This week, at the 21st Annual eTourism Summit, the speaker lineup:
Actionable Takeaways — #eTS20 | Oct. 19 – 23
Monday | Day 13: Influencer Marketing
- Relationships matter: reach out to your favorite influencers for a conversation
- Drive market focus: daycations, staycations, local experiences
- Stick to core audiences rather than niche ones but try new things as well
- Do a diversity check on your content
- Recycle good content across different platforms
Monday | Day 13: Meetings Marketing
- After months of Zoom, virtual meetings are not the future
- Definitely do be transparent about cleaning protocols
- Airplane travel is proving safe when all passengers wearing masks
- Stay in touch with meeting planners
- Be creative to stay top-of-mind; consider virtual fam trips
Tuesday | Day 14: Marketing to Passion Points
- Residents will kickstart attendance; appeal to your local audience
- Emphasize cultural experiences that are closer to home
- Because reservations are required at attractions, there’s an upsell opportunity
- Team sports are a passion point; stay top-of-mind with fans
Tuesday | Day 14: The Death of Cookies
- DMO marketers (69%) are unsure how they’ll be affected by loss of third-party cookies
- Only 19% of DMO marketers are confident they’re messaging the right people across the right devices and measuring that success
- Each of us is being tracked across an average of 23 impression points
Wednesday | Day 15: Looking Ahead 2021
- Brands like Google, Facebook, Tripadvisor, Pandora have thrown away 2019 measurements; forget seasonality
- 90% companies have reduced their ad spend this year
- 60% of customers want to know what the brand stands for
- Inspirational content includes rural hikes, social good, environment, diversity
- Digital trends: Machine learning, streaming, Messenger, and defining the workplace-of-the-future
- “Be helpful,” because it is what consumers are looking for
Thursday | Day 16: Data and Machine Learning
- Metaphor: “You can get insights from small data, just like a good book. Big data is the whole library”
- Machine learning is widely misunderstood; it isn’t scary
- There are broad applications. DMOs can use affordable machine learning for more focused website development
- A small DMO can start with publicly available data and build by finding partners to share data
Friday | Day 17: New Cool Tools
- Necessity is the mother of invention, so a crisis gives rise to cool tools and platforms
- TripTuner, Bandwango, CrowdRiff, Lumen5, and Arrivalist were all introduced in previous years at eTourism Summit as bright, shiny, new objects
- We’re watching OnZoom, OceanOrbit, Virdee, Thayer Ventures, BioButton, Samsung Ads and more
- All eyes are on CommonPass app, a personal Covid-free passport to kickstart international travel
