More destinations are arriving at the point where they have to think about changing the way they communicate their message.
The entscheidende point is where the user is just one click away from drawing his attention to competitors, other leisure products or back to a search engine.
So Destination Management Organisations (DMO’s) tend to replace existing slogans such as boring marketing-text or press release-friendly phrases - usually describing tourist offers in catalogues, brochures or press conferences – because they cannot be used in the internet as users simply ignore them.
We accepted that “Content is King!” and tried to learn more but joining projects like the storytelling-group on LinkedIn to understand how to edit our DMO-content in a way the user will like and understand.
At the Austrian National Tourist Office (ANTO) we decided to move from an offer-driven presentation of our region to a “best-of”-Austria show of the most attractive hot-spots, showcasing the core brand messages.
We also decided to put them in an online “shopping window”, in 26 languages, within the Exploring section of our web portal.
We also recognized that user generated content often tells better stories about a destination than we can do ourselves.
Moreover potential guests love UGC as it often is much more trustworthy and believable than “official” content could be.
So we learned from others (British Columbia, for example) and started aggregating content about Austria from different sources (UGC, online media and web guides).
The contextual placement of relevant content about destination from the users’ point of view appears to be at the cutting edge for future DMO sites.
DMOs must accept that users are mature enough to decide themselves which content has the highest relevance and value during their travel-planning process.
Last week’s eBusiness Academy of the European Travel Commission (ETC) in Latvia gave me a lot of insight and confirmation that our decision (aggregate external content, widgets and layers) is the right one.
New (Joobili) and established companies (Google) work on innovative ways (google building maker, google transit, youtube las vegas) to mash-up highly-relevant travel content with the objective of providing the highest possible benefit for the user during the often long travel planning process (Google says the average time is 25 days).
But back to storytelling.
During the eBusiness Academy I had a number of chances to experience Latvian “Storytelling”.
I discovered Latvia is a country that sings but unfortunately I have already forgotten why – perhaps I missed the story behind it.
Nevertheless, the National Tourist Office uses this as a key visual slogan to differentiate it from competitors.
Interestingly, flying back home to Austria I read Air Baltic’s in-flight magazine and saw the most impressive ad from a tourism organization in years.
This Latvian hotel and an unusual partner simply managed to create a perfect touristic storytelling: Read for yourself!
More destinations are arriving at the point where they have to
think about changing the way they communicate their message.
The entscheidende point is where the user is just one click away from drawing his attention to competitors, other leisure products or back to a search engine.
So Destination Management Organisations (DMO’s) tend to replace existing slogans such as boring marketing-text or press release-friendly phrases - usually describing tourist offers in catalogues, brochures or press conferences – because they cannot be used in the internet as users simply ignore them.
We accepted that “Content is King!” and tried to learn more but joining projects like the storytelling-group on LinkedIn to understand how to edit our DMO-content in a way the user will like and understand.
At the Austrian National Tourist Office (ANTO) we decided to move from an offer-driven presentation of our region to a best-of-Austria show of the most attractive hot-spots, showcasing the core brand messages.
We decided to put them in an online shopping window, in 26 languages, within the Exploring section of our web portal.
We also recognized that user generated content often tells better stories about a destination than we can do ourselves.
Moreover potential guests love UGC as it often is much more trustworthy and believable than “official” content could be.
So we learned from others (British Columbia, for example) and started aggregating content about Austria from different sources (UGC, online media and web guides).
The contextual placement of relevant content about destination from the users’ point of view appears to be at the cutting edge for future DMO sites.
DMOs must accept that users are mature enough to decide themselves which content has the highest relevance and value during their travel-planning process.
The recent eBusiness Academy of the European Travel Commission (ETC) in Latvia gave me a lot of insight and confirmation that our decision (aggregate external content, widgets and layers) is the right one.
New (Joobili) and established companies (Google) work on innovative ways (Google building maker, Google transit, YouTube Las Vegas) to mash-up highly-relevant travel content with the objective of providing the highest possible benefit for the user during the often long travel planning process (Google says the average time is 25 days).
But back to storytelling.
During the eBusiness Academy I had a number of chances to experience Latvian “Storytelling”.
I discovered Latvia is a country that sings but unfortunately I have already forgotten why – perhaps I missed the story behind it.
Nevertheless, the National Tourist Office uses this as a key visual slogan to differentiate it from competitors.
Interestingly, flying back home to Austria I read Air Baltic’s in-flight magazine and saw the most impressive ad from a tourism organization in years.
This Latvian hotel and an unusual partner simply managed to create a perfect touristic storytelling: Read for yourself!