As my next #The100DayProject, I'll be posting 100 days of what I've learned from Destination Marketing Organization (DMO)/Agency RFP processes, projects, and relationships. If you work at a DMO or an agency that works with DMOs, hopefully some of these will be knowledge you can use.
How can DMOs and CVBs provide more value for members than just creating multi-page lists of businesses and directing site visitors to member pages within the DMO's site? By focusing on being content publishers and relationship makers, not resource aggregators.
With travel being one of the greatest adventures we can experience, much of my work with Adventure Brands has been in the travel and tourism industry. Travel and tourism is a huge generator of jobs and revenue in the United States – in 2014, $927.9 billion was spent directly by domestic and international travelers, and travel supports 8 million direct tourism jobs and 7 million indirect and induced jobs. When these numbers are distributed to Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) and Convention and Visitors Bureaus (CVBs) across the U.S., the responsibilities that interactive, advertising, and marketing agencies have to these communities are huge.
Experiences are created through interactions with a destination, not through a listing page that shows every restaurant. Stories are written and memories are created from the experiences people have, not from pages of search results. So what role must DMOs play in order to be more than simply lists of resources?
This presentation was originally given on January 23, 2015, in front of an audience of about 140 attendees at Outdoor Retailer, as part of the Outdoor Retailer Education Sessions. The presentation format and flow have been modified slightly to better fit our site vs. the presentation slide + speaking format at Outdoor Retailer.
This was my first time at Outdoor Retailer, one of the world's largest and most comprehensive trade shows for outdoor and adventure brands. What I experienced there was overwhelming, inspiring, a bit puzzling, and the desire to purchase a ton of new gear. And I returned to Substance with some thoughts about the experience: the role of brand online for adventure brands, and the brand opportunities for retailer and consumer education.
What is effective web design? It's kind of like art... you know it when you see it. But when I was asked to present at the 2013 Oregon Governor's Conference on Tourism about "Effective Web Design," I had to take a step back to think about how effective web design happens. And after that, how do you present this idea to a large and diverse audience?