Category: Tourism marketing and management

Does Virtual Reality (VR) Travel have the potential to be more?

Does Virtual Reality (VR) Travel have the potential to be more? 

Retrieved from Forbes.com 

Due to the pandemic, the global tourism industry had to come to a sudden halt. Even as lockdowns were slowly lifted, travelers were skeptical, and the threat of the virus is still very real. Recently, a second wave has swept across the world which has led to a second lockdown. Until a vaccine is in place, it will be quite difficult for the tourism industry to recover from its losses and reach the pre-pandemic tourist numbers. The tourism industry is constantly innovating and doing its best to get back on its feet. The role of modern technologies in tourism is changing rapidly, leading to customer relationships developing through virtual reality in the marketing of tourist destinations. In addition to focusing on the influence of travel intentions that has prevailed in practice so far, the use of VR is expected to have an impact on the travel experience on the spot. VR has existed for some time now but using it in the travel industry was not extremely popular. But the pandemic has boosted this trend and travelers that were once skeptical and found it pointless are turning to this technology for some solace. Tourism boards, airlines, hotels, destination management companies are making use of this tech to stay relevant in their travelers’ minds and to meet the demand temporarily if not physically. 

The International Air Transport Association (Iata) said that international traffic “has all but disappeared”, with airlines carrying only about 10% of normal levels. By Iata’s estimate, Covid caused disruptions to put more than 41 million jobs at risk across the travel and tourism sector. Iata predicts that travel will not resume to pre-pandemic levels until 2024. 

Steve Perillo is boss of Travel World VR, a US-based VR and 360-degree video marketing and production company. He says the pandemic has been a “shot of adrenaline” for a technology that to date had “not yet really arrived”. Now he says VR can whet a potential audience’s appetite. “The momentum has really picked up. It’s really launched the concept of travelling remotely.” 

 

 Retrieved from StudioBinder.com 

VR acceleration? 

 The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have had a lasting influence on tourism and will shape travel and booking behavior for generations. Undoubtedly, the desire to travel is uninterrupted, but financial and health fears and worries have made some people confused. However, every crisis can produce some positive outcomes, as difficulties stimulate new innovative ideas. Such a need creates the courage to change and that may include trust in social media marketing and distance tourism. As a result, tourists are more mobile than ever, and their information needs are constantly growing; almost no travel decision is made without prior virtual inspiration or internet research. In addition to the technical requirements of Web 2.0, there has been a change in the virtualization of social networks with much deeper consequences.  

The annual travel report by Euromonitor International Accelerating Travel Innovation after Coronavirus examined innovative concepts designed to accelerate recovery to survive, sharing best practices from the most technologically advanced to the simplest solutions, in four categories:  

  • Digital (virtual experiences, artificial intelligence and automation, biometrics, and digital identification, and 5G)  
  • Sustainability (domestic tourism, social impact, own resources, transparency in terms of carbon emissions, and new sustainable business models)  
  • Health (people first, safety and hygiene, social distance, diversification, and data analysis)  
  • Guests (offers, real-time information, flexibility, personalization, and affordable luxury) 

There are, however, several limitations that are currently holding the technology back, including large, unwieldy headsets and excessive costs. The most important limitation, according to Miguel Flecha, is that there has yet to be a trusted global brand to place its bets on VR. “The industry needs to believe in the technology,” he says. That may have begun to change with the launch in the US of Amazon Explore, a platform that gives access to one-on-one virtual experiences with tour guides and local residents in countries around the world. Experiences offered on the high-tech giant’s public beta version range from tours of Kyoto neighborhoods in Japan to artisan shopping in Costa Rica and fish taco cooking lessons in Mexico. As Mr. Flecha sees it, Amazon Explore may foretell the success or failure of VR in the travel industry. Serious investment by a high-tech giant and a trusted brand – Apple and Samsung are also looking into virtual reality – could, he believes, be the “great accelerator” needed. 

Retrieved from Scooterrise.com 

 VR a blessing? 

 Necessity is the mother of invention, so although we had the digital tools available for us, but it is this pandemic which brought out their significance and advantage of shrinking the world and making it accessible for people to satiate their sense of exploration and discover destinations and cultures which exist around the world. One pitfall that keeps arising is that technology is hugely dependent on internet access, which sometimes can be a challenge. One major benefit of this tech is that it offers an eco-friendly alternative to the rising problem of over-tourism. 

Virtual reality simulations must be created by people. Like most technologies, this means that the people responsible for creating virtual travel packages have a lot of control over how vacation destinations are represented to virtual tourists. One of the important benefits of tourism is that the tourist is usually forced to engage with native populations on their own terms (cruise ships and tropical all-inclusive resorts may be the exemption to the rule). This means that tourists can often learn that their preconceived notions of what other peoples or nations are like were wrong. With VR travel, this isn’t possible. 

Ralph Hollister explained that VR has historically remained a niche concern. “When the technology was first released to global consumers the technology was hampered by technical drawbacks and unrealistic expectations. VR is incredibly hard to love unless you are experiencing high-quality VR with a high-quality VR headset. Sets such as Google cardboard provide affordability but often a sub-par experience, which may be negative for VR’s overall reputation. Travel and tourism is incredibly tangible, which is something VR cannot fully provide. It may provide a temporary fix for travelers with current wanderlust during COVID-19, but it could still be disregarded when restrictions are lifted as it can’t meet other sensory needs, such as taste or smell.” 

In my opinion, I somewhat agree with Hollister (Travel and tourism is incredibly tangible, which is something VR cannot fully provide) as Virtual Travel does not offer the sensations of travel, touch smell, the environment therefore it cannot be considered as an alternative. Future tourism as we imagine it, entirely robotic, is not desirable. Humans are social beings, they need contact. A dimension that the VR cannot (yet) offer. Therefore, the consumer needs someone to accompany in their reflections and decisions. If a tour operator is not supposed to indicate which place is better than another in terms of its offers, the adviser will naturally do so, by expressing his or her opinion. Information that a robot or a virtual experiment will never be able to provide in the same way. 

Retrieved from CASE.org 

 Replacement for Physical Travel? 

A global survey by Italy4Real had found that VR travel will not replace real-life travel experiences. The following are some insights from the survey: 

  • 81 percent do not think virtual reality could ever replace real-life travel 
  • 90 percent say they would miss the full sensory experience of travelling 
  • 77 percent claim that the lack of local food and drinks would be a downside of VR travel, while 69 percent would miss meeting the locals and interacting with new people 
  • 52 percent say travel agents could be replaced by AI (Artificial Intelligence), but the majority agree that tour guides and hotel staff need a delicate touch 

What are the benefits of Virtual Tourism? 

Retrieved from BusinessWorldIT.com 

Even VR travel may not replace physical travel, but it has handful of benefits for tourism.  Because viewers can experience activities, locations, and destinations from the comfort of their own homes, there are many clear benefits to virtual tourism. The most obvious of these benefits is that viewers can see and experience a destination without traveling to it, which means they aren’t limited by available flights, travel logistics, safety concerns, and whether destinations are open. They don’t even have to think about time zones or weather conditions. The other huge benefit for viewers is cost. Virtual tourism makes destinations accessible to millions of people who may otherwise not be able to afford to travel to them. Viewers are embracing the rise in virtual tourism destinations and the increasing quality and availability of virtual reality technology to see and experience things they never thought possible. 

For the travel industry, virtual reality can be used in tourism marketing to enhance travel experience and shape the behavior of travel consumers. What technology can do today is absolutely remarkable. For Tourism, the clear benefit is the ability to stay top-of-mind with potential customers and to highlight a location, amenities, and offerings. Viewers who have experienced a hotel or location through virtual tourism are more likely to book a future stay and will eagerly anticipate experiencing the activity in the real world. There are also great marketing opportunities offered by virtual tourism technology. Potential guests can see a 360-degree view of a property and its amenities, rather than the flat images on a brochure or website. Experiencing a property this way increases the chances that viewers will want to visit in the future and means that they can easily share the virtual offerings with their friends and family. VR in the travel industry also helps specific brands stand out from the rest. VR’s success, like any other outlet, depends on the quality and creativity of the experience. Designing the right things in VR and investing in its quality will guarantee the best customer engagement. This fact has always translated into revenue. 

The most notable benefits of virtual reality in tourism go as follows: 

  • Attract more visitors by enabling them to experience the destination firsthand before even booking it; 
  • Showcase realistic 360-degree views of any destination or hotel in high resolution; 
  • Mesmerize travelers by allowing them to explore destinations on their own from the convenience of their home; 
  • Improve brand image by delivering unique brand engagement; 
  • Gain competitive advantage by offering unique, unforgettable experiences; 
  • Helping travelers worldwide become more comfortable using VR to explore travel destinations; 
  • Virtual reality is a fantastic way to advertise on social media. 

Potential for VR in Tourism 

Retrived from UIEXPERT.com

Virtual reality manages to fool the tourist’s senses into believing they are in the real world in their chosen destination. Through this reality, they can interact with fictional worlds that they could not explore in real life or with worlds that they could only visit with great effort. 

Nevertheless, while the virtual reality vacation is not necessarily destined to replace tomorrow’s travel, it does have features that could revolutionize the industry. Virtual reality could become tomorrow’s travel catalogue. A helmet and 360-degree immersion to help customers discover the destinations offered by tour operators would then replace the brochures on the counters. It is the perfect tool for preparing a trip without revealing everything, it would give a real foretaste and allow tourists to better target their preferred trip. Perhaps it could be even more useful. Without replacing travel, VR could make accessible destinations that are out of reach. It would help to relieve congestion at certain sites, which would be temporarily closed to allow them to regenerate in an eco-responsible manner. Consumers could also go to inaccessible places like space, for example. Or even change times. How? By reconstructing places on an archaeological site, a godsend for history fans eager for knowledge. Once on-site, the tour operator will offer an immersive and educational experience. To a small extent, of course, you don’t visit a place to have glasses on your head. Reliving Pompeii before it was destroyed, for example, like the exhibition currently on show at the Grand Palais in Paris. “Eventually, virtual reality will bring a new form of entertainment to the tourism industry,” imagines Erik Champion. It could appear in the main sites of major tourist destinations, but also as a pastime in airports.” No doubt a revolution is underway. 

The future of VR in tourism is bright and believe it or not with the help of this technology, the tourism industry is going to change. The immersive and interactive virtual reality (VR) is a great opportunity for tourism and travel businesses to offer a unique and memorable experience to their customers. VR technologies will surely continue to advance, and as such, the opportunities in the tourism sector will grow exponentially. Regardless of the direction in which these advancements and developments take place, immediate applications and trends are identified and used within the tourism industry already. VR can and probably will fundamentally change the way in which tourists’ experiences and requirements are managed entirely. Virtual reality will likely enable us to impressively share our experiences with friends and family in a way that brings these destinations to life like no slide show ever could. Many companies in the tourism industry have their sights set towards the future, and some even go so far and publish reports about their expected future developments. As an example, in the 2014 Skyscanner report ‘The Future of Travel 2024’, published by the company which is mostly known for offering a global travel search engine, they envision VR as a major influence on touristic experiences. They predict VR to “become a new form of show rooming, an incredible 3D taste of a destination that will make travelers long to experience the real thing.” (Skyscanner, 2014, p.24). 

 The future of VR in tourism is already here, despite how far it seems away. With the most recent developments in virtual reality (VR), it doesn’t seem like that will be changing anytime soon. VR is constantly gaining traction in the travel industry, and with good reason. VR makes it easy to create an immersive travel experience for anyone, anywhere. VR allows users to be transported to anywhere in the world, which means they’ll be able to experience the world in a way they never could before. VR allows users to feel like they are in the middle of the action, which is what makes it so appealing. VR is the wave of the future in tourism, and it’s not just about experiencing another place in real time.Thus, I think VR has the potential to replace the real world with a digital one. 

References 

Arbulú, I.; Razumova, M.; Rey-Maquieira, J.; Sastre, F. Measuring risks and vulnerability of tourism to the COVID-19 crisis in the context of extreme uncertainty: The case of the Balearic IslandsTour. Manag. Perspect. 2021 

Ralph, Hollister.; VR travel industry 

Rončák, M.; Scholz, P.; Linderová, I. Safety Concerns and Travel Behavior of Generation Z: Case Study from the Czech Republic. Sustainability 2021Gössling, S.; Scott, D.; Hall, C.M. Pandemics, tourism and global change: A rapid assessment of COVID-19. J. Sustain. Tour. 2020  

Rosário, A.; Raimundo, R. Consumer Marketing Strategy and E-Commerce in the Last Decade: A Literature Review. J. Theor.Appl. Electron. Commer. Res. 2021. 

Denise Chen.; Virtual Reality Vacation Offers New Kind of Entertainment, 2020 

Euromonitor International—Accelerating Travel Innovation after Coronavirus. Available online: https://go.euromonitor.com/white-paper-travel-201110-travel-innovation-after-coronavirus.html (accessed on 22 October 2021). 

Igbaria, M.; Schiffman, S.J.; Wieckowski, T.J. The respective roles of perceived usefulness and perceived fun in the acceptance of microcomputer technology. Behav. Inf. Technol. 1994. 

Kim, J.; Hardin, A. The impact of virtual worlds on word-of-mouth: Improving social networking and servicescape in the hospitality industry. J. Hosp. Mark. Manag. 2010. 

AllThingsVR. (2015). Infographic for input technologies for VR. 

Argyropoulou, A., Dionyssopoulou, P., & Miaoulis Georgios. (2011). Tourist Destination Marketing and Management Using Advanced ICTs Technologies. 

Skyscanner. (2014). The Future of Travel 2024: Planning & Booking. 

Barnes, S. (2016), “Understanding virtual reality in marketing: nature, implications and potential” 

Jung, T., Tom Dieck, M.C., Moorhouse, N. and Tom Dieck, D. (2017), “Tourists’ experience of virtual reality applications 

Beck, J. 2017. Try before you buy with Expedia. Virtual Reality in Tourism 

Cavanaugh, C. 2017. Virtual Reality And Augmented Reality Will Change Brand Experiences. 

Graham, L. 2016. Virtual reality devices could transform the tourism experience.

 

 

 

 

 

How to Improve Online Presence of Small Tourism Businesses?

Online information search is a crucial and often overlooked part of today’s consumers’ decision-making, and most of it is done through search engines or social media. The searches on search engines and social media platforms correlate with the visits in destinations[1]. Here I have a look at different research papers considering these subjects, in order to get a basic idea on how small and medium-sized tourism companies could be more active about their online presence in order to perform better also in real life.

Information gained from these channels is generally relevant and critical, giving voice to the customers and their options [2]. The holistic experience of the customer shows as a positive review online, making it easier for future potential customers to select the service provider.

Customer’s Search Process

Better business performance can be gained through investing in online marketing to get a little better spot on the search website. Consumers feel stronger value for their money and are less afraid of a fraud when they make the booking through reliable customer review site, like TripAdvisor [3]. Customers are more critical towards the actual advertisements of travel businesses and likes to rely more on consumers turned to producers, who publish their own reviews of destinations and tourism businesses [4]. Companies should always remind customers to send the reviews of their experience to keep the company visible and encouraging future customers’ interest in their products and services.

National DMOs need to make sure their presence in social media is active and relevant, and potential tourists feel easy making contact with them online [5]. Even during the Covid-19 pandemic, the destinations improved their presence in YouTube, for example, to keep future travelers intrigued and invested in travelling to their destinations after lockdowns end and borders re-open [6]. Even after the lockdowns travelling hasn’t been back to normal yet, because of all the economic and safety reasons, but the destinations kept their hopes up and reminding visitors that once it’s safe again, they are welcome to visit.

It is crucial that companies understand the customers’ search engine usage, and behavioral patterns when looking for the information and making plans [7]. When it comes to online visibility through search engines, companies and destinations need to consider the keywords they want to be found with [8]. Consumers like the search process to be smooth and easy, and they will not spend too much time looking for all the possible results, just focusing on the ones showing up first, and if the company hasn’t succeeded with being associated with the correct keywords, it will be missed among the more relevant results.

Most of the searches are made with up to 3-word questions, and 80 % of customers stop looking after the first page of results [9]. A good spot on the top of the list of search results isn’t enough, though. The snippet of the text needs to be attractive and informative enough to make the customer click it [10]. Companies should really put some thought on how they wish to be seen online, before customer enters their website or their own social media page.

Small and Medium-sized Companies

Small and medium sized hotels tend to rely on some distribution partners in order to improve the visibility, even if it leads on some adjusting on partners’ terms and ways of conduction [11]. According to Murphy & Kielgast, small and medium-sized hotels may not have the most recent and relevant IT skills, so their understanding of search engine marketing and optimization is not among the top of their skillset. Making sure that whoever is in charge of marketing of the company has basic skills in SEO, would do a major improvement on the general visibility and give the company some control over their web presence.

As small tourism companies usually run on quite low resources and few people, I understand that diving into analytics probably isn’t the top priority, no matter how useful data they could embrace there. Even if it’s not someone’s everyday job to keep an eye out of their performance on Google and other search engines, just checking and reacting to the numbers every now and then between other work tasks, could make a difference, if the data is used correctly.

Conclusions and Thoughts

Based on the research papers I read for this post, I have started to think about some small tourism business companies which I think could really improve their online presence. The number of visits at the website or social media profile can also be used as an indicator when thinking about the upcoming seasons and booking levels there. I do believe that most companies understand the significance of this, but just may be short-handed about the concrete actions they could do to make it smoother.

I think that DMOs and such could make this easier by providing some education and materials to local companies and organizations. Tourism business is competitive and co-operative at the same time and support between different operators will benefit everyone. DMOs could play big part in this by involving the local operators and possibly having someone with the skillset provide the consultation services among all the companies in the area.

I am looking forward to get more familiar with this subject, do some more research and maybe someday use my knowledge to help some small businesses’ performance improve.

References

[1]Mi Kyung Lee, Ho Young Yoon & Han Woo Park: From Online via Offline to Online: How Online Visibility of Tourism Information Shapes and Is Shaped by Offline Visits. Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing, Vol. 34, Issue 9, p. 1143 – 1154. https://www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy.uef.fi:2443/doi/full/10.1080/10548408.2017.1330727

[2]Antonio J. D. V. T. Melo, Rosa M. Hernandez-Maestro & Pablo A. Muñoz-Gallego: Service Quality Perceptions, Online Visibility, and Business Performance in Rural Lodging Establishments. Journal of Travel Research, Vol. 56, Issue 2. https://journals-sagepub-com.ezproxy.uef.fi:2443/doi/full/10.1177/0047287516635822

[3]Markus Schuckert, Xianwei Liu & Rob Law: Hospitality and Tourism Online Reviews: Recent Trends and Future Directions. Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing, Vol. 32, Issue 5, p. 608 – 621. https://www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy.uef.fi:2443/doi/full/10.1080/10548408.2014.933154

[4]Eric Horster & Carsten Gottschalk: Computer-assisted Webnography: A New Approach to Online Reputation Management in Tourism. Journal of Vacation Marketing, Vol. 18, Issue 3. https://journals-sagepub-com.ezproxy.uef.fi:2443/doi/full/10.1177/1356766712449369

[5]Vitor Roque & Rui Raposo: Social Media as a Communication and Marketing Tool in Tourism: An Analysis of Online Activities from International Key Player DMO. Anatolia, An International Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Research, Vol. 27, Issue 1, p. 58 – 70. https://www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy.uef.fi:2443/doi/full/10.1080/13032917.2015.1083209

[6] Eran Ketter & Eli Avraham: #StayHome Today So We Can #TravelTomorrow: Tourism Destinations’ Digital Marketing Strategies During the Covid-19 Pandemic. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, Vol.38, Issue 8, p. 819 – 832. https://www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy.uef.fi:2443/doi/full/10.1080/10548408.2021.1921670

[7]Zhen Xiang & Bing Pan: Travel Queries on Cities in the United States: Implications for Search Engine Marketing for Tourist Destinations. Tourism Management, Vol. 32, Issue 1, 2011, p. 88 – 97. https://www-sciencedirect-com.ezproxy.uef.fi:2443/science/article/pii/S026151770900226X?via%3Dihub

[8]Chaitanya Vyas: Evaluating State Tourism Websites Using Search Engine Optimization Tools. Tourism Management, Vol. 73, 2019, p. 64 – 70. https://www-sciencedirect-com.ezproxy.uef.fi:2443/science/article/pii/S0261517719300196?via%3Dihub

[9]Alexandros Paraskevas & Ioannis Katsogridakis: Search Engine Marketing: Transforming Search Engines into Hotel Distribution Channels. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, Vol. 52, Issue 2. https://journals-sagepub-com.ezproxy.uef.fi:2443/doi/abs/10.1177/1938965510395016

[10]Bing Pan: The Power of Search Engine Ranking for Tourist Destinations. Tourism Management, Vol. 47, 2015, p. 79 – 87. https://www-sciencedirect-com.ezproxy.uef.fi:2443/science/article/pii/S0261517714001678?via%3Dihub

[11]Hilary Catherine Murphy & Christian D. Kielgast: Do Small and Medium-Sized Hotels Exploit Search Engine Marketing? International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 20, Issue 1. https://www-emerald-com.ezproxy.uef.fi:2443/insight/content/doi/10.1108/09596110810848604/full/html

How content producers can use AI in digital marketing

Do you want to use AI to create better content? There’s no doubt that content production is getting more complex every day. It’s getting hard to get noticed on social media. Your inbox is packed with repetitive messages, and you must fight against a massive crowd to get people to read your content. And then there’s the problem of creating high-value content—it takes time and effort that many content producers and social media managers don’t have. Wouldn’t it be great if AI could help you?

Yes, it would! Today I’ll dive into how AI can produce better content for you than any human could ever do.

Use AI to create better text content

 

Fun fact – The text above was created for me in under 2 minutes using Copy.AI. All I had to do was explain what I wanted to write and what information the introduction should contain. 

 

 

Original text:
Topic of the blog post: How can content producers use AI in marketing?
A few key points:
Common problem: It’s getting harder to get noticed on social media. The content needs to be engaging, informative and stand out from the massive crowd. Creating high-value content takes time and effort that many content producers and social. media managers don’t have.
What to expect from the blog post: An introduction to how you can use AI to create better content.
Ask: Do you think AI can produce better content than you?

Impressive, right?

But what is AI? 

Artificial intelligence can be used by businesses to, for example, inform customers about their products, provide personalized alternatives, and understand their customers better.¹ Businesses and content creators also use Ai when creating content for campaigns and digital marketing, such as copywriting (copy.ai), graphic design (graphicdesign.ai) and even photography (dall-e 2). 

And why is high-value content important?

Creating content is time-consuming but necessary to maintain connections online. A study by Kenzie Burchell² shows that social media users feel disconnected from people who use the same social media platform but for different reasons than themselves. And a study by Stina Bengtsson and Sofia Johansson³ shows that young social media users in Sweden “unfollow” other social media users to whom they don’t feel connected. They “unfollow” users that they are not inspired by, and users make them feel “the wrong thing”.

A study by Nicolas Hamelin, Sameh Ai-Shihabi, Sara Quach and Park Thaichon in 2022⁴ showed that the company logo and brand name aren’t as important as the photographs and information used in advertisements. According to the study, we can assume that it is more important now than ever to create high-value content offline and online. With 96% of 20 to 30-year-old Swedes using social media daily³, this is also very important online. Businesses should focus on creating lively entertainment to strengthen their relationships on social media. ⁵ By using pictures and text to evoke emotions, you affect how your customers receive your content. How successful you are in evoking emotions in your customers can be measured with, for example, likes and engagement rates.

It’s time to embrace AI
– Nobert Wirth

How can you use AI in content creation?

Artificial Intelligence can help digital marketers achieve big things. ⁶ New AI applications are appearing on the market constantly. An AI application should be able to learn, reason, predict and plan. With this, you can use AI to create better content, for example, text production, image editing⁷ and video production. AI solutions are already replacing human knowledge in online targeting and dynamic attribution. ⁷ 

Here are four different ways you can use AI to create better content:

  1. Copywriting.
    1. AI can be used to create simple text but also more complicated ones. You can use AI to write text for your Instagram och blog post, create content for your website and even write difficult e-mails.
  2. Proofread your content
    1. You can also use AI to proofread the content that you have created. Having AI proofread your text is an easy and fast way to check your grammar and even get suggestions on making your text easier to read. Another fun fact; this text was proofread by Grammarly, which helped me make the text easier to read = better SEO points, YEY!

     

  3. Edit your photos

    You can use AI to get beautiful and professional-looking results quickly. Some apps can edit the light and colours and even delete unwanted things from the photo. Using Dall-e 2 you can create an image from scratch without leaving your home.

    Use Ai to create a photo of a dog in a hotel bed

  4. Edit videos

You can use AI to create new videos and edit your own. Ai can, for example, be used to match the colours of your video clips and cut your video clips so that the transitions are smoother. And just like photos, Ai can create new videos from scratch (more on the negative aspects of this later).

So… Should you use it?

Social media can negatively impact entrepreneurs⁸ and social media and marketing managers. Social media is becoming a big part of our lives, and social media connections require more time and attention than ever before⁸. A study on by Fakhar Shahzad, Adnan Fateh, Raja Suzana, Raja Kasim, Kashif Akram & Sheikh Farhan Ashraf showed that entrepreneurs with many social media followers are spending more and more time maintaining their connections. According to the study, female entrepreneurs feel stressed when they cannot keep their social media at the required level. Also, a study by Faseeh Amin and Mohammad Furqan Khan⁹ shows that people who are concerned about their number of likes and followers on social media are more stressed due to social media. It also shows that people who are dependent on social media platforms are more likely to feel stressed than others.

From the studies mentioned above, we can conclude that social media managers and marketers feel stressed when they have less time to create content and maintain relationships with their customers on social media. By using AI to help you write engaging Instagram captions and create eye-catching graphics, you’ll have more time to engage with your followers, build relationships and drive traffic to your social media accounts. And since social media platforms work best when used as a tool to communicate with your customers¹⁰, you should use more time to engage and communicate instead of just creating the content.

What can be the negative impacts of AI-produced content?

Remembering the negative impacts AI can have on content production is crucial. You can even create fake videos and photos of people doing things that they haven’t done¹ which, in my opinion, isn’t ethical at all. It can be challenging to notice if an AI-made video is fake, and it can be very dangerous. Fake videos made by AI are used in, for example, political campaigns.

Leave your opinion in the comments!

In my opinion, AI applications like Grammarly, Copy.Ai, and Adobe Sensei are great additions to a content producer’s toolbox. In my experience, content production can be highly time-consuming. Creating engaging content for over five social media accounts daily can be challenging. Having the chance to use AI to create better content is always welcome. With that said, it is essential to use them ethically. For example, I don’t think creating false pictures of a destination or business is ethical. My question is… If you use AI when creating content, does it mean that the content is no longer yours, or are these just more tools for the content producer’s toolbox to make even better content?

So what do you think? Is AI something you consider using when creating content for your next marketing campaign?

Sources:

¹ Patrick Van Esch and J. Stewart Black (2021), Artificial Intelligence (AI): Revolutionizing Digital Marketing 

² Kenzie Burchell (2017), Everyday communication management and perceptions of use: How media users limit and shape their social world 

³Stina Bengtsson and Sofia Johansson (2022), The Meanings of Social Media Use in Everyday Life: Filling Empty Slots, Everyday Transformations, and Mood Management 

⁴Nicolas Hamelin, Sameh Al-Shihabi, Sara Quach and Park Thaichon (2022), Forecasting Advertisement Effectiveness: Neuroscience and Data Envelopment Analysis 

⁵Xi Chen, Chunlan Jiao, Ran Ji and You Li (2021), Examining Customer Motivation and Its Impact on Customer Engagement Behavior in Social Media: The Mediating Effect of Brand Experience 

⁶Mithun S. Ullal, Iqbal Thonse Hawaldar, Rashmi Soni and Mohammed Nadeem (2021), The Role of Machine Learning in Digital Marketing 

⁷Nobert Wirth (2018), Hello marketing, what can artificial intelligence help you with? 

⁸Fakhar Shahzad, Adnan Fateh, Raja Suzana Kasim, Kashif Akram and Sheikh Farhan Ashraf (2021), Late-Night Use of Social Media and Cognitive Engagement of Female Entrepreneurs: A Stressor–Strain–Outcome Perspective

⁹Faseeh Amin and Mohammad Furqan Khan (2020), Online Reputation and Stress: Discovering the Dark Side of Social Media

¹⁰Amir Zaib Abbasi, Raouf Ahmad Rather, Ding Hooi Ting, Saima Nasir, Khalil Hussain, Muddasar Ghani Khwaja and Amjad Shamin (2022), Exploring tourism-generated social media communication, brand equity, satisfaction, and loyalty: A PLS-SEM-based multi-sequential approach 

How can we apply Harry Potter’s sorting hat into tourism marketing?

 

The novel Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone by J.K. Rowling (1997) is the first to introduce the concept of the Sorting Hat. The Sorting Hat is a hat that has a magical ability to sort the first-year pupils of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry into their “houses”, i.e. the groups of pupils that they will represent through their school years. The House-system is used in schools across the English-speaking world but evidently, the Sorting Hat exists mainly in J.K. Rowling’s fantasy literature. But does it really have to?

In the book, the Sorting Hat bases its conclusions on pupils’ values and characteristics. Each of the houses possesses different sets of qualities and values that they expect their pupils to share. The Hat divides pupils into houses most suitable for their characteristics. Although being quite strict in the novel due to there being only four houses, the concept is interesting from the marketing point of view. The idea of a marketing factor guiding customer behavior towards goods and services closest to their likings and values sounds almost too good to be true. What kind of sorting hat could we utilize in tourism marketing and what could it do for the tourism industry and tourist experience? What would happen if we could outsource the destination and activity decision-making process and turn around the basic idea of targeted marketing? Let’s find out.

Why do we travel?

To utilize a sorting hat -concept in the tourism industry, we must understand the basic nature of tourism: why do we travel? What good do we achieve by sitting in an airplane for hours or by staring at some reindeers in Lapland? According to Philip Pearce (2005) reasons for travelling and decisions made before, during and after a trip can depend on numerous variables. Demographic and psychographic qualities, style of travelling and destination for example are qualities that can be used to categorize tourists. Sine Heitmann (2011) proceeds to define tourism motivation through a tourist’s cultural background. But on our way to find out why do we travel; the answer lies in psychology like it so often does.

To understand tourism motivation, it is essential to understand the concept of motivation. Seppo Iso-Ahola (1982), has defined motivation as guiding energy that makes one pursue goals and make essential decisions on the way there. Motive, a reason for pursuing something, is an awareness of future satisfaction. Satisfaction is a collaboration of push and pull factors – a theory often used to describe a person’s reasons for travelling. Push and pull factors form the decision by giving a tourist a reason to leave and a destination to pursue. Awareness of future satisfaction provides energy to make essential decisions and to pursue one’s goals and therefore the motivation to travel is formed.

Sine Heitmann (2011) adds the need for travelling into the definition of tourist motivation. She sees a more practical approach to decision-making and sees there a need and series of actions made to fulfil that need. This is highly similar to push- and pull- theory. The need for travelling is a kind of push factor and the pull factor needs something touchable from tourists’ desires and needs. Therefore, the need and fulfilling that need can be a link in a tourist’s decision-making process and defines the question of why we travel; we travel because we have a need or desire to do so.

Targeted marketing in a nutshell

By understanding who we are dealing with and what guides their motivation, we can start to understand why they travel. A tourist’s values, qualities, travelling experience, area of living and especially personal desires determine a lot when making decisions. But, as a tourism marketing student, I can’t ignore the impact of marketing on a tourist’s decision-making process. After all, marketing is a bridge between customers’ needs and desires and the market’s offerings, a way to match supply and demand if you will (Dolnicar & Ring 2014). But tourists aren’t a homogenous group with their needs and desires. Therefore, we need to decide who we are selling our products for and to recognize our main customers.

Targeted marketing is a way of marketing that allows marketers to target marketing efforts for distinct customer segments (Camilleri 2017). This happens by categorizing our customers and by defining the mutual qualities between our customers and their needs and desires. So, in a nutshell, targeted marketing is a way of marketing your products for those who are willing to buy them and need them by identifying needs associated with your products. This seems quite simple: by knowing my customers and products I could avoid wasting my resources on selling stuff for someone who isn’t interested. Targeting my marketing efforts can have a nice effect on both customer retention and satisfaction and my company’s cash flow.

When written like this it seems that someone already has invented the Sorting Hat long before J.K. Rowling did. But what about if you don’t know that you are part of someone’s intended customer segment and target group? Probably someone must have thought of this and marketing today probably can reach even those not aware of their status as someone’s target group. But could there be a slight niche or even a little bit of Blue Ocean (cf. the Blue Ocean Strategy by Kim and Mauborgne from 2004) for Harry Potter’s Sorting Hat in that small question?

What is a personality quiz?

According to Verywell Mind -webpage, a personality test or a quiz is a test or a tool that defines different qualities and characteristics of a tested person and assesses human personality. Personality tests are used in the medical world and can help diagnose, therapeutic processes and is closely associated with studying human behavior. Personality tests can also be used as entertainment. When talking about entertaining personality tests the term is usually personality quiz. The Internet offers a wide variety of different personality quizzes and, not surprisingly, there are also many quizzes that tell the tested persons their Hogwarts houses, like the Sorting Hat.

Photo by Unsplash.com

Apparently, the author of Harry Potter -novels has constructed an online quiz to work as a Harry Potter fans’ sorting hat. There have even been several studies concerning this personality test and according to Jacob et al. (2019) the test possesses some slight accuracy from behavior study and psychology point-of-view. They figured that the test works mainly by defining qualities and values in the books commonly associated with each of the houses and by forming heavy stereotypes the test can guess with some accuracy the house most suitable for the one taking the test.

The Sorting Hat

Although not being the most accurate personality test available and working mainly on stereotypes, the idea behind the study and the value-guided functionality of the test is highly interesting. After all personal values have, according to Pearce (2005), Iso-Ahola (1982) and Heitmann (2011), a major role in all consuming-related decisions and are a key element in brand communication according to Lisa Sounio (2010). Therefore, this sorting hat theme isn’t that far-fetched. Could we transport this into marketing tourism products?

Targeted marketing might not recognize all the potential customers due to it focusing commonly on recognized customer personas and tourist segments. This means that those who don’t realize they are someone’s target group can get left out of fulfilling and interesting products and services. The companies behind these services lose potential income and visibility by missing people who might be interested in their products. But this scenario can’t be totally avoided because targeting marketing for specific segments depends highly on potential tourists knowing what they want. If a tourist is unaware of being possibly part of a target group, the tourist can’t be reached due to a lack of former activity and interest. Then that tourist might stay as a potential customer also in future. But hypothetically, could we turn the situation above upside down and outsource the customer segmentation for the tourists themselves?

When thinking about the push- and pull- factors, the necessary part is the push, the need and the desire to travel. Would it be possible to focus as a marketer, a representative of a tourism agency or an OTA only advertising the pull factors of a given area? Then we could let the tourists determine their traveler profile and suitable locations, travelling styles and other characteristics that usually are done by marketing specialists. Mehmetoglu et al. (2010) have studied the significance of values in tourist behavior and decision making. They defined personal values to be reliable predictors of consumer behavior. This is supported by Pearce’s (2005) and Iso-Ahola’s (1982) findings. The meaning of values in consumer behavior is an interesting finding in the context of Jacob’s & al. (2019) study. The view of Harry Potter’s sorting hat is highly based on personal values in both novels and Harry Potter’s author’s Sorting Hat -quiz.

Photo by Unsplash.com

At this point, an OTA-based, semi-entertaining tourist personality test is starting to sound quite interesting to me. A common OTA possesses quite a few tourism companies more on its site than the Hogwarts School possesses houses. Therefore, the accuracy of an OTA-based tourist personality test should be higher than that introduced by J.K. Rowling – at least when executed properly. This could take some pressure of segmenting and categorizing targeted groups. Through the test’s psychological and value-guided base the decision of a tourist would be scientifically valid. An OTA-based tourist personality test could therefore improve tourist retention and satisfaction.  This concept would also reach those potential tourists that get left out of target groups because the only upfront information needed here is if there is a need or desire to travel.

This is highly hypothetical and out of my own substance but as an idea, I think it is worth playing with. After all, marketing is an innovative field of work and what would be a more innovative approach than Harry Potter. Sometimes it can be useful to rattle one’s way of thinking because it can bring up something no one hasn’t thought about before. OTA-based, psychological and value-guided tourist personality test definitely is something ponder. Would you like to get sorted for your next journey?

 

References

Camilleri, M. A. (2018). Market Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning. In Travel Marketing, Tourism Economics and the Airline Product (Chapter 4, pp. 69-83). Springer, Cham, Switzerland.

Dolnicar, S., & Ring, A. (2014). Tourism marketing research: Past, present and future. Annals of Tourism Research, 47, 31-47.

Iso-Ahola, S. (1982). Towards a social psychological theory of tourism motivation. 1982 Annals of Tourism Research, 256-262.

Jakob, L., Garcia-Garzon, E., Jarke, H., & Dablander, F. (2019). The science behind the magic? the relation of the harry potter “Sorting hat quiz” to personality and human values. Collabra. Psychology, 5(1)

Mehmetoglu, M., Hines, K., Graumann, C., & Greibrokk, J. (2010). The relationship between personal values and tourism behaviour: A segmentation approach. Journal of Vacation Marketing, 16, 17-27.

Pearce, P. (2005). Tourist behavior: Themes and conceptual schemes 

Robinson, P., Heitmann, S., & Dieke, P. (2011). Research themes for tourism. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 24(6), 31-45.

Sounio, L. (2010). Brändikäs

 

 

What makes or breaks the content on a good tourism website?

What kind of content works on a top-notch tourism website? What actually engages the visitor to stay on the page longer and better yet -develop a genuine interest towards the company?

When a few small things are taken into consideration, it is easier to capture the attention of the visitor. The most important thing to take into consideration is the customer value proposition.

The nitty-gritties

Who is your customer, what problem are you trying to solve for them, what are your customers’ needs and what will they gain from your services? By answering these questions you are well on your way of designing prime content for your website.

Answering these questions is also important because a website acts as a first impression -the first few seconds determine whether or not the visitor will stay on your site. The content on your website must be engaging not just for selling but for solving the customers’ needs in the best case. Also, keep in mind you may want to produce different content for your various target groups.

Make the first impressions count

Needless to say, what affects the first impression is the visuality of your site; pictures, videos, colours etc. Did you know that there’s research to show that visuality affects the customers ability to imagine themselves in your destination or using your product? Now you do. While it may not work to your advantage to have a 2 minute HD ad video on your site as it would slow it down, it will be beneficial to have relevant pictures and you may want to consider shorter clips.

Symbolic ideas for content

Convince, link and create

Whatever you produce onto your website, the content has to be persuasive as this affects the customers’ attitudes towards your company and product. The tone in which you present your written points should also be consistent -this way you maintain credibility in the eyes of the reader. In addition, you should sound confident but not intimidating and the tone must tell the story of your business and be in line with what you offer.

A couple of tech-savvy pieces of content that are good to have would be online chats, relevant calls to action as well as reviews from your clients and perhaps even photos taken by your customers. Don’t forget to include your contact details or social media links either! If you’re for example writing a blog, it might be an idea to include a snippet from your content there as well.

Above all, your website content needs to tell a story, as stories are what appeals to us and make us engage with a brand. Don’t just lay out the facts and service attributes but tell the emotional stories around them.

DTTT Global 2019, Day 2

The second day (Read about the first day here) of DTTT was all about technology and digitalization. What we can learn from data and how we can benefit data in place branding, leading and marketing.

Lead with data. Do marketing with it, learn from it, optimize – optimize – optimize – then do it again.

Head of Telia data technology Tapio Levä gave an inspirational speech on things you can do with data in Finland. Tourism sector statistics have been depended on interviews, surveys and such, where they calculate and estimate overall income to the area. Well, I have some good news: No more guessing! Data that you can get from mobile phones is mind-blowing: You can see e.g. from where the tourist is coming, how long he/she stays in the area, where they go during their stay etc. And most importantly: no more guessing about day visitors which does not stay at hotels: they are included in the statistics as well!  Tapio Levä told us an example from Ed Sheeran’s gig in Helsinki – where the estimation was 9 m. € in revenue – from 2 days!

(Source: Tapio Levä’s presentation 5.12.2019)

Data gives us access to information what we have not to be able to see before. In discussions throughout the day, it was clear that using data improves collaboration with the stakeholders and it gives tools to understand tourism flows better. By using data, the traveller’s customer journey is possible to form from the first idea to get abroad to marketing after the visit. It is essential to learn constantly from your data and optimize your marketing by how your data is changing. E.g. in Benidorm, they understood from data that tourists from the USA are interested in their destination and are talking about it and changes their marketing strategies based on that.

In Ireland, they’ve put data into some serious work. By utilizing data they’ve built up a detailed customer journey and touchpoints. In practice, they collect data on how one tourist acts during their stay. Based on that data AI builds customer profiles and recommendations with future tourists with a similar profile. A massive project with 48 m. cookies and 1,5 m. digital touchpoints. WOW!

Content is king – Tell a story worth hearing!

As I love great stories and marketing, I want to showcase a few examples heard during DTTT on great stories utilized around destination brands.

In Vienna, they celebrate Ludvig van Beethoven’s 250th birthday and Capital of Music –title year in 2020. One way on how they combined LVB’s to a digital era, was to combine Alexa with Beethoven.

They did a project, where the integrate a vivid story of Beethoven with Alexa’s voice commands. With a command “I want to hear something about Beethoven” Alexa tells a 2 min long story about how he has lived his life in Wien. After one story it gives 3 more alternatives to where to continue with the story. So, it’s kind of a book I’ve read in my childhood where after one chapter you can choose what alternative you take.  Except that you communicate with Alexa and hear the story from it.

(Source: Andrea Kostner DTTT 5.12 (A model from the storyline plots)

I think that this was a great example of how to build up great stories that combine place history and place attachment with place branding. And I instantly started to think about how could we in Finland e.g. take advantage of this in Jean Sibelius’s 160th birthday in the year 2025.. 🙂

The USA also used storytelling by creating unique stories around its destination brand based on the musical history of the country. They collaborated with “minor” actors such as MTV, BBC, and Spotify and let them create content independently around the topic. One result with Daily Telegraph was this microsite where the stories were combined with the evolution of music 

Collaboration with open API

It’s obvious that technological solutions revolutionize tourism research and gives huge opportunities to destinations in optimizing and personalizing tourism flows. More importantly, it emphasizes collaboration IN the destination. Today, your business does not exist if you are not on Facebook and you don’t have a webpage – but tomorrow you don’t exist if you don’t collaborate. You don’t survive if you do things just by yourself.

tomorrow you don’t exist if you don’t collaborate.

Collaboration is in the focal point also now in Saimaa – where they try to achieve a title for the European Capital of Culture for the year 2026. To do that they must collaborate with 4 provinces all together – tourism, culture and most importantly, the local people. Digital tools and technological solutions give great tools on achieving this by first collecting data from all the stakeholders in one place and secondly, sharing that knowledge with anyone whose interested. The first thing to create collaboration is that stakeholders are aware of each other. Not just inside one city or just inside one province – but in Saimaa and Finland and the Nordics etc. To gain a competitive advantage you must collaborate and think big.

Conclusions:

  1. Digitalization enables collaboration, it can make collaboration more visible and open via different kinds of platforms. Data provides information on what has been “hidden knowledge” before. This knowledge can be used on planning customer journeys etc. Besides just planning – you can see in real facts how you have succeeded in your plans.  Sharing is caring – no matter if you are a DxO or RMO, tourism stakeholder or just an average Joe. Sharing knowledge with each other creates stories, gives data, creates collaboration, gives a competitive advantage. By utilizing data and technology, that work is more easily done.

2) The second conclusion is that AI is here. We are in the middle of a big change in society where digitalization, automation, AI and robots are already here. There’s no use on denying and fearing that robots are taking on the world. Let’s face it: we are living in the middle of sci-fi society. When you think about what kind of things we already have, it is something I couldn’t dream of in my wildest dreams in my childhood. ( but I’m still waiting for the flying cars!) Instead of living in fear, you have to look forward and figure out ways on how to utilize this efficiently. I think in this sense I saw quite a few good examples on how to utilize data efficiently what it comes to the tourism sector.

That’s my view from #DTTT Global 2019, hope you enjoyed it!

Tourism Marketing and Management to start studying extraterrestrial tourists

Today is an excellent day to launch our new mission: we will focus now on how to make our world more hospitable for extraterrestrial tourists. There have been concrete sightings of UFOs for decades, clearly suggesting that we are constantly being visited by extraterrestrial aliens.

In 2017 we at Tourism Marketing and Management programme started educating postgraduate students at University of Eastern Finland with the mission of making tourism better. However, as a result of recent strategy meetings, we have identified an even more prominent research stream.

Research on extraterrestrial tourists

When we started looking into the topic it came as a bit of a surprise to us how little academic research could be found even remotely connected to intergalactic tourism. Sure, there are already academics studying space tourism, but this research is mostly focused on humans as tourists, like almost all other tourism topics before it. Based on the number of sightings Earth must be a popular tourist destination for aliens, but the academic literature on the topic is almost non-existent. This is what we now aim to change.

UFOs
Extraterrestrial tourists arriving

Various new research topics

There are several different topics that our research group and our students will start examining. First of all, we are interested in their travel motivations: why do the aliens undertake such long interstellar voyages to visit Earth? We are also interested in what makes them choose Earth among all the planets in the universe? What makes Earth so special? Understanding these topics helps us to better design our destination to meet traveller needs. Even though finding respondents for our survey might prove challenging we are close to signing a memorandum of understanding with NASA and hopefully will be able to interview our guests at Area 51. A new form of collaboration is needed to cater for the needs of these customers, as well as to rethink the traditional definitions of tourist destinations.

We will also study the sustainability of interstellar tourism by calculating the dark matter emissions of travelling to Earth from many of our major source markets. A global study will be conducted to calculate the economic impacts of extraterrestrial visits as well as what kind of effect the alien tourism has on our culture. The results should provide us with important knowledge to guide our marketing decisions to a more sustainable direction.

The search continues, now for tourism research purposes.

Unique postgraduate programme

This novel research stream will differentiate our programme and take it to the next level. This is evident with the success of our latest recruitment process. Professor April S.F. Ools (Ph.D.) will start developing cross-cultural marketing and management at our programme. We will be the only academic postgraduate programme to really see the big, intergalactic picture of tourism.

Understanding this seldom studied tourist group will contribute to our understanding of the world and offer novel insights into tourism as a research topic as well as an industry. The students graduating from our programme will be innovative out-of-box thinkers with unique intercultural communication capabilities and understanding.

Are you looking for an international tourism-focused master’s degree programme in business? Tourism Marketing and Management programme by University of Eastern Finland provides a unique learning experience for students who have finished their bachelor’s degree and are looking for new skills and knowledge in developing tourism industry in a sustainable way. Read more about the programme at www.uef.fi/tmm.

 

 

Self-employed Business Owner: Why Learning Basics of Digital Marketing Saves you Money while Growing your Business?                                                                                                 

Are you preparing cottage rooms for next guests? Driving dog sledge through low-lying arctic hills? Preparing dinner for a group of visitors? If you’d take less than 10 minutes of your time to read through this blog post, I can promise you’ll be even busier after few months’ time.

So, do you have time to talk about getting better return to your hard-earned money that you put to marketing? Especially if the marketing and digital marketing frustrates you at the moment. I know – I’ve been there. And now I’m writing this blog post to You.

Most of the small tourism companies do have web pages and they are in the Facebook, but it doesn’t automatically mean that your customers will find you. You can be like the wall paper that is in the store but cannot be found. Or even like a pretty nice looking wall paper put on display but still don’t get customers’ attention. In order to break through from “the lost wall paper corner of internet” and get the awareness you deserve from potential customers, I recommend to consider the following three things:

  • What are the key words that your webpage is optimised for?

    Key words are crucial “tags” to help search engines like Google to find your web page when your potential customers are searching for services that also your company offers. Key words help your web page appear in the first page of Google search results. Also having links to other relevant web pages serve the same purpose.

  • Content is the King! 

    …in all channels. I understand that you don’t have time to be in Facebook or in other channels every day and figure out what you should post or write. You have real customers to serve. To make this easier to yourself make a list or even a calendar. Just listing what you’ll update and when keeping it simple and realistic. You don’t have to go from no activity to ten activities during a week at once. Good content frequently is ok. The content can be e.g. photos, happy customers (with their permission), positive customer feedbacks (testimonials) or even something cleaver about the weather. And of course, customers want to get to know you. Tell your story – in the extent that you feel comfortable with.

    While you are posting photos in Facebook you can do that as well in Instagram. You can open an Instagram page for your business here: https://www.instagram.com/accounts/login/. In Instagram use those hashtags (#) with the words you want your business to be connected with.

By to way, all those likes, shares and comments in your social media pages are worth money. This is not online marketing basics anymore, but if you are interested in deepen your knowledge you can listen more about this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im26jZT-eQw. I promise, this is useful.

  • Get to know the magical place of Google Analytics

Measuring outcomes of our actions is as relevant in digital marketing as it is in other areas of the business. Addition to the fact that it shows you how well did you succeed, that you don’t end up buying possibly too expensive marketing actions which don’t deliver what you hoped them to. Useful tool to follow up your online marketing actions is Google Analytics. See easy first steps to take to get started here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZf3YYkIg8w.

Optimising your web page so that customers find it is the first step. But as a second step you can make advertisements online to boost your visibility. Just remember to have proper web page before you advertise it: updated, relevant information to customers and possibility to buy your services, if the online selling is relevant for your business model. There are free tools to test the quality of your web page like this one: https://www.seoptimer.com/. They also give recommendations to improve your site.

 

If you got at least a little bit interested in, please Google your business – not with the name of the business, but with some other words that you’d use as a customer looking for the kind of services your business offers. If you find your business web page from the first page and your competitors are below you in Google search results, you have done something right. Congratulations! If you, on the other hand, find yourself from the second or the third page in Google search results, you’ve been able to hide your business to the place where no one looks – to the lost wall paper corner of internet. But don’t worry, you can break out from there by getting started with the steps described in this article. If you find this difficult or you just don’t have time for it, you can buy this as a service. And now you have better understanding what you are paying for.

Get a master’s degree in tourism business

Are you looking for an international tourism-focused master’s degree programme in business? Tourism Marketing and Management programme by University of Eastern Finland provides a unique learning experience for students who have finished their bachelor’s degree and are looking for new skills and knowledge in developing tourism industry in a sustainable way. Read more about the programme at www.uef.fi/tmm.

How information technology can help in customer relationship

The customer comes first.  Classy saying, right? Surely that guideline, or perhaps a cliché, creates some kind of thoughts in your head. Do you consider it important?

Customer relationship is also such a classic term in the business world. Well, that for sure is essential! However, which elements in customer relationship matter the most for DMO’s and tourism businesses, and how could information technology could help?

Master level business students in Information Technology in Tourism -course figured it out, via rather a successful brainstorming. Firstly, all the possible elements that belong to customer relationship were considered. Secondly, the most important ones of them were marked. So, let’s start digging deeper into the world of the customer relationship, and how to combine it with information technology.

Five key groups were created out of all: interaction, customer engagement, networks, feedback, and personality. Each of these included numerous of subgroups. There is reallyy no point introducing all the subjects that came across. Instead, let’s have a closer look to the top 5 topics that were marked the most important of all and consider how information technology could help in tourism business generally.

Trust

Simply put: manage your customers’ expectations and do what you promise. Take care of your customers, for example by protecting their data. Show your reviews and customer testimonials, be open and transparent.

Co-creation

Listen to your customers, and also ask them. After doing by their suggestions, measure how you’ve been doing things to basically see if you’ve got it right. There are numerous ways to measure your online success, make sure you use at least one of them.

Customer Relationship Management

Naturally, managing your customer relationships generally is important. Your ideal CRM should form in simplicity, price, and relevance best suitable for your business. There are many software and electronic systems to help you with that. Why not give them a try?

Personality

In every step of your customer relationship, make sure that the customers recognize it’s you they are working with. If you have a personal style to do things, keep it and embrace it! That is easy to do in the digital world, just create a unique look to suit your company and publish similar looking style in each content.

24/7 availability

It might need resources to have 24/7 availability but do your best. Being a fast answerer creates trust. It also allows you to do co-creation with your customers. What comes around goes around. If a customer is so interested in what you are offering that they are contacting you, use this opportunity well!

Therefore, next time you are considering how well customer relationships are taken care of in your tourism business, think about the topics discussed and how well they are being managed. And trust it, you’ve got it.

 

 

The next big wave in tourism marketing

*This article is written by Tourism Marketing and Management students Jonna Kumpu and Tiina Kattilamäki

The second #IFITTtalk @Helsinki seminar on Digitalization in Tourism business was held at Hotel Arthur on Tuesday 15th of May. The seminar was opened by Kari Halonen from ToolBox Ltd, who was also the main organizer of the day. The opening speech was given by Juho Pesonen from the University of Eastern Finland, who has his thoughts on digitalization and customer experience. It is especially this focus on the customer experience that will be changing tourism marketing on a profound level in the future. Of course, the experience has always been important in tourism, but now with social media and the importance of earned media and technological development, customer experience will be the key to success in tourism. It was also the focus of this IFITTtalk seminar. 

Multisensory experience is the future of tourism marketing

During the day, we got to listen to several speakers and their thoughts and best practices concerning digitalization in the tourism field. One of the most interesting speeches was given by Pasi Tuominen from Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences. He emphasized the multisensory approach to tourism services in which all senses are being utilized. For example, in the hotel room of the future customers are able to select in what kind of eenvironmentthey want to fall asleep by using an app on their mobile phone. In multisensory approach spaces, surfaces, smells, and voices are all being utilized. Essi Prykäri from Lahti University of Applied Sciences emphasized the importance and possibilities of 360° Virtual Reality videos, for example in marketing nature tourism. This has also been done for example by SaimaaLife in the Savonlinna region, which we got the pleasure to get to know earlier in the spring when she visited our programme.

Tourist experience captivating the audience

Jarno Malaprade from Tietotalo talked us through the evolution of mobile phones and reminded us of the fast development that has happened during the last few decades. Our phones have transformed from normal mobile phones to personal assistants, and the transformation continues. Jarno also introduced us more closely to beacons, which are Internet-of-Things devices that can be utilized easily in various ways in tourism businesses. The beacons can help businesses to for example guiding customers in certain areas such as theme parks, which tend to get busy at times. The beacons are aware of the presence of the user and can be used to collect all different sorts of data to help in experience design.

Heini Niklas-Salminen from TourGuideFox presented their company’s app, which offers digitally guided city tours. The company has started tours recently in Helsinki but is planning to expand in the future. Heini gave some insights for features of successful apps. It has to be easy to buy, modified to different target groups and that customer experiences are at the core of service. TourGuideFox aims to be more than just another city tour app; there is a possibility to build a whole ecosystem based on creating more value for tourists when they are on the trip.

 

The development of AI and robotization in tourism

The speeches were finalized by Iis Tussyadijah, the President of IFITT, who joined the seminar online. She emphasized the importance of AI and robotics, as services will be robotized in the future. According to her, this change will also greatly affect tourism business. It will bring both opportunities and challenges, and tourism industry should be ready to optimize the benefits and minimize the risks.

The afternoon continued with workshops on digitalization. Also, we got to familiarize ourselves with the exhibitors, who introduced their companies. The companies included were Tripsteri, Qvick, Koodiviidakko, HMMH Consulting, Wowanders, and Poutapilvi. Also, the company representatives had a chance to participate in workshops concerning digitalization held by Juho Pesonen.

The main notion of the day is that tourism businesses can profit greatly from digitalization. It will make the travelers’ lives easier, but also the travel experience certainly a lot more interesting. It became apparent during the day that many companies already use different kinds of applications in order to offer new services, but there is still a lot to be done. However, the question remains whether the virtual reality will never be able to replace real experiences. Does it even have to, or should it be more like an addition to the actual experiences that the traveler may face?

Participants were really enthusiastic about the day’s topic and were eager to share their knowledge and tell about their business ideas. Everyone certainly finished the day with inspiration and new ideas to be utilized in the future.  All in all, the day proved that there definitely is a place for a seminar like this also in the future. It is fantastic that IFITT is supporting events such as this and enables tourism industry to benefit from digitalization and share ideas and best practices.

 

#digitalization #technology #AI #tourism #IFITTtalk #IFITT #hotelarthur #tmm #helsinki #maketourismbetter

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