Destination Marketing in the 21st Century

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On behalf of Stockholm - The Capital of Scandinavia and Step2 Communication. Performed at MIPIM in Cannes by Charlie Caper and Erik Rosales. Magic with technology.

Tourism the loser as tax grab targets travellers

Australia has entered the competition to see which country can impose the biggest travel tax – and we're already winning in at least some categories.

The global champion is Britain, which has made itself the most unfriendly country in the world for travellers with its infamous Air Passenger Duty (APD), which now costs £92 ($147) per head for travellers to and from long-haul destinations such as Australia.

But, not to be beaten, Australia’s money-hungry government has just increased its departure tax from $48 to $55 for every international traveller regardless of origin or destination, far outstripping Britain’s measly £13 ($21) for trips of up to 2000 miles (3200 kilometres).
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/travel/blogs/travellers-check/tourism-the-loser-as-tax-grab-targets-travellers-20120514-1ylx4.html#ixzz1upykTW2t

5 levels of social media sophistication at the DMO

Imagine you had to start a DMO. Your DMO. You have been given the same budget and must start from scratch. 

Would your DMO look exactly the same as it does now? The same departments, same positions? The same budget allocations? The same marketing tactics?

The internet, and social media in particular, have completely changed tourism marketing. Forever. People might not talk on Facebook about which fabric softener they use or which soft drink they prefer, but everybody talks about their travels. Social media sophistication is crucial to modern marketing. Yet the tourism industry is way behind. Is your DMO...

1) Ignoring social media

2) Experimenting with social media

3) Social media supporting marketing campaigns

4) Following a social media strategy

5) Embracing the social business model

Read the full article at: THINKSOCIALMEDIA 

Tourism Ohio to get new tourism-funding model

Hopefully they can now afford a new logo!

Marketing money would come from sales taxes

Proposals being discussed in Ohio currently include the state launch of a five-year test program in which its tourism marketing would be funded entirely by the growth in sales-tax revenue generated by the industry from year to year.

The bill also would rename the state’s tourism department TourismOhio and establish an advisory board made up mostly of people with five years’ experience in the attractions, lodging, restaurant, transportation or retail industries.

But the biggest shift for Ohio’s tourism industry is how the state would pay to market itself.

What is the new model for Destination Marketing?

I'm not sure how it ever came about but for some reason Destination Marketing became something that only the public sector could do. 

For me the very idea that there should be a public sector department of tourism marketing seems weird, it's like something out of George Orwell's 1984. In fact the current staycation campaign would probably have had Winston Smith heading straight for Bondi - not Bridlington.

A rocking blog post – so simple even a caveman can do it.

Cavog the Caveman lives in Torquay's award winning visitor attraction, Kents Cavern prehistoric caves, and is something of a Social Media expert.  In this guest post Cavog shares some of his reasons why Social Media is so important to their on-going success. 

"I’ve read tweets from that @iVisitorGuide chappy for weeks now, and I must say, I like what he says.  I loved the most recent tweet which said ‘social media is so easy, even a caveman can do it’.  It spurred me to tweet him and he invited me to do a guest blog!  Well, it’s taken a while, I’ve been pretty busy over the Easter period at my pad, but Boss Caveman gave me a few hours off, and over a rock cake in our lovely café, I came up with these thoughts:

This will make you smile - only in Liverpool

Happiest video I have seen in a while - man dancing to a street busker in Liverpool's Lord Street - then watch what happens next.

Torbay holiday firm forces change in tourism policy

A South Devon holiday company has forced a change in tourism policy countrywide.

Tourism bodies up and down the country can no longer insist that advertisers have to be inspected for the national quality ratings before being featured in brochures and websites.

The English Riviera Tourism Company announced the change in its policy following changes at national level at its recent industry update.

See something or say something: London

Eric Fischer visualises Social Media. in his most recent series, See Something or Say Something, he places geocoded tweets and Flickr photos on the same map. 

Red dots are locations of Flickr pictures. Blue dots are locations of Twitter tweets. White dots are locations that have been posted to both. This above is a visualisation of London.  Not surprisingly, you see a lot of white dots at the city centre. That's an artifact of population density and Flickr and Twitter users.

What compels people to tweet over taking a picture and vice versa? Although, photo-heavy places just might be places that have things that are, well, worth taking pictures of. 

How does this help our Social Media efforts? Well for one we now have visible proof of people's connection with mobile / smart-phones and their desire to spread images and information about what they are doing, when they are doing it. 

For businesses within city centres (and the above example of London will be replicated in every UK city) then this is an opportunity. If so many people are tweeting and sharing images should you join in or ignore it?

Article source: FlowingData