Digitize your part of the world.
The basis of all digital processes is data. This is especially true in tourism. No inspiration, no travel planning, no booking and no on-site experience are conceivable without destination data in the future. ALL data. We have to start now! This article will tell you what you have to consider.
Running a website does not mean digitization.
The common practice of creating data for marketing purposes while presenting only selected content must be fundamentally turned upside down. It is essential to maintain ALL content and information online. This does not only apply to your own website. All conceivable information about the destination – from overnight accommodations to weather data, events and menus to the dog toilet – must be digitized. Only with current and complete data can the travel processes be digitally mapped. Only by controlling their own content will it still be possible for destinations to inform, convince and guide their guests. And it is not left to other players such as Google to decide which information (possibly even false) is fed to the guest through intransparent algorithms.
The digital travel guide
By maintaining a 100% digital image of the destination, a digital travel guide is created, which is designed for the search queries: “what” do I want to do “where”. With this structure, the content has to be sorted into a database so that it is adapted to the guests’ needs. A digital map is as a solid and sustainable basis, in which route networks and georeferenced individual elements such as excursion destinations or overnight accommodations are embedded. The task of creating a digital image of the real world poses huge challenges for many destinations, which can only be overcome through cooperation with other service providers. Digitization can only succeed together. In addition to more effective marketing, a digital travel guide offers many other advantages:
- Unlimited data recording
- Constant updating of contents
- Filtering of information
- Multilingual input and output of content
- Input and playout of the same content via different channels
- Automatic adjustment of units of measurement, weights, times and currencies for international guests
Don’t be afraid of the Herculean task. Rome wasn’t built in a day either. Or as Confucius said: “The man who took down the mountain was the same one who began to carry away small stones.”
Carry away your first little stone and start digitizing your part of the world.
10 To Do’s for a successful digital transformation
- Leave your comfort zone – build digital leadership
- Merge the content within one database
- Digitize your part of the world
- Open up your content for it to be distributed
- Digitize your guests by encouraging them by incentives to share their data
- Manage data instead of advertising
- Measure experience and the customer journey
- Manage growth, define the DNA of the destination and attract the right customers
- Give the residents added value by making them ambassadors
- Improve the experience on sight