Data, Data, Data - what to do with all of it - Ontario Tourism Marketing Summit

Today was a day chock full of data at the Ontario Tourism Marketing Summit. Several presentations dealt with the market segmentation, target markets, who (mostly in the US) may be interested in visiting Ontario. But, for my money, the award for best and most educational presentation of the day goes to Rod Harris, President & CEO of Tourism British Columbia. His presentation was a primer on marketing applied to a tourism destination. One of his main points (also a recurring theme of the Summit) is that currently there's been a shift of power from producers to consumers. Not necessarily news. However, the way his organization is approaching the challenges of marketing BC to consumers is very interesting. In the past, DMO's would use lures (some still are), such as brochures, inserts, mass media, etc. to attract visitors. Destination marketing has been moving away from these kinds of lures and 1800 services to a Web enabled, Web 2.0 model that is still developing. In the case of BC, Rod explain to us how their strategy looks on a curve, he called Attrition Curve that goes from generating awareness of the destination with consumers, through consideration, intent, purchase and the thre R's (relive, recommend, revisit). From a tactical point of view this is achieved by using current tools (most Web based) from Social Networks, SEO/SEM, User Generated Content (UGC) all the way to consumer blogs, not forgetting that it is also necessary to use more conventional campaigns as well as continuing to work with the trade.

The other very interesting and quite entertaining presentation was given by Don Tapscott, co-author of Wikinomics, which also focused on the changes ocurring in the value chains of products and services, i.e., the Wikiing of the economy something that is coming out of the convergence of Web 2.0, the Net Generation (youth), the Social Revolution and the Economic Revolution. Wikiing, as I call it, refers to the power of mass collaboration and self orginization that is taking place because of the Web's capabilities and people and companies taking advantage of it.

Ciao from Ottawa,

Jaime