW advocacay is the new buzz word for “word of mouth” and crowdsourcing becomes a way of engaging the entire destination community (visitors, residents, local businesses, associations and people) in inviting and caring for guests. 
 
7. Women – in 2009, more men than women were using social media and women’s purchasing power and style captured men’s attention. About time. So will 2010 be the year that women leap to the stage and start presenting at travel and tech events? Your guess is as good as mine. At the Phocuswright conference, women constituted less than 10% of the presenters but, as one of them was in charge of Google’s ad revenues, then maybe less = more.
 
8. Language – as many tourism businesses and enterprises rush to the developing world, where signs of the green shoots of recovery appear first, we’ll face a new challenge. The world is not WASP; cultures differ and people need to work in their own language. Expect to see a spate of translation services – automated and semi automated. Technology costs might go down but localization costs will make up for it. There might be a low cost solution (see trend 6) but you’ll have to wait till later in the New Year for my thoughts on that one.

 
9. Semantic or Synaptic Web – as humans rush up Maslow’s ladder in search of meaning, technology follows suit – hence talk of a Semantic Web. A new term that will crop up more frequently in 2010 is the Synaptic web – are they different?  Well the first is about deeper layers of meaning and the second is about connections and relationships. The network of the web is increasingly resembling the neural pathways in the brain. 

 
10. Collective Intelligence. 2010 will mark the end of the Age of the Individual and the emergence of a new form of collective thought  - a Global Brain - and action that emerges from the multiplicity of new, different and self aware connections. We’ll start to find ways of working without formal leaders and commands from above. We’ll emulate the working of computers while mimicking the behaviour of swarms. In 2009 a number of books on swarms and herd appeared on bookshelves – expect to see more in 2010 as we learn how to work across platforms, cultures and vast distances as a agile and adaptive teams. This is especially relevant to destinations. In 2010, expect to see DMOs focus on getting SMART and attending to the needs of the niche, smaller operators at the end of a "long tail."

And if this isn’t enough, the bloggers at TNOOZ have published their technology predictions for travel here. Surely enough food for thought to fuel and entire new year of feverish activity!!!

Inbound Marketing and The Power of Attraction

Long before social media erupted as "the next big thing, many observers noticed that,  as power shifted towards the consumer, PUSH marketing would be replaced by PULL marketing. We even wrote a paper called When Push Comes to Pull ( Download Push-pull)  back in 2002!

And I'm pleased to discover on a recent reading that our predictions then are now becoming today's reality.  For example, here are 3 prognostications dated 2002: 

1. There'll be a shift in focus from promoting to listening, from selling to serving, from control to relationship building and from marketing as sophisticated promotion to a committed form of customer care. 

2. A task/event driven approach will be enbled by the widespread adoption of open standards, XML-wrapped web services and service-oriented architectures. 

3. A collaborative, event-driven approach to satisfying consumer's needs will, in turn, be enabled by a new business ecology comprising service providers, brokers, channel managers, affinity agents and network providers........

Sadly, with every generation and every new, "next big thing", the lexicon is reinvented to distinguish those "in the know" from those still struggling to keep up. That trend is unfortunate because it only slows down the process of diffusion.

The word now being used to describe PULL marketing (ie where the customer assembles the information they need when and where it is convenient to them, is INBOUND marketing and I think Mike Volpe of Hubspot is the author. Not that I wish to appear critical of Mike as he is a GREAT communicator;  has done much to advance understanding of this critical marketing shift and his firm delivers practical solutions that deliver results. Hubspot's slides on the topic are a good place to start and The Social Times Consultancy has just published this precise summary of Inbound Marketing that is useful for those in a hurry. 

The graphic of the magnet - copied, without permission from the Social Times post - provides the thousand word summary:  PULL or INBOUND marketing is all about ATTRACTION. 

 STOP PROMOTING and START ATTRACTING

That means stop talking about how great you are and start living and modeling your values and brand attributes. For tourism destinations that means ensuring that you ARE friendly and welcoming. Have you interacted with airline check-in staff recently or the taxi drivers that provide that critical first impression?. If you claim to be green and sustainable, is that commitment immediately obvious to the visitor on arrival and throughout every aspect of their experience? If you have positioned your city as one that is cool and creative, is WIFI ubiquitous and free?

It's an old maxim that "like attracts like". The beauty being that customers will self select if you act authentically and consistently with your brand's values. Given that so many parties are involved in the delivery of the experience, such consistency cannot be assured without widespread community effort. Branding is not a task that can be delegated to an agency no matter how creative or clever. A destination brand has to "ring true" and reflect the past, present and future aspiration and values of the community and they way its residents would like to welcome guests. PULL marketing is really all about service delivery and exceeding guest expectations. The concept maybe about 10 years old now - hardly new - but from an execution point of view is hardly out the womb!

This DMO Gets It!

If survival is all about getting the new paradigm - attracting not promoting; peer2peer invitations; and a focus on the personal, then Stratford, Ontario is doing fine. Thanks to Todd Lucier's post on What makes a Successful DMO?, I discovered how this town is getting it right. Three key points emerged for me: 

• Focus - Cathys Rehburg from the Stratford Tourism Alliance talks about the essence of the experience focusing on character, culture and cuisine.
• People - just look at the Stratford site - it oozes welcome because it's clearly about people inviting people. 

3. Todd's observation -  "At the core, a shared community vision about the values in a community are at the heart of any shared marketing project.....By bringing together traditional and non-traditional partners in tourism, and getting the word out with a variety of online media, the entire community benefits."

This DMO "get's it", don't you think? Thanks Todd for drawing our attention to this. 

Will DMOs* survive the next decade?

I was recently asked to write a paper on the likely changing role of DMOs. Having spent my entire career working with this institution in various parts of the globe, and intending to do so going forward, I’ve a keen interest in an accurate answer. 

This afternoon, two blog posts from very reputable sources caught my attention: 

Douglas Quimby from Phocuswright wrote a post titled Destinations: The Online Marketing Disconnect, justifiably bemoaning the fact that DMOs seem so unwilling to move significant chunks of their marketing budgets into the online space. I don’t know Douglas personally, but hope to meet up with him at the PhocusWright Conference in Florida mid November. I imagine him to be a bright, talented Gen X or Yer who ”gets it” i.e finds it impossible to imagine how destinations couldn’t see the obvious benefits of playing aggressively in the online space. 

The commentators to his post are each highly credentialed to speak and deplored the lack of appropriate measuring tools, lack of expertise and education. I suggested that the real problem is “culture” and to see why, please follow the thread…here.  As further evidence of the challenge, I’d  also recommend you read the last blog post from Vicky at Highland Business Research:  It Shouldn’t be This Difficult.   In this post, I can hear the frustrated anguish of someone who is incredibly talented and productive appear to hit a wall or be pushing a boulder up hill. I’m hoping it was her last blog post because she is sunning herself on a beach and has not given up the DMO community for good. 

The second very different post was from a DMO executive – one of the leading lights in social media (and, don’t get me wrong, there are many very talented people in DMOs pushing the edge of the envelope- see my blog roll as a starter. Troy from Denver was writing for the new e-marketing and travel site called, Toonz.com that should be bookmarked quickly by anyone in travel marketing. His post was called How The Industry Will Save the World – so you can see why it got my attention!!

Troy has a brilliant reputation for applying social media to marketing destinations.  So this was quite a step away from his normal territory. Having identified that climate change is an important issue, he appears to be applying travel marketers’ normal and contagious enthusiasm and proposes:  

The time has arrived to lend our voice to the congregation and become a part of the solution.  The travel industry…utilizing technology…can help lead the way.

Well I really hope so. And I welcome Troy and his highly talented e-marketing peers to join the conversation – quickly. But I doubt that the travel industry will save the world – if it’s at all fortunate, it might just save itself. But only if the DMOs recognize and own up to the fact that they are a major part of the problem. The transport cost of most international tourists constitute the bulk of carbon emissions. No one currently takes responsibility for that.  Tourism has to change if it is to make a positive contribution to a very different economy that is emerging from the melting rubble of the old. 

Take my word for it. There are no quick fixes. The current leadership of the tourism “industry” has first to shift its perception and see tourism as the analogue extension of the IT community – both simply connect people and places. They need to work together and fast to find a way of enabling the act of travel to coexist with the act of communication. Both have to find a way of delivering value without living beyond the physical means of the environment to support it. 

In summary – there are two major forces threatening and re-shaping DMOs: 

1. The need to deploy technology effectively or get out of the way; and 

2. The need to ensure destinations can live within the physical limits set by the host environment. 

DMOs could play a positive role in each endeavour but it will mean seeing things differently (a mindset shift); doing things differently ( a culture shift) and doing different things – a role change. Nothing serious – but certainly NOT “business as usual!!!”

To quote Troy – let the conversation continue but PLEASE may it soon lead to action. A good place to start is to join and support The Icarus Foundation, formed some 3 years ago to encourage the tourism industry to become more climate friendly. 

But  now we've started a conversation: what do think DMOs have to do to survive the next decade?

* DMO is the acronym used to describe Destination Marketing Organizations (responsible for attracting visitors to a place).

My iphone is useless

Hopefully that got your attention. 

The truth is, I love my iphone.

It was love at first sight – a multi-purpose device that kept me connected, soothed my spirits with its music, entertained, educated me during long flights with its videos, brought me up to date with the activities and musings of my Facebook friends while standing in front of the baggage carousel, prevented me from getting lost, told me how much to tip and did the currency conversion, even taught me some useful Mandarin phrases. But the real appeal was and is its design. It’s so pleasing on the eye and functional….wistful sigh….

So why my headline – well it works fine at home but when I need it – i.e. when I am roaming around the world – it’s too expensive to use. I look longingly at the 20 downloaded applications but can’t use them

After one week in Vancouver, I received a text from my friendly but monopolistic UK service provider informing me that because of over use, they were restricting my service.  They gave me a number to call but when I tried it, I was informed that the number was inaccessible from outside the UK!  So much for being in touch while mobile….Then, when I got home, I discovered a bill of £799.00. So much for falling in love….. 

So I can’t fault Apple for that – or can I? In the UK they initially  did an exclusive deal with O2 who have made a mint out of people like me….Let’s hope Vodaphone  - who will now compete with O2 - can give them a run for their money but,  as I am tied into a contract, I am not yet free to move. 

Now I have just spent three weeks on the road (three countries – Finland, Australia and New Zealand) and, as you can expect, turned data roaming OFF!  So much for the benefits of 3G. But that makes one utterly dependent on wifi availability and nothing prepared me for the challenges of traveling down under where wifi seems to be considered an alien from outer space. Broadband is not a commodity down here – it’s treated as a scarce jewel.  Few hotels offer it and the Ethernet connection in the room, which ties you to a desk and computer, is expensive, IF you can get it.  Even if there is a wifi connection in the lobby, you have to sign on in your room first so that renders access by iphone impossible. 

Here in sunny Auckland the sky may be blue but I can't access the cloud while I'm out enjoying this delightful city. So much for software as a service and the rise of cloud computing - if you want to be part of that revolution that is supposed to be the death of distance, you'll have to huddle together in cities with high speed broadband. 

Now it’s not my nature to blame. The problem is that none of the providers in this connecting ecosystem seem to acknowledge that they are in the connecting business nor realize their inter-dependence, nor the impact on customers. Apple sells its phones, mobile providers get their monthly pound of flesh, and hotels source an income to replace their dwindling mini bar sales. 

Douglas Wright has written an interesting piece called Destinations and Online Marketing Disconnect.  A good article, but IMHO the problem goes deeper. Tourism destinations are in the connecting business big time but many haven’t realized that to be really supportive of their customers they are the ones who should be putting pressure on the telecoms industry and their own members to ensure blanket free coverage of wifi in all major connecting places; airports, hotel rooms and lobbies, cafes, public spaces and meeting rooms etc etc.**** Or be really imaginative and offer a local SIM card that provides really useful visitor information, acts as a privilege pass and accesses special offers. I’d happily pay for that on arrival as the time saved from endlessly logging in and out of multiple systems, remembering arcane passwords, or paying for wifi in one hourly increments might make it a good investment…..

If, as Charlene Li suggests in Groundswell, as many as 84% of customers rely on the opinions of people they know before making a major purchase, then surely the objective must be a). ensure existing visitors want to rave about their experience and b). make it easy for them to do so while their positive feelings are fresh?   In short, if visitors are our partners on whom we depend upon to rave and refer and share their experiences, isn’t it time we made it easy for them to do so?

**** Postscript - the good news is that New Zealand's new government is rectifying this situation as quickly as it can with a mammoth investment in broadband to match the stellar attractions and hospitality that Kiwis are famous for! 

Geobeats Let Residents Share their Favourite Places

For years I have been arguing that residents are an under tapped source of of both local knowledge and enthusiasm about the unique attributes of the place they call home and that visitors experience as the destination. There are now a host of independent companies emerging to tap this resource in an intelligent way - and I'll review more later. 

But today Geobeats caught my attention a.) because of the quality of content. I believe there has to be a filter to ensure that everyone's home movies, regardless of taste, topic or visual quality, are not thrown in my unsuspecting direction and b.) because of the ease with which I could embed the player. The whole process of finding Geobeats - thanks to a tweet from @lynnerosie, reviewing their site, embedding the player, and writing this post took 15 minutes. 

I selected Siena as my choice of place as it happens to be my favourite Italian community but their coverage of places is growing fast. Beneath the video player is a frame grab of the embedding process (I even inserted my logo onto the beginning of the video).

 

Calling on Tourism CEOs to Dig Deeper

It is a cliché to identify our world as one in which change is the only constant. Overuse of this concept has minimized its meaning and power and misuse has lead to confusion and miscalculation.

In our opinion there are three types of change as illustrated in the familiar image of the iceberg.

• Surface change which takes the form of trends in fashion, modes of speech, popular technology, management fads etc. They are easily visible - representing 1/8th of the iceberg - with new trends quickly attracting attention and possessing a relatively short life span. Their length of influence is determined to the extent that they are rooted in stronger change forces.

• Systemic change which reflect a deeper set of dynamics associated with the economy (eg., the rise of the middle class), demographics, changing consumer and personal values, big technological developments (e. g., the arrival of the phone or car), emergence of new political ideologies. They take longer to emerge and be recognized; last longer, and, if significant enough in strength and power, can be taken as reflecting the norm by any given population.
  
  The dominance of the automobile in American society and the pervasive belief that every American has the right to own and use a car whenever and wherever is a societal force totally integrated with the rise of the middle class, the beliefs and aspirations of the Founding Fathers, the growth in prosperity, the cheapness of raw materials, energy and credit. But it goes deeper than that. The western obsession with the automobile reflects a much deeper set of beliefs and unexamined assumptions and beliefs about how humans view the world, and their relation with it and each other. These are paradigms, mindsets or worldviews.

• Paradigm change occurs much less frequently and results not in the modification of something familiar but a fundamental transformation - in everything. The last big paradigm shift occurred over a 200-250 year time period starting with people like Copernicus and Galileo who began to trust their powers of observation and measurement over the prevailing orthodoxy of a powerful institution - the Holy Catholic Church.

Paradigms are sets of beliefs and assumptions about how the world works or mental maps that we use to make sense of our world. They are agreements that, as they are used over and over again, have become invisible - it's the way things are - simply because they are used to filter out information that might be contradictory.They affect what we choose to see and what sense we make of the world. See some examples here.

We are living in a period of paradigm change as great as that which transformed medieval society into the Age of Enlightenment and saw science rise to predominance over religion. The challenge is that this transformative switch is not taking 250 years to emerge but is occurring over a period less than a century. Everything and everyone will be affected by it - the travel and tourism sector being no exception. Yet most tourism leaders remain either oblivious or unwilling to contemplate the implications.

We can be forgiven for our reluctance to venture into this space of "deep change" for a number of reasons:

1. The time horizons of leaders in tourism are inevitably short. They sell a time and located based service that is highly perishable.
2. Their investors and or political masters are interested in short term results not long term strategic planning, as they expect whatever issues arise to be on "someone else's watch".
3. Furthermore, there's no precedent. In the past paradigmatic change occurred gradually and almost imperceptibly over several generations. Life at the time might have been both confusing and exciting, but it was still manageable simply because the scale and depth of the change was not clear. If you have never seen or heard about an elephant before, it's hard to get frightened about the prospect of one charging out of the forest in a rage. It's also common for very enlightened folks to move easily between two paradigms. Newton the founder of mechanical physics and responsible for the rise of scientific inquiry and rationalism was a committed Alchemist (he tried to turn dross into gold in his spare time). I suspect several quantum physicists may play the lottery.

At DestiCorp we are convinced that it is both possible and vital that tourism leaders, especially those heading up destinations, national and international associations and agencies, and heads of multi-nationals start investing their time and intellect in understanding that nature and implications of paradigmatic change on their sector and the future livelihoods of the communities they serve. Unless they do, they will be ill equipped to understand let alone deal with the gale force winds of change gathering on the horizon and make the decisions TODAY that will create options for decision-makers tomorrow.

Subsequent posts will provide examples from tourism life that show these deeper forces at work - they'll be tagged with the category "deep change."

WOW! That's pretty heavy for tourism marketers, we know. But if you are interested in what happens after "your watch" as a result of your leadership today; if you have any interest in leaving a positive legacy, then you could do no better than start to understand what all this means.....

This web site is just a start of an exciting journey that will develop over time and hopefully lead to some very fruitful discussions.... Please join us here as we develop more material.

Over the next few days and months, we'll be adding thoughts on

• Tourism Trends and Fashions (2009 - 2010)
• Systemic Change Drivers
• Tourism Growth Forces - the Following Winds
• Tourism Growth Threats - the Head Winds

Using UGC To Attract Visitors - Which Destinations Lead?

In the good ‘ole days – a mere 30 years or so ago – destination marketing was a relatively simple affair: figure out your major selling features, maybe add some positioning spin ( a “snazzy byline or contemporary looking logo), print some brochures, run an ad campaign; ensure there was a “call to action; ” wait for the phone to ring; mail out the brochures and hope for the best.

The Destination Marketing Organization (DMO) had an important role to play in creating awareness and desire among national and international markets on behalf of its small businesses simply because the latter, acting alone, could never develop the same reach, influence or impact. The role of the DMO was “to extend the invitation” on behalf of tourism suppliers and residents.

The Internet has, of course, changed all that and the marketing task has mushroomed in complexity requiring new and unimaginable skill sets and generating a constantly changing set of acronyms. It’s also having a profound impact on the roles of the various members of the tourism ecosystem.

While the role of the DMO used to be to “show, tell and persuade” it is now becoming facilitate, orchestrate and enable. That’s because the same tourism suppliers and residents, who were unable to reach out to international audiences some 20+ years ago, can now enjoy instant contact with anyone 24/7. So while the DMO used to lead from the front with glitzy, push-style campaigns based on a brand, customer and product database they considered to “own;” wise DMOs are learning to lead from behind by allowing and encouraging others to do the persuading for them. Utilizing the power of Web 2.0 (notably open source) and social media, smart destinations are encouraging their residents, local businesses, visitors and third party suppliers tell the destination story. The acronym for this is UGC – user generated content- and is finally capturing the interest of several tourism offices.

Here are just five interesting examples:

1. Visit Britain - According to this press release, Visit Britain will formally launch their new social media initiative at the Travel Distribution Summit being held in London today.

“We want to offer travel organisations promoting Britain a media stream of our reviews, photos and videos”, Comments Justin Reid – Head of Online Marketing for Visit Britain. “UGC has been shown to increase browse time, bookings and online interaction and if we can entice more people to come to the UK using innovative media marketing like this, then this is a win win for Visit Britain and our tourism providers.”

Using software developed by Digital Visitor, Visit Britain enables visitors and residents to upload videos, still images, and make reviews on their own and others’ contributions.

2. Vancouver 2010 – in February next year, Canada will host the Winter Olympic Games. Bell Canada – a major Games sponsor and one of Canada’s largest telecoms company has endeavoured to show the host destination through the eyes of residents. A great idea and one we have been promoting for years but, and I hate to be negative, one that suffers from poor execution. Instead of mashing up a range of easy-to-use, well proven software modules that provide the easy-to-use functionality enjoyed by Visit Britain, Bell had to develop its own proprietary and, may I say it, clunky interface that inhibits exploration. Take a look at Canada Code: That’s if you’ve got the time to fill in all the forms. Too bad that they don’t appear to have been working with the tourism agencies – Tourism Vancouver, Tourism Whistler or Tourism British Columbia (Hello BC)…see below

3. Tourism British Columbia – if prizes were to be awarded to individuals who changed the way destinations are marketed, then it should go to Wilhelm Bakker at Tourism BC. What’s most endearing about Wilhelm is his willingness to share his thinking, his trials, tribulations and triumphs with little or no sense of ego – see these posts.  Here’s the link to Tourism British Columbia’s approach to User Generated Content in the run up to the biggest tourism event to be held in the province since Expo 86.

The significance of this would be lost on the average reader if I didn’t share this observation – Tourism BC is an organization that likes to do things very thoroughly and professionally. They like control over the final product and message. So it takes courage to include the less polished, perfect content supplied by non-professionals. The traditional approach would be to produce a high quality, expensive video but, thanks to Wilhelm’s efforts, they are now including the “right stuff”. 

4. Philadelphia – this tourist board embraced the idea of blogging very early on. While they may have got it wrong to start by creating false blogging personas, whose profile happened to correlate to their major market segments,  they quickly learned by doing. Uwishunu  is a major destination blogging community and success story – Go for it, Gophila.com!

5. Disney – thanks to blogger Josh Hallett, we can follow Disney's experience with Social Media. I’ve paraphrased the key points from his blog post below:

Disney started by partnering with CareerBuilder.com to allow consumers to upload a video to apply for a 'dream' job. For Disney it was a totally new arena. They had no idea how many videos they would receive and what the videos would could contain. The big step was of course letting go. Disney was overwhelmed with the number of video applications they received,  eventually narrowing it down to five finalists. The finalists were posted online and consumers were allowed to vote, resulting in millions of votes. The finalists built their own marketing campaigns, driving even more traffic to the campaign. A side benefit was the number of regular job applications that Disney received. Because of this, it was the most successful recruitment effort to date.

The next project was the Walt Disney World Mom's Panel. They launched a search for some of the most passionate Disney moms. Once again the response overwhelming. They received 10,000 applications over the weekend, but turned away over 30,000 applicants. That was the one major mistake they made. As the program evolved, the internal issue was once again giving up control of the marketing messaging. The mom's panel has helped them overcome the two largest barriers they've faced, affordability and age. That is, what is the appropriate age for a child to first visit the theme parks. The honest, open advice of the mom's helped break down this barrier.

 

The women that did not make the Mom's Panel became part of the Mickey Moms Club. One major step was allowing the club to select their own logo. Once again, for Disney to allow somebody outside the brand to do design and select a logo was a huge leap of faith. But, it worked. Their work with the moms made them look at how they consume media. To help promote the new What Will You Celebrate? campaign they created a viral video campaign. The program allows consumers to create a uniquely branded video to 'celebrate' an event such as a birthday or an anniversary. These videos can then be sent to friends and relatives. This builds the standard pass-along/viral effect, spreading the video even more. The site has had an 85% click-thru rate and paid for itself in just over 18 hours from launch and has gone on to blow past all expectations for views and revenue.

I am confident that there are many other great examples of the use of User Generated Content by Destinations to attract visitors so – I invite you, please, to add comments so we can learn quickly from each other. In later posts – we’ll look at UGC to enrich the visitor’s stay at the destination.