4 Nov 2015, 12:00 - 13:00

South Gallery 23-26

In this seminar different leading experts and business case examples came together to show how businesses and destinations are being transformed by digital. The speakers introduced the digital transformation in travel and many ideas about what transformation really means. The session is important for different companies e.g. small business, DMO’s that are looking to put digital at the core of everything or leading international travel brands.

The speakers in this seminar will be introduced below (when you click on a picture you get more information about this person).:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nick Hall, from Digital Tourism Think Tank was the one who lead the seminar. He asked the speakers some questions, the first question was: “ What does Destination transformation means to you”? and the speakers gave their opinion about this.
- For example Dennis, from VisitDenmark mentioned : “We have to stay in the minds of the customers and also have to be relevant as destination. Everything in reality is available now, and is available all the time. The consumers expect it to be available at anytime and any platform that they decide. What made us successful five years ago I really different to what makes us successful now. So we have to see if we have the right skills and people who can adapt to this”.
- And the main points for Velma, from Marketing at Cape Town Tourism are: “How do we add value and how can we be relevant for the consumers?”
- Inga, from Promote Island mentioned: …I think content marketing is really important, but also storytelling.”

 

Nick Hall agreed about these points and summarised the main issue: “How do we still stay relevant, if the tourists are missing the tourist offices and the tourism board websites completely and how do we still provide value within the destination, if we are looking at a much more multi touch point journey”.

 

There are a number of key travelling trends happening now:
- In 2008, austerity was a big issue that has massively distracted the travel industry. But austerity has still a big impact today.
- Disruptive business, things like “Airbnb” are very popular now, which has an impact on destinations (especially cities), because the hotels and other accommodations are having new competitors.
- The millennium traveler, they are a new type of travelers (people under the age of 35 and they love digital). They don’t only want to use technology to experience things and they want to experience a destination like a local. But they are also looking for experiential things, digital experiences. Nick Hall mentioned: “..the visitors experience is now a completely digital one..”. Those tourists are very enabled, always connected and sociable means a lot, when it comes to make their decisions. 
- New technology, the travel industry has to adapt on how people communicate in these days. A lot of people have an I watch and almost everybody has a smart phone. Because of technology the tourists are also often better informed, e.g. about the tourist boards and this means that they can find better deals and the tourism industry has to understand that.

 

So all that had really allowed Digital Tourism Think Thank to bring to the question: "What role should the destination have now and in the future"? 

 

Digital Tourism Think Thank developed a framework, which is called the “Destination transformation framework”. There are four pillars that every destinations needs to consider, work with and think about how to transform and change their activities:
1. Funding, where does the money comes from, what do they do with the money and what kind of results does it delivers to the stakeholders.
2. Governance, how does the company manage the destinations and stakeholders and how to cooperate and collaborate internally.
3. Engagement, like storytelling and big data. Nick Hall thinks: “ There is almost no end in how far a company can go with engagement and of course it is really an exciting area”.
4. Innovation, does the company gives the people the tools, the platform and the vision to be innovative. Just to do completely new things is one of the bigger challenges for the destinations.

They discussed those pillars in three different stages:
1. Helping to get people ready, to change what they are doing.
2. Helping to make a change, to transform their activities.
3. Succeeding with what they do.

Nick Hall asked all the speakers about how they apply those pillars in their organisations. All the speakers of the seminar were in a discussion and were all sharing their view on how they see the destinations space being shaking up. The speakers were also sharing their experiences when it comes to funding, what sort of challenges they are facing and how to they react and respond to that. Nick Hall also asked them about governance, e.g. how do they are managing their day-to-day activities, managing the expectations of their stakeholders and how do they approach to work on a day-to-day basis. Furthermore, they talked about the aspect engagement, e.g. how to reach and communicate with the customer. But also how to add value to the visitor and the visitors preferences are changing thanks to the millennium traveler. The last thing they talked about was innovation and some of the organisations mentioned they are really struggling with this, because they have to make time free for this and not every destination is doing that right now.