The latest think tank uber-analysis comes from Europe's Digital Tourism Think Tank, which has benchmarked the performance of national tourism boards across the digital, social and mobile landscapes.
The "European NTO digital benchmark" report came out of a one month period, March 2013, when the various efforts of 45 National Tourism Organizations were measured qualitatively, using the think tank's benchmarking criteria, and quantitatively, using a set system for analysis and indexing.
The study authors benchmarked the current digital landscape by highlighting some of the most capable digital offerings, and then dropping in some set conclusions for underperforming NTOs to take advantage of.
The report also outlines exemplary uses of social media outside of the travel sector, from Nordstrom to Nike, encouraging some cross-channel thinking in the travel NTO space.
The four core areas of competency were identified as: Content, Engagement, Social Media and Mobile Devices. Some highlights from each of the four core competencies.
Content: Homepage, inspiring, practical and promotional
The research further broke down the Content section to include "homepage content," "inspiring/practical content," and "promotional content."
For the purposes of this study, the following criteria were used for the inspirational portion.
Of the surveyed organizations, nearly half were not optimized and were deemed to have "room for improvement."
A standout was the Austrian National Tourism Office, which was lauded for its clear photos, fast links and easy-to-use brochures, calendars and maps.
Visit Greenland was also given commendation for their iconic imagery and compelling content. The oversized images change each 5 seconds, offering a different engaging look at the landscapes and people of the country being promoted - this sort of visual interest leads to further engagement and encourages further exploration.
On the practical side, successful NTOs were the ones able to match inspirational imagery with actually useful information about the destination at hand.
The German National Tourist Board was called out here for their successful balance of imagery and practicality - specifically due to their tiled user experience which allows for direct access for specific user needs.
Engagement
Engagement is a natural offshoot of much of the content initiatives outlined here, in addition to the many others singled out in the report.
Compelling content naturally brings solid engagement, and deploying a content-focused promotional strategy can also lead to a solid base of organic engagement.
The best-performing tourism boards are the ones that have built a significant viral campaign, using compelling call-to-actions and a way to collect data, such as user information, for further marketing opportunities.
Providing an interface for user interaction was also a key drive for success for campaigns, such as "The Longest Scream in the World" campaign by Visit Norway.
The Digital Tourism Think Tank pulled out the following elements from the Visit Norway campaign as instructive to other NTOs looking to deploy a similarly successful promotional campaign.
By allowing user generated content to drive much of the sharing, the content of this campaign was able to be used on social media and mobile to engage potential visitors and boost the efficacy of this marketing strategy.
And yet, the benchmarking shows that more than half of the analyzed organizations were not taking advantage of user created content whatsoever.
It is true that UGC is an admin challenge, as it must be monitored, thus increasing expense. Nonetheless, there appears to be a very large opportunity to bring more of this style of content into the marketing mix.
Engagement and content go hand in hand, so this is yet another indication of the growing returns from a content investment.
Social + mobile
Social is a very competitive space in travel, and it's most certainly a thick bracket in Europe. Here's the Facebook and Twitter leaderboards:
This enormous divide in followers is indicative of how much opportunity remains for less social NTOs to grow and engage their user base. The report also identifies which networks are the most and least popular with the analyzed tourism boards:
As mobile devices continue to penetrate worldwide, and as smartphone adoption increases as well, the shift of resource allocation is going to move towards platforms more popular on mobile.
This suggests that tourism organizations deeply invested in Instagram, and other mobile-first sharing networks, will have the leg up as more travelers rely solely on their Internet-connected phones for content discovery.
Currently, the majority of national tourism boards do not have a website optimized for mobile, or any sort of tablet or smartphone app. It's vital for each organization to determine what's important - an app is not necessarily the best option, especially if many travelers are visiting the organization's website on their phone for direct, practical information while in-destination.
However, for more detailed trip planning and multimedia assets, a fully-executed smartphone and/or tablet app can be much more effective at converting the organization's targeted goals.
The full breakdown of the benchmarks, including specific images, case studies and complete takeaways from the analysis, can be downloaded here.
NB: Europe image courtesy Shutterstock.