The Destinationists

Subscribe to The Destinationists on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or Google PodcastsIn the first of a series of special episodes aimed at travel marketers dealing with the fall-out from COVID-19, we speak to Rodney Payne, CEO of Destination Think, about what DMOs need to do to help their destination to recover – and succeed – in a changed travel landscape.Rodney, whose organisation has helped destinations from Copenhagen to Saskatchewan, said that rather than waiting for demand to reboot destination marketers needed to start planning now for a range of scenarios – including the possibility that once-eased restrictions may be tightened again.“I see a lot of optimism in many people I speak to around the world. I think a lot of people have decided to plan for a best case scenario and I'd strongly recommend against it. I think it's a high risk. … And I think it's really naïve to think that we won’t be radically changed in some ways or many ways as a result of what's going on.”Co-host Lauren asked Rodney how he thought the travel consumer would change and he said it was risky to make generalisations given the fact that the impact of the pandemic – and the government response to it – has varied dramatically between different destinations.“We've been locked inside and many people are getting used to it, and other people will be really, really ecstatic to get outside. And everyone is going to approach this differently, and I think the most important advice is to recognize that things are going to be different and you're going to have to carefully do your homework all over again, understanding psychographics again, understanding people's emotional response to what's happened understanding how people's economic situation and economic confidence has changed about the future are all going to be really critical for people leading destinations and for people in charge of promoting destinations and managing destinations.”While acknowledging the human and financial cost of the pandemic, Rodney said that COVID-19 presented an opportunity for the travel industry to reshape its future. “[The three things I would change] would be that the entire local community benefits financially in return for trading their quality of life rather than just a sub sector that's often foreign owned. Two, the environment is actually improved through travel, and not only protected, but actually regenerated. And three, visitors add value to a place beyond just the money they bring. Depending on the place, they will each create their own definition of value.”Rodney said DMOs should be wary about moving too fast with promotion to attract visitors. “I personally believe that a destination marketing organisation that typically relies on public funds has an enormous responsibility to first and foremost protect human life and that includes in their communications. That's critical at this time to protect the local community, protect visitors. And there's a huge risk to brands and reputations, if you succumb to private sector pressure to get communicating and promoting too soon without careful thought.”Australian destinations in particular should think about how COVID-19 will affect the mindset of the international visitor if the cost of travel and perceived risks associated with it increase making Australia even more of a “trip of a lifetime. It should be a trip that doesn't just show a continent that's different from yours, but it has to convey an experience that you'll carry with you for the rest of your life.”In response to a question from Andrés about whether DMOs should consider merging in the challenging financial environment Rodney said he would throw all the options on the table.“We're in survival mode right now as an industry… if you're a destination that receives public funds top down, you're probably in a less dire place, but I know personally, a lot of my friends who work in our industry and people that we work with, have seen revenues just fall off a cliff to the floor. I would be looking really entrepreneurially and creatively at how to manage through months and years of uncertainty where I can add value to the industry. “Also in this episode co-hosts Andrés and Lauren talk about the recent COVID-19 trend towards DMOs around the world producing videos to invite consumers to visit once it is safe to do so. Lauren said she thought one of the more successful ones was produced by Auckland’s tourism body ATEED (Auckland Tourism Events and Economic Development) since it drew on aspects of Maōri culture with empty landscapes and city scenes set to a soundtrack narrated by an 11 year old girl that conveyed the idea that Mother Earth was “breathing” or in a state of renewal.Andrés liked the approach taken by the Greek national tourism board that, as well as a video, had invested in a platform that highlighted how you could experience the sights and culture of Greece in your own home. Additionally, thanks to a partnership with Google, tourism businesses in the country can sharpen up their digital marketing skills with a series of online lessons and tutorials.“I think this is a great initiative for the industry. It's saying, ‘well if you can't operate your business right now, we're partnering with Google to create sort-of online digital marketing style courses which can help you upskill your business and your digital marketing skills in this time, when maybe you're not doing so many tours or turning over so many beds’... That's a really a good, kind of almost the opposite pole to the Auckland example, in a very sort of practical and actionable sense,” he said.

Subscribe to The Destinationists on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or Google PodcastsIn this special episode recorded live at the Mumbrella Travel Marketing Summit in Sydney in as the industry grappled with the first wave of fall-out from COVID-19, The Destinationists hosted an interactive panel on the topic: “Is All Travel Marketing Irrelevant?’. Co-hosts Andrés López-Varela and Lauren Quaintance were joined on stage by South Australia Tourism Commission’s Executive Director of Marketing, Brent Hill, and Trafalgar Marketing Manager Samantha Saunders as well as members of the audience who wanted to participate in the debate.In what is a very important conversation at a pivotal time for the industry, Andrés and Lauren wanted to tackle some big questions such as when travellers are so well informed, do travel marketers even stand a chance? And do we have to fundamentally change the nature of what we do to stay relevant?Lauren kicked off the conversation by asking if marketers can really expect to compete with the power of word of mouth in travel decision making – whether that’s actual word or a recommendation on social. “How do you compete with someone who is a blood relation?”, she asked. Brent Hill replied that marketers weren’t competing against word of mouth but providing the tools to enable conversation between friends and family. “Marketing these days can interject and, and be involved in that kind of conversation… if I use my family as an example we have a What’s App group. We all use Instagram and tag each other left, right and centre. So, our family… is actually using marketing tools.”Andrés asked are instagrammers, who are often promoting competing destinations, make travel marketers redundant? While everyone admitted to some frustrations dealing with influencers Samantha Saunders, who was at Air New Zealand prior to Trafalgar, said they had had some real success with specific talent that made the investment worthwhile. ““Before I left [Air New Zealand] we had Real Mama, who was a classic mum and travel blogger talking about the Air New Zealand Skycouch, which had been released for over five years. And somehow her great clarity on exactly communicating to her very niche target audience the benefits, resulted in [her Skycouch content] being number three on the US social news. It was enormous. And it literally just showed that, you might do 50... but there'll still be one that makes those other ones all worthwhile.”William Chen from Sojern joined from the audience to ask: which parts of travel marketing are becoming less relevant and which parts are becoming more relevant? Brent Hill offered up visitor information centres and printed brochures as an example of a service that was increasingly less relevant to consumers as the information dated quickly. “I would say that the visitor information centre model that we've seen through the '80s '90s, and so on, is, is perhaps decreasing in relevance. But what is increasing in relevance is if you provide a really simple experience where there would be a bank of iPads. You could take a couple of tear-off maps, scan a few things and connect to what people are already doing using their mobile. That is far more relevant.”In response to a question about what is more of less relevant in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, Samantha Saunders said there was “always something relevant that travel marketers could be doing. “In the meantime really look to your loyal customers, we call them our VITs, very important travellers, who have sometimes travelled up to 20 times with one of the Trafalgar tours, They have a real affinity with the brand and they want to keep on hearing from the brand.”Brent Hill said the lesson he learned during the bushfires in early 2020 was that people did want to hear from the travel authority. “We were at our most relevant during that period because people were looking for information, they're looking for permission from an authority figure to tell them what was okay and what wasn't okay. And, you know, asking those questions of, is it okay if I go up into the region? Am I gonna be in the way? Do people wanna see me if I go there? How can I help on the ground?“

Subscribe to The Destinationists on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or Google PodcastsIn this episode we speak to Brodie Reid, Director of Marketing at Tourism New Zealand, about the innovative Good Morning World brand campaign that showcases a new video everyday featuring New Zealanders describing their favourite part of the country and inviting travellers to come visit.In a wide-ranging conversation, Brodie says the campaign is the latest iteration of the 20-year old 100% Pure New Zealand brand and that, this time around, the real challenge was in differentiating the ‘people and place’ of New Zealand from other country’s similar approaches to marketing the destination with their locals. Brodie points out that one of the main ways they have created this differentiation is by hero-ing the distinctive Māori culture and the Māori concepts of manaakitanga, tiaki and whānau (pronounced ‘far-no’).“Māori culture is beautiful for us, it really forms a core part of what makes up our brand story in New Zealand and differentiates us on the world stage. [For example,] manaakitanga is all about welcoming people, making sure our visitors feel looked after…. those kind of unexpected encounters that you might not get from other destinations,” says Brodie.However, the real challenge of Good Morning World is in producing a new video every day for 366 days - albeit a short, social-first video - in an unscripted style. Each day, a different New Zealander invites the world to visit their part of the country, telling them what to expect and what not to miss in places as diverse as Milford Sound, The Franz Josef Glacier, Wellington, Taupō, the Coromandel Peninsula and more.Brodie says the key to the success of their approach was in ditching the traditional, cumbersome production model for a more agile, media publisher-like approach to creating content. “We created small, nimble crews that went out around New Zealand and we had to be really trusting of those teams,” Brodie says.When asked by Lauren if she thinks this more “publisher or media company approach” to content production might flow through to Tourism New Zealand’s other marketing activities, Brodie says “I honestly think it has to… that is the way the world is going and we’ve been seeing that for a few years now. For us, it’s a case of [adapting] to this new style of content production, to find new ways to make more content, bespoke content and content that jumps on top of topical events.”In this episode’s Trend Monitor, Lauren and Andrés take a look at the list of 2020 travel trends from Condé Nast Traveller and highlight some of the most important ones for travel marketers to consider. For example, Lauren says vegan hotels are leveraging a genuine trend and it’s worth keeping an eye on these because “veganism has been associated with deprivation… but the idea now is that you don’t actually need to sacrifice luxury.” Likewise, Andrés says flight shaming and carbon neutral travel are trends that we “should take note of, particularly in the aviation space… where marketers, just like KLM has done, can tell people to fly less or fly mindfully.”Wrapping up the episode is Campaign News with a discussion of Australian DMOs bushfire response campaigns. Tourism Australia and the South Australian Tourism Commission have already launched marketing campaigns to support regions struck by bushfires, while Visit Victoria and Destination NSW have announced upcoming promotional activity and are skewing their digital content to feature more destinations hit by bushfires.Andrés highlights that the majority of Australia has not been affected by fires and that while these marketing activities are critical to help these communities get back on their feet, there is a lack of detail explaining to visitors that, in many cases, “part of the experience is actually a bushfire-ravaged region. There’s a degree of managing expectations that, maybe because this has been rushed to market in many ways, has not been done as well as we want DMOs to do, particularly in light of a natural disaster.”Lauren elaborates by saying “we need to get very real in the communications about what is happening in Australia and what tourists can expect. There are entire tourism operators with shops and hotels burned to the ground. I’d like to see some of those people featuring in content so that there’s an authenticity around those operators talking about what has happened to them and what’s going to happen next, the amazing welcome they can still offer people. I think that’s a way to make an emotional connection with people to get them to travel in these areas.”

Subscribe to The Destinationists on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or Google PodcastsIn Episode #017 we talk to Jon Mamela, Chief Marketing Officer for Tourism Toronto about the game-changing work they’ve done with Expedia to market Canada’s largest city as a stopover destination.In a lively discussion, Jon says that although Toronto had positive word-of-mouth it was not top of the list for American travellers – worse, it was perceived as an international destination with all of the downside of a long-haul flight without the up-side of Europe. At the same time Air Canada was acquiring more long-range aircraft and was focused on promoting Toronto as a major hub for their long-haul routes.Tourism Toronto saw the opportunity to partner with Expedia to exploit the OTA’s vast reservoir of data on travel behaviour and promote the city as a stopover for travellers from the US and UK who could break up the trip without incurring additional flight costs.“Expedia really knew how to build the user experience in a way that connected both what a consumer traveller was looking for and as a means to introduce creatively and logically how to integrate a stopover into the experience of booking,” he said.Despite industry stakeholders sometimes giving stopover campaigns a lukewarm reception, Mamela says everyone was behind the strategy. “It was a complementary program accounting for a smaller percentage of our budget in terms of what we do,” he said. “It could definitely stand alone.”Toronto looked to Iceland and Portugal for insights about successful stopover marketing although North American destinations were slower to see the stopover opportunity. Toronto’s long-term commitment to the strategy has paid off with continued growth in interest level, search intent, and overall airline and accommodation bookings to the city.In Trend Monitor in this episode co-host Andrés declares Google’s BERT algorithm update “one of the most important things to care about in marketing”. He said: “Google has made big changes before, but this has been described as a quantum leap forward in the way that search processes things.” He suggests the change will have a big impact on travel marketers who will need to provide much more specific informational content and avoid generic product information.And in Campaign News, Andrés and Lauren question the timing of the launch of a new brand platform for Northern Ireland amidst uncertainty around Brexit. Called Embrace a Giant Spirit, Lauren notes that there is a lot to like about the new brand with the giant “speaking to the idea of the people, of the big-hearted people, and spirit referring to the kind of experience a traveller can have in terms of awakening your spirit when you're in the destination”. But given that it was still unclear how the UK’s exit from the EU would impact travellers to Northern Ireland, both Andrés and Lauren were puzzled by the timing of the launch. “We can only assume this has been in the works for some time because clearly the whole concept of an open border is up for debate in terms of Brexit,” Lauren said.

Subscribe to The Destinationists on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or Google PodcastsWe’re live again in this special episode recorded at Australia’s leading luxury travel trade show Luxperience. Co-hosts Andrés and Lauren are joined by guests Sue Johnson, the marketing director at Spicers Retreats, Tori Johnson, the social media and advocacy manager at Journey Beyond and Taryn Williams, the CEO and founder of the.rightfit, in a panel discussion titled “The New Rules for Luxury Influencer Marketing”.Lauren kicked off the discussion by noting that influencer marketing had been one of the hottest topics in the industry in recent years but as the industry matured more marketers were keen to take a more forensic approach to ensure that they delivered value for their brands. “Smart influencer marketing is more than just offering a celebrity a free room in exchange for a few Instagram posts,” she says.One of the most common questions marketers have to grapple with is whether to choose influencers based on the size of their social media following or whether “mirco” or “niche ”influencers can be equally or even more effective.Taryn Williams from influencer platform theright.fit said it was critical to have clear objectives from the outset to help answer that question and not to fall into the trap of using influencers because it is a type of marketing that is “trending”.While Sue Johnson from Spicers Retreats said that more often than not her objective was reach so an influencer needed to have scale, Journey Beyond’s Tori Johnson urged the audience not to disregard influencers with a smaller following. These can be easier to work with and are “eager to please” which could be particularly useful if you are looking for that influencer to create content for you.Taryn cautioned that, on the flip side, micro influencers were less sophisticated. “The important thing to remember is it's generally not their profession … You're going to have to spend a lot more time handholding, explaining how to get reporting back from them, things like trackable links.”How much creative freedom should you give an influencer? Taryn Williams said in her experience the best performing travel campaigns were where a brand had given an influencer an amazing engaging experience and then allowed them to tell a story “in a way that feels real and right for that audience”.Journey Beyond’s Tori Johnson said it was important to negotiate clear deliverables but that brands should not force influencers to do things that did not feel natural for the audience. “Let them do what works best for their fans and for their channel. If they're into blogging and Instagram Stories, let them do that. Don't tell them they have to do feed posts if stories work better for them.”Sue Johnson agreed that clear parameters were critical and shared an experience of spending “a considerable sum” on one influencer who did not deliver. “It was five posts, but two of them weren't usable and one of the images was blurry and one was of a pair of shoes that she was wearing.”Taryn Williams said a good brief was the key to success. “Realistically a good influencer is a creative director, photographer, retoucher and model all in one. So if you can empower them with all of that information about your brand, and then what success looks like [that’s the best approach].”When asked what her top tip for brands wanting to succeed with influencer marketing would be Tori Johnson from Journey Beyond advised the audience to choose influencers based on their behaviour - not just their demography.“Our train guests are often of an older clientele, but they're also adventurous and they love creature comforts. And they love the great outdoors. They're into photography. There's this range of behaviours so I try to choose influencers that mirror the behaviours of our audience, rather than the demography.”

Subscribe to The Destinationists on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or Google PodcastsAfter a break, we’re back with a new episode! We talk with Brent Hill executive director of marketing for South Australian Tourism Commission (SATC) about last year’s mammoth “State of Wonder” campaign where the tourism body broke new boundaries with a five day live stream with more than 120 hours of continuous footage.Hill tells us that SATC faced a challenge common to many destination marketers – how to overcome narrow and dated perceptions of the destination, and demonstrate the breadth of the state’s offering in a 30 second TVC. “That's when we sort of sat down and went, what about if we just left the camera rolling when we go and shoot these ads?” he said. “We wanted the consumer to be able to see really authentically what it was like to travel around South Australia. And we also wanted to see if we could increase the amount of time that they spent viewing South Australia.”Hill says he never expected anyone to watch all 120 hours of footage, but as people dropped in and out to view content over the five day period they were able to substantially increase average view time to an impressive seven and a half minutes.Even more critically SATC was able to effectively measure leads to operators and tourism industry partners. “We had record numbers of traffic into our digital ecosystems, and our operators got a ton of bookings, which is super exciting, because we don't sell airline tickets or hotel rooms. What we do is act as essentially a portal and take people through directly to the operator,” Brent said.In our regular Trend Monitor segment Andrés and Lauren talk about a study released by analytics firm InfluencerDB showing that Instagram influencers have seen engagement rates on their content drop to an all-time low.Andrés notes that “nano influencers” are still performing well on the platform: “So if you have a product, and you're trying to attract a particular kind of traveller, a new segment, or stimulate repeat business, then maybe it's better to focus your influencer strategy in the travel space on those more niche groups, rather than broadcast.”In Campaign News in this episode we talk about the “Just Alright Doesn't Fly Here” campaign from US carrier JetBlue which focuses on service. Lauren pans the campaign as a “bit of a cop out” since it fundamentally relies on pointing out its competitors’ so-called weaknesses in service rather than focussing on any meaningful strengths the airline might have vis a vis its competitors.She laments that the bar for effective marketing has fallen so low in the airline category that JetBlue highlights the fact its staff answer the phone as a strength. “That’s just a hygiene factor, surely.”

Subscribe to The Destinationists on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or Google PodcastsIn Episode 13 we talk with David Gilbert CEO of Destination Cleveland about the mid-west city’s unique challenges in attracting visitors. A once prosperous industrial hub, Gilbert says Cleveland was the “Silicon Valley of the United States 120 years ago” but fell into a slump in the mid 1950s after its manufacturing industry declined. If Cleveland was known for anything in recent times it was known for being an “old dirty industrial city” and became the butt of jokes in the United States.Gilbert talks about how the destination marketer has capitalised on the city’s resurgence and fierce pride of its residents to turn around the city’s image.“One of the things that has changed dramatically in the last probably eight to 10 years has been the shift in Clevelanders’ perceptions of their own city, and that's probably been the most dramatic change,” he says. “For someone who is from here, and has really lived through a lot of this and spent a lot of my career in trying to advance Cleveland, it's very fun and exciting to see this dramatic change in local perceptions.”As well as emphasising the city’s strengths in arts, culture and sports, the destination marketer has bravely embraced its gritty, industrial heritage. “There’s a grittiness that permeates the city from its industrial past,” says Gilbert. “It’s a manufacturing city still, but not nearly on the scale that it was, and it's part of why, to me it has such unique character to it.”In Trend Monitor we analyse a new mobile maturity report from Oracle examining how well hotels are using mobile experiences. Co-host Andrés says the highlight of the report was the fact that nine out of 10 respondents said that guest-facing apps were their preferred method for requesting service from hotel staff - and a similar number said guest experience could be improved by using smartphones to manage basic functions such as checking in, opening your room and ordering food. Andrés noted there was also “a big gap in terms of how mobile could be used to improve the way that guests plan and interact with a local area.”Last but not least, in Campaign News we break down a new campaign from Puerto Rico called Have we met yet?. Just 18 months after Hurricane Maria devastated the island nation is back in-market with some proactive messaging for the US market whereas some other disaster-struck destinations have taken much longer to return to actively marketing themselves.Co-host Lauren remarks that it’s interesting how undifferentiated the Puerto Rico brand has historically been in the US given that the two nations have such a close relationship. (Puerto Ricans represent 1.5% of the overall population of the US and they're the second biggest Latino group.). Lauren says that is likely to have a lot to do with a lack of consistent messaging over a number of years. Andrés agrees saying, “In my opinion, a brand is just consistency. It can be white words on a black background in Arial Font - as long as it's consistent, that's what really matters.”

Subscribe to The Destinationists on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or Google PodcastsIn this special episode, co-hosts Lauren and Andrés lead a panel discussion titled ‘Taking responsibility for overtourism; can travel marketers do better?’. They’re joined on stage at the Mumbrella Travel Marketing Summit in Sydney by Susan Bonner, Vice President and Managing Director of Royal Caribbean in Australia and New Zealand, Sam McDonagh, Australia and New Zealand Country Manager at Airbnb and Laura Clarke, Co-Founder of the Palau Legacy Project.

Subscribe to The Destinationists on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or Google PodcastsIn our latest episode we talk airline marketing with Robecta Ma, the Vice President for Marketing and Digital Sales – Americas, Cathay Pacific, about the airline’s quest to become the preferred carrier for Americans travelling to Asia.Ma talks about how to differentiate when you’re dealing with a commodotised product - in particular how Cathay has honed in on building a unique customer experience on the ground and in-flight.“We pay attention to every single detail in terms of what a customer can do at [our] lounges to our business class product where every single amenity is carefully considered,” she says. “And I think that really is a way to differentiate ourselves amongst other competitors.”Content has played an important role in the airline’s strategy and while business travellers remain important, recognising that these may in fact be more evolved “bleisure travellers” who want experiences beyond the traditional business trip has been an insight that has guided Cathay’s content strategy“So for example, you have five days in Hong Kong, you might have an afternoon free,” says Ma. “And that's why we will serve content like, well, hey, why don't you check out this spot for the afternoon, or even stop by Disneyland if you're free for a day.”While most marketers are still grappling with the role VR plays (and how to justify it) Ma reveals they have run a highly successful VR campaign re-appropriating a video shot for events and trade shows showcasing the Cathay Pacific product into digestible formats within advertising units on publisher sites.“You're immediately transported to the lounge. You're immediately transported to the seat,” she says of the campaign. “So I think that also tackles peoples’ attention span, but also the immediate interest of, ‘wow, this is what a Cathay Pacific experience looks like’ versus looking at brochures or clicking on banners.”In Trend Monitor, we scrutinise the recent Halal Travel Frontier Report from MasterCard and CrescentRating about the trends and changes in Halal and Muslim travel around the world.Co-host Lauren notes that while technology such as AI and chatbots will enable all travellers it will have a transformative effect for halal travellers. “If you think about halal travellers they are in a specific position where they do have really very specific needs when they're on vacation, on holiday, they need to have not only that halal food, but they need to have access to prayer rooms.”Andrés notes that the report demonstrates that halal travel has well and truly moved beyond the traditional trip to Ramadan. “Muslims are obviously travelling everywhere, particularly now to countries that are not traditionally or predominantly Islamic countries.”And finally in Campaign News we talk about a new campaign from Aero Mexico offering DNA discounts targeting Americans who are hesitant to go to Mexico. Andrés says the campaign is a brilliant “intersection between brand truth, audience truth and a cultural opportunity”.Lauren says that while the campaign is brave since it tackles the idea that America is the number one destination for Mexicans but Mexico is not the number one destination for Americans, it is to some extent an issue a national carrier cannot avoid. “This is an airline called Aeromexico, so you can’t get around the fact this [kind of bias] is a problem for you, you've got Mexico in your name.”

Subscribe to The Destinationists on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or Google PodcastsWe kick off 2019 talking to Chris Amson, Content Marketing Manager at Tourism Western Australia, about how they have deliberately shied away from big budget TVCs with their content-centric brand platform Just Another Day in WA.Amson says that when the destination marketer launched the platform in 2016 they knew that whatever they did could not simply rely on TV alone. “What we were looking to do was create a platform that can bring stories and real peoples’ stories into the heart of our marketing,” says Amson. Instead of having a thin layer of content that was distributed above-the-line Amson says that they actively looked at how they could capitalise on the vast range of opportunities to distribute content via social and earned media.Harnessing the storytelling power of industry was also critical to the success of this approach, according to Amson. TWA uses a device they call a “gather round story” to get someone from industry to tell a personal story of how a place is significant to them as well as getting operators to share how they tell stories about experiences that are uniquely Western Australian. Amson also talks about the state’s approach to attracting different audiences including intra-state audiences and international audiences such as Singaporeans who are close enough to WA to come for a long weekend.Amson’s lesson for others wanting to build a content-centric brand platform? Consider the problem that you want content to solve within the customer journey and continually test your approach. As Andrés says: “Sometimes, in the content world we are driven by the story and the qualitative element, but setting some metrics, understanding if something is performing with the audience, is critical as well as understanding if it’s operationally efficient to make.”In Trend Monitor we discuss the newly-released New York Times “52 Places to Go” list and the headline trends including eco tourism and food tourism. Lauren notes that while eco tourism has been around for some time hotels and resorts, in particular, have started to really to up the ante. “I think that makes the job of marketers easier in a sense, the fact that the product has moved so far along so eco tourism isn't that token-istic thing anymore, it really is kind of integrated into the product.”And, finally, in Campaign News we dissect the latest #TassieStyle campaign from Tourism Tasmania, launched in early January and aiming to drive interest in travel to the state during winter. Andrés says it’s a good reminder for destination marketers about the timing of winter campaigns. “You probably need to be thinking about how you can showcase some of the [winter] value proposition earlier on, and really hit those key booking periods. In particular, obviously, this is a great time of year of people coming back from their Christmas holidays in Australia, domestically at least, and they are feeling maybe a little bit sad about having to go back to work.”

Subscribe to The Destinationists on Apple Podcasts or StitcherEpisode 010 (and the last episode of 2018) is here and co-hosts Lauren and Andrés kick off by chatting with Jodi Williams, GM of Global Brand and Content Marketing at Air New Zealand, about the airline’s genre-defining safety videos and how they’ve been able to turn the most basic of airline content into a brand and business asset.The first alternative-type safety video was released by Air New Zealand ten years ago in 2009 as an extension to a marketing campaign called Nothing to Hide, featuring body-painted cabin crew. Although they weren’t intending to create a whole new genre of onboard entertainment, Jodi says that “in quite an entertaining way, [that] definitely turned things on its head, and it took an untouched formula and disrupted the category.”Since then, the safety videos have morphed into major campaigns of their own for the minnow airline, often showcasing the breadth of the Air New Zealand product offering, the natural beauty of New Zealand’s landscapes and the warm, humourous personality often associated with Kiwis themselves. This last point, in particular is communicated by the cabin crew who are always featured in these videos as “they're, ultimately, the face of the airline. They are the brand,” says Jodi.The latest safety video from Air New Zealand is called ‘It’s Kiwi Safety’ and, once again, the airline has departed from convention to create something uniquely New Zealand, says Jodi. “It's a music video and we haven't done a pure music video before. When we started out we wanted it to showcase a different side of New Zealand. We've done a lot of great work showcasing the destination and landscapes… but what we really wanted to bring to life was some of the urban street scenes as well as celebrating the diversity of our people.”And, in response to questions about the state of global airline marketing, Jodi observes that the real challenge right now is to make sure marketers serve the immediate and long-term needs of the business in what they do, “one of the challenges is balancing that long term brand building alongside the short term need to add revenue… often you see quick response, fee deals, travel offers, book now. But you need to get the balance right, you need to build the brand, you need the engagement, the storytelling, the creativity.”In Trend Monitor, Lauren and Andrés discuss the burgeoning trend of DMOs being called on to promote population growth in their region or city. Lauren notes that her home town of Wellington in New Zealand has had an agency for a number of years whose combined mission is to attract visitors as well as permanent migration to the area and she believes it’s the right call. She notes that tourism is often the first way to experience a new place and that these visitors “may return a couple of times, intrigued by the lifestyle” and that “it's thinking about it more as, tourism is that sort of first step towards attracting a migrant [because] no one's moving anywhere until they come as a tourist.”Andrés mentions the other recent example of Visit Cleveland where the city’s tourism and visitor bureaux are being called on to attract permanent residents of the once-prosperous mid-western American city, with a focus on convincing students to stay in the city once they’ve finished university.Rounding out the episode is Campaign News and a review of new work from the Royal Dutch Airline, KLM, in their biggest source market, Germany. The challenge for the airline in that market is that about half of all Germans didn’t know what KLM was, instead confusing it for a bank, restaurant or radio station. So, to show people what they were missing out on, the airline became those three things that Germans thought they were and then revealed what KLM actually is.However, Andrés thinks that the work falls flat because, amongst other things, it’s “a joke that you can only tell once”. Noting the particular challenge that KLM has with millennials (only 37% of that age group in Germany knows what KLM is), he says that if “that generation has a problem, then your [business’] future is kind of in trouble and I think you've really got to do something more than just turn yourself into what you're not, so I think that this is a very strange turn of events for this airline.”

Subscribe to The Destinationists on Apple Podcasts or StitcherIt’s time for episode nine and co-hosts Andrés and Lauren chat to David Newman, Creative Director of Visit Seattle about the destination marketer’s ground-breaking approach to video. Newman tells us how the focus on episodic video content created under the umbrella of Visit Seattle.TV became the “obvious way to go” after observing that video had become the primary mechanism for people to share first person experiences.Newman says that when the DMO’s marketing team embarked on the approach in 2012 they did so because they realised “it's time for us to stop telling the story of Seattle, but to let others tell their story of Seattle,” he says, “We found that that's much more powerful.”Partnerships with media houses that provide a distribution vehicle have been critical to the success of the Visit Seattle.TV strategy, according to Newman, as well as the fact that the DMO has focused on creating content that stands alone as entertainment rather than just as a piece of marketing.“The way I think about it … It’s a teaspoon of sugar with medicine,” he says. “We are delivering something that people want, and we're making sure that it's surrounded by really good nutritional stuff. Regardless of how sweet it tastes, they're still getting the message that we have world class arts, culture, food, wine. We trust that our city is as dynamic and compelling as it is, and we trust that that's going to shine through by just allowing it to do so. We really work hard not to push and ramrod them.”Newman also has talked about the DMO’s approach to reaching target audiences as being “affinity targeting rather than geo targeting”. In targeting independent minded urban explorers, Newman says they have discovered some surprising geographical pockets of interest. “Geo targeting comes through from who's appearing through that affinity targeting. We discovered that Houston in Texas, which is not what I would think would be a top of mind target market for Seattle, which is very progressive, liberal city, but we've seen a lot of love from there, we did not expect. So, we learned that they love us just through the kinds of things that they're interested in.”Meanwhile in Trend Monitor, Andrés and Lauren discuss some surprising research from Expedia about Millennial travel habits that suggests the average duration of millennial holidays is 6.2 days and that they are taking 5.6 trips per year. Andrés says the research seems to debunk the usual assumption that Millennials are taking longer trips such as a three month tour of Europe or Africa. Lauren suggests that while Millennials may well value “experiences over things” some are choosing to get a foothold in the paid economy hence taking shorter more regular trips rather than “chucking it all in” to travel.Last but not least, in Campaign News, Andrés and Lauren have strong opinions on two recently released campaign extensions from Australia and New Zealand’s national DMOs. While Andrés says Tourism Australia’s follow-up to its mega Dundee ad featuring Luke Hemsworth is “well-timed”, Lauren says it’s “moderately funny” but much of the creative potential is killed by what feels like a directive to tick off a list of destinations.Tourism New Zealand’s follow-up to its viral #GetNZOnTheMap ad starring Rhys Darby and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is “definitely not as structured” as Tourism Australia’s effort according to Andrés, who says that it’s interesting to compare their different approaches.“They're both organisations that have done great, interesting, compelling work in the past and continue to do so,” says Andrés. “And they're both tackling a similar problem of relevance and conversion from aspiration to actual visitation in the two opposite ends of the spectrum.”

Subscribe to The Destinationists on Apple Podcasts or StitcherIn episode eight we talk to Signe Jungersted, Director of Development at Wonderful Copenhagen, about their groundbreaking four-year destination strategy in which they declare “the end of tourism as we know it”.Jungersted tells co-hosts Lauren Quaintance and Andrés López-Varela that the role of the DMO has fundamentally changed so that it’s no longer enough for destination marketers to broadcast a message, they need to involve partners who often have more credibility when it comes to reaching audiences looking for a niche experience. “We were used to being the big broadcaster, the ones that were standing in front and leading the campaigns, and now we're sort of stepping back and really sort of enabling,” she says.Jungersted cites Danish design as an area where partners have more authority than the DMO and talks about how Wonderful Copenhagen has engaged cultural institutions wary about the role of tourism and the potential for “Disney-ficiation” of their offering. She also tells Lauren and Andrés that making visitors feel like "temporary locals" and attracting them to return to the city (“once attracted, twice valued") are critical components of the strategy that will underpin the destination marketer’s approach through to 2020.Meanwhile, in Trend Monitor, we discuss the role Instagram plays in driving explosive growth to remote or little-known destinations, and how that kind of sudden social media fame can lead to a raft of complex destination management issues. Andrés notes that Instagram has a much higher ratio of “active creation” than some other social media platforms and is particularly well-suited to travel so it is no surprise that it is playing a role in unearthing unknown destinations. Destination marketers have caught onto this insight and are pursuing formalised partnerships with Instagram to support increased international visitation to their destinations. For example, Japan’s National Tourism Organisation collaborated with Instagram in 2017 to introduce and build up a new hashtag, #UnknownJapan, which reportedly drove more than 5 million foreign visitors sharing Instagram posts. Lauren and Andrés discuss similar examples of places in New Zealand and Norway that have been caught unaware by the hockey stick moment that being heavily featured on Instagram can bring.Speaking of Instagram, in Campaign News Lauren and Andrés dissect Royal Carribbean International’s #celestechallengeaccepted which sees Australian social media comedy queen Celeste Barber recreate some of the cruise lines key experiences on dry land with the help of her husband and children. Lauren says that the campaign is a long way from the more “po faced” US cruise campaigns and perhaps reflects the need to use humour to convert highly skeptical Australian new-to-cruise audiences.

Subscribe to The Destinationists on Apple Podcasts or StitcherIn our seventh episode we speak to Visit Berlin CEO Burkhard Keiker about the role the destination marketing organisation has played in promoting the iconic European city as a creative capital. During our interview, recorded at the Melbourne Live event last month where Keiker was a guest speaker, he talks about how in the years of turmoil following the fall of the Berlin Wall the organisation identified that that very chaos “was our biggest advantage” as artists and creative people were attracted to the city as it redefined itself.“We found out that this created the atmosphere in the city that was very appealing to many people who came from the countryside in Germany, from other nations in Europe, just to catch the spirit of the city, of this Phoenix from the ashes. And seeing this, we understood how we should market the city or how we should preserve the nature and character of the city.”Keiker, a former journalist and techno club owner, says that another critical factor has been the city’s liberal and accepting approach. “That's one of the secrets of Berlin, is tolerance, as far as you don't bother other people… if you feel like putting on a zebra costume tonight and cruising in the subway, do so, nobody would care about you.”Visit Berlin developed the 24/365 platform but it was an authentic reflection of what was already happening in the city - rather than a manufactured marketing construct. “One of the major things we always feel is stay authentic, and when doing marketing never try to pretend to be something. Be yourself as a personality.” Keiker says that, for example, the city has tried to keep artists in the city by subsidising their ateliers and flats. “We see when they have an atelier, they want to have a nice café. So they set up cafés, and they set up galleries. And we prefer the café set up by our artists to one of these big coffee chains, because that's what you find all over the world, but this style of cafe you have only in Berlin or Paris.” Meanwhile, in a timely discussion, in our ‘Trend Monitor’ segment co-hosts Andrés and Lauren talk about how destinations can use mass sporting events such as the FIFA 2018 World Cup in Russia to deliver long term tourism benefit. Lauren wonders if the lessons have been learned from the Sochi Winter Olympics, held in the Black Sea resort in 2014, which failed to put Sochi “on the map” for international visitors and left a $51 billion hole in Vladimir Putin’s pocket.Finally in ‘Campaign News’ we dissect a new partnership between Best Western and IBM’s Watson, the computer giant’s artificial intelligence business unit, which launched in the US this month. Travellers can start a conversation with Best Western's AI-powered ad on sites such as weather.com by providing information on their upcoming travel plans. Through a series of dialogue prompts, they will be guided through a conversation about their travel needs, and the AI-powered ad will respond with trip planning ideas such as what to pack as well as providing information about Best Western's locations across North America.Andrés says it is a “great task-oriented implementation of AI” and predicts that we will see tourism brands making more use of connected chat experiences in the near future. What makes it a “brain exploding game changer”, he says, is the idea of marketing within a conversation. Marketers, however, have a lot of work to do to evolve their content strategies to reflect the fact that 50% of all searches are predicted to be voice within two years.

Subscribe to The Destinationists on Apple Podcasts or StitcherIn our sixth episode we interview Global Senior Vice President of Expedia Media Solutions Hari Nair at the Travel Marketing Summit in Sydney to better understand how Expedia uses data to address key travel marketing challenges for its clients. Nair tells co-hosts Lauren Quaintance and Andrés López-Varela that travel transaction data from Expedia’s global platform gave travel marketers the opportunity to move away from a vanilla, one-size-fits-all approach to marketing and recognise that travel behaviour varies quite dramatically around the globe.“Today we know that customers actually react very differently depending upon which part of the planet you are from. We know, for example, in Japan, you have people who actually take fewer trips in a year. Their trips are actually shorter and they actually like to stay domestically. We see something very, very different in Australia. We actually see that their average number of holidays that they take is around four trips a year. Each of their trips is about ten days long.”Travel consumers were extremely undecided and, Nair said, Expedia’s path to purchase study shows that travellers are visiting websites 120 times in the 45 days prior to booking. “But it's true that consumers are very undecided, which is actually great news for travel marketers because you absolutely have the ability to influence them. I think the example that was quoted [in Nair’s talk at the Travel Marketing Summit] was we actually did the study and people start looking for a holiday in Ireland and they ended up booking Cancun.”Nair also talked about how understanding travellers’ spending habits can be a powerful tool to shape your marketing efforts. “When you really start looking deeper into the numbers, there are three things that really stand out to me. One, is hotel and air takes up 50% of somebody's budget. Second, food is turning out to be an emerging trend, particularly food experiences… Third, Chinese [travellers] specifically, shopping is huge for them - 16% of their budget goes toward shopping experiences. Then you have tours and attractions which usually they make up about 15% of the spend. When you take a look at how international travellers respond to certain experiences in a destination, you can quickly start seeing and probably catering to those needs that the customers have.”Meanwhile in ‘Trend Monitor’, co-hosts Lauren and Andrés dissect a recent study saying the size of the market for medical tourism is anticipated to reach $15 billion US dollars by 2023 (with Asia Pacific accounting for 40% of that.) We talk about the dual marketing function destinations interested in medical tourism need to play – emphasising their medical expertise as well as the experience you can have as a tourists. Lauren says she’d like to see what role influencers might play in this space.And in ‘Campaign News’ we talk about a humorous creative campaign from Tourism New Zealand starring Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and comedian Rhys Darby called #GetNZOnTheMap. New Zealand-born Lauren praises the campaign for its viral reach given its tiny budget. She says it “really sums up the Kiwi sense of humour” but questions how it fits strategically with their 100% Pure Campaign. Andrés notes that it seems to be a “proactive opportunity” but he did not think it was off brand. In comparison, he says Tourism Australia’s $100 million plus Dundee campaign, which was also released recently, was a deeply strategic move in response to a decline in visitation to Australia from the US.