From the Alps to the Mediterranean: Three Best Cases of Data-Driven Destination Marketing

Three of Europe’s best-known tourist destinations reveal how they leveraged data analytics and insights conducted by D / AI Destinations, the first, all-inclusive destination analysis platform, to develop territorial marketing strategies based on facts, rather than intuition.

Enhance data-driven destination marketing

Destination marketing, without relying on data analysis, is a bit like playing roulette. The result is a mere matter of luck. However, when it comes to major tourism destinations, there’s no threshold for games of chance.The what, the how and the how much of any destination marketing action, even the smallest one, must have its own why. Only data, composed of online and offline traces left by visitors, reveals the factors that determine the why.The Swiss city of Lugano and Italian regions of Emilia Romagna and Puglia are a few excellent examples of how tracking and analysing data, with tools tailormade for DMOs and tourist destinations such as D / AI Destinations, can considerably help a tourist destination improve and enhance data-driven destination marketing.

Lugano and Sentiment Data throughout the Pandemic

Nestled in the Alps, the Swiss city of Lugano is a hidden gem for tourists and features gorgeous lakes, mountainscapes and Swiss specialties alike. Even during the ongoing pandemic, one of the toughest periods for the tourism industry, Lugano has kept on working around the Swiss-made clock to maintain a high level offer for its tourists. An in-depth analysis by Ticino Welcome, a Switzerland-based magazine, shares that even though many projects have been frozen as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, just as many have been continued. To continue engaging travelers and keep their curiosity alive, the Lugano Region tourism organization has leveraged social media to inspire dreams and future adventures to be resumed once the crisis has passed. (Pg. 72 N.67 – Sep/Oct 2020).During the summer of 2020, when travel was less restricted, the first launch of social campaigns paid off and the region was filled with tourists. Utilizing the destination analysis from the Data Appeal platform, Lugano monitored visitor sentiment trends in relation to overnight stays as well as visitor composition and seasonal trends, which are invaluable for facing the coming months.

 

For Visit Emilia, Visitor Perception is Everything

Pierangelo Romersi, Director of Visit Emilia, the promotion and marketing organization for Emilian tourism, shares that when he first started at his current position, he immediately noticed a weak point to resolve: the lack of objective data to illustrate the true perception of the destination in the eyes of visitors.It was critical to overcome this obstacle in order to develop more effective data-driven destination marketing strategies and acquire tangible evidence of the results obtained to share with stakeholders.“It was essential to clearly understand the image of our destination in the eyes of current and potential visitors”, shares Romersi. “We needed to conduct an in-depth analysis, based on real-time data that includes reviews and online content left by visitors throughout our territory.”With these objectives set, Visit Emilia adopted D / AI Destinations, the first, Experience Intelligence and Destination Analysis platform. With DAS, Visit Emilia analyzes sentiment trends of their destination as a whole and across a variety of industries including hospitality, F&B, attractions and experiences. The platform also enables destination operators to evaluate booking trends and visitor composition as well as compare their progress against various time periods and competitors.The region of Emilia Romagna now has an accurate, global view of visitor satisfaction to coordinate targeted destination marketing actions based on the information provided.

“The platform is useful for both the institution as a whole and our individual staff, who everyday acquires more awareness of how our work is perceived in the eyes of visitors. At the same time, it’s also useful for our stakeholders, as we periodically share results so they can measure our territorial growth”Pierangelo Romersi, Director of Visit Emilia 

Social Listening: A Fundamental Element for Tourism Operators in Puglia

Puglia Promozione, the regional tourism agency of Puglia, has begun a process of careful data analysis with the launch of the Puglia365 Strategic Tourism Plan, 2016 – 2025.“Before investing in a professional tool, the only information we had on the perception of our destination was collected through subjective opinions. Everything was absolutely analogue”, explains Bianca Bronzino, the agency’s innovation officer.”Without a suitable tool for social and online listening, we lost the voice of travelers online. We wanted operators to understand that reputation depends on the way each of them, each of us, welcomes customers. If we align our actions and strategies, we can improve the hospitality of Puglia together.”Puglia tourism has invested in Data Appeal analysis tools. Consequently, they have planned their destination marketing strategies based on real-time data collected about visitors. The results were almost immediate as our customer story recounts:“In 2018, reviews for restaurants, hotels and other accommodations increased by 46%. However, the result that satisfied us the most was the Sentiment score expressed by travelers, which stood at 86%, an improvement of 1.3 points”.Lugano, Emilia Romagna and Puglia have chosen D / AI Destinations to analyze the data of their destinations. Discover the features of D / AI Destinations or contact our team today to learn more.

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