Where Can Data Take Us?
In episode 2 of our "Driving Place-Based Innovation" series in partnership with NewcastleGateshead initiative, we discuss the importance of data for decision-making.
In episode 2 of our "Driving Place-Based Innovation" series in partnership with NewcastleGateshead initiative, we discuss the importance of data for decision-making.
In episode 2 of our "Driving Place-Based Innovation" series in partnership with NewcastleGateshead initiative, we'll discuss the importance of data with Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums, and Milano & Partners. Data is clearly of great value to all companies in the travel sector; from specific attractions, right up to the destination level.
You can listen to the episode here 👇
Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums represents a collection of nine museums across Tyneside showcasing the region's history. Their attractions include a steam railway, two Roman forts, a museum displaying Egyptian and Roman artefacts as well as museums for natural history and industrial history, along with three art galleries. These locations combined receive approximately one million visitors annually.
The visitors are comprised of both local and regional family groups and also international tourists - who are particularly keen on seeing the two sites controlled by the Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums along the Hadrian's Wall World Heritage Site. The collection of museums conducts regular surveys of its visitors and identified that families look for activities and interactive facilities as well as special events. These data points help to identify how to reduce seasonality and attract visitors all year round.
COVID-19 had a massive impact on Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums, with the museums being closed for longer than other public facilities. During this shutdown period, the group lost visitors, and they were slow to return upon reopening. As a result, greater insights were needed into past visitors to better determine how they can be encouraged to visit again and Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums worked with the NewcastleGateshead Initiative to commission comprehensive research. Through this partnership, the research was widened to include other cultural partners, such as theatres and concert halls. The research process included both online and face-to-face surveys as well as focus groups and social listening techniques.
Based on the data points generated, six interlinked reasons explaining why visitors weren't returning were identified, with only 1 being directly related to COVID.
On their own, each factor is understandable and generally well-known, but the surprising finding from the research was the interrelationships between the factors. People will only visit if there is low or no cost, they've heard of the attraction, it fits with their new lifestyle and they decide it's worth the risk. Consequently, the data shows that the response to information needs to be nuanced and involve different partners.
Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums saw the research as an interesting learning experience. At its core is data, which can help to replay the right messages back to consumers. This data showed how the solutions to the challenges faced by Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums are not only within the power of the organisation to implement and that there is a need to work with partners, such as the local council, NewcastleGateshead Initiative, the local Business Improvement District and transport companies. With a low awareness for the museum group, the Make your Moment campaign helped to promote cultural venues and the experiences and moments that can be enjoyed at these locations.
In addition, Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums formed a close partnership with Nexus - which provides the local metropolitan transport - to alleviate concerns related to high transport costs and the uncertainty related to transport networks. This was achieved through a campaign called Ways to Play highlighting relatively risk-free, low-cost family days out, with free transport and activities for children. The award-winning campaign was so successful that it will be repeated again. Data really does generate valuable insights for developing creative and effective campaigns.
Finally, the Warm Welcome programme was an awareness campaign giving open and easy access to most free attractions, offering many types of different activities. By undertaking comprehensive research, it's possible to understand how to take consumer concerns and turn them into a virtue.
Social listening shows how the initial reactions to COVID had a negative impact on visitors:
This social listening research shows that while Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums thought people will be pleased to come back, in actual fact they weren't happy. In this regard, social listening helped to inform the museums about things that people weren't willing to communicate through surveys and visitor feedback.
Social listening helped to show the interrelationships between the museums and the rest of the city. It shed a light on the importance of other factors, such as parking and local restaurant availability for people's propensity to visit. Therefore, it became clear to identify how the museums fit into the wider ecosystem of the city and that any solution needs to look beyond just the venue. Collaboration is key and needs to inform visitors about changes within the destination and on transport routes to make it as easy as possible to visit. It's extremely important to highlight that even free venues still have many barriers; both intellectual, cultural and physical.
Milano & Partners don't only work in the tourism sphere, but also with attracting investments into Milan through a focus on innovation. They have a broad scope to focus on the brand of the city.
There is a strong need to focus on organisational culture. There is plenty of value in telling yourself to look into data. Data is important for marketing and creative branding! People have a tendency to have strong opinions based on their own feelings about a city and are not objective, since there is love and passion around your local area. Instead, data is a matter of listening to what people are saying about your city and gives a much clearer idea of its strengths and weaknesses. There's a lot of development about different types of data that can be used. Social media led to lots of social sentiment being easily accessible, but other new interesting sources of information are emerging to be an eye for the city and the organisations based there.
Organisations need to capitalise on their own internal data. This can be done by growing their website and social media followings. Such an approach helps them to understand the audience they are talking with and their general appeal to different demographic groups and interest communities.
Instead of just focusing on obtaining data from prospective travellers in the hopes of driving conversion, it's also extremely useful to focus on local data points and the behaviour of people within the city. In 2019, Milano & Partners launched a pilot project with city officials to create a dashboard, with visuals based on telecommunications and credit card data. Such displays were aggregated and displayed clear insights. It's important to think about different ways to use data and the two-fold solutions from using data:
In the case of Milan, the policy was to encourage spending outside of the city centre. The branding approach switched from being just about the city of Milan and events to focusing on specific narratives for individual neighbourhoods to tell the full story of a city. The project used clear data sources, with data seen as providing stronger insights for marketing activities. A data marketing hub shared credit card spending data with partners along with different sources of open and private data sources. The data was connected to a platform to create marketing campaigns. Crucially, all data was anonymised due to privacy concerns (in compliance with GDPR requirements). It was also highlighted how AI could utilise these anonymised data sources to design future marketing campaigns.
Organisations want to know as much as possible about their audiences and to actually understand the type of people they are attracting to their venue or arriving at their destination. Paradoxically, destinations currently aren't good enough at obtaining this information and need to constantly innovate to find new ways to generate and leverage valuable data sources for their operational processes. Of course, respect still needs to be placed on ensuring the right limits in terms of privacy, but aggregated data is fundamental to decision-making as otherwise strategists are just making assumptions and showing potential bias.
There is no perfect solution, it's important to keep connected to see how the ecosystem is being shaped. In Milan (and Italy in general) there is a big movement around open data sources. There is a lot of data available that can potentially be very valuable for companies. It's beneficial to work with open data and open-source platforms to obtain different and varied sources of data.
However, without a commercial approach, it's hard for these projects to thrive, with platforms becoming outdated fairly quickly. Marketeers tend to buy data, so it's important to find a partner that will commercialise dashboards and marketing solutions. For this, collaboration is key, but there is also a need for private companies to be in the market to sell their products and services. This is the main way to change organisational cultures within the tourism and hospitality industry and use data to drive campaigns. Platforms with public-driven purposes tend to get old too soon due to a lack of frequent investment, so it's hard to be flexible with new data. Nevertheless, people must always keep up to date with the changing political landscape in terms of usage rules and privacy issues.
Data can be considered as being quantitative and qualitative. In terms of qualitative data, these insights can only be generated by the person who experiences the city. Marketeers tend to have a high-level data approach and not focus on the fine details. There is a general direction for annual marketing activities to target based on the city's insights and identified perceptions of the city. Destinations should be attentive to how the city itself perceives marketing activities. In this regard, Milano & Partners run their campaigns both internationally, but also actually within the city. Therefore, to be successful, you need to not only start with data analysis but also listen to residents a lot.
Milano & Partners have worked on projects creating platforms for improving the impact of investment within the city. These initiatives are focused on using open data sources and curating data and information. There is no need to reinvent the wheel since most content is already available and just needs to be packaged together. A key aspect of Milano & Partners' work is promoting the startup ecosystem in Milan to drive new investment towards innovation; a central pillar for attracting talent to a city. While big data is considered as being a high-priority project, sometimes simple data sources can be equally important.
AI is getting better at predicting influxes of people and also improving the understanding of the impact tourism has on a city. It can provide a game-changing approach since a lot of money is invested in curating content that is already available. Therefore, technology can help improve organisational efficiency and free up resources for making destinations better places to live, work and travel.
The use of data is not without its pitfalls. The two biggest challenges are skills and culture. Don't forget to think internally when planning data needs and usage, and not just rely on external input. It is a matter of thought and taking the right approach.
Don't be afraid to try new things. While you may be tempted to use insights from your own thought, there is also a need to step back and make informed decisions. Don't let data kill creativity, but creativity should not be afraid of data.
Data can come from many different sources, including surveys, social listening and other digital tools. To successfully use data to enhance organisational efficiency, data-based decision-making should be central to company culture. Employees should not only rely on their personal (or group) assumptions as otherwise, these can induce bias within strategy making. Instead, all stakeholders - including locals and tourists - should be consulted to obtain input on the desired outcomes and the most effective targeting of key audiences.
It is important to not only see the broad picture but also to identify granular data to fine-tune approaches. Interlinkages between different factors should be identified and use creativity to mitigate concerns of tourists and locals and transform these into positive and inspirational campaigns. To do this, it is essential to work with both local and international partners to develop solutions to the challenges identified so that the whole tourism industry in a region can benefit from the enhanced experiences and economic benefits derived from this sector.
Organisations should not only purchase external data but also make use of their own internal data sources to understand their current reach and the demographics of their audience base. Companies should continue to search for new insights and identify new data sources as part of the continuous strive to innovate. Utilising big data provides an opportunity to obtain a more comprehensive aggregated overview of trends, while also respecting consumer privacy. Finally, open data and AI offer efficient and cost-effective tools to maximise publicly available information and curate information. However, it's important to ensure that systems do not become outdated and constantly keep up to date with the latest tech improvements.
Data doesn't have to be complex; even simple tools can be useful for organisations. Do not become too reliant on external experts and ensure that your employees have the required skillsets and are adequately trained in data analysis and interpretation. It's important not to become overwhelmed by data and to keep some leeway for experimentation and creativity.
The podcast is part of the Hospitality Innovation Tourism Supply (HITS) programme which provides targeted support, learning resources and grant funding to businesses in Northumberland, Newcastle and North Tyneside to help make their ideas a reality. The programme is funded by North of Tyne Combined Authority and delivered by NewcastleGateshead Initiative, Food and Drink North East and NBSL.
In episode 2 of our "Driving Place-Based Innovation" series in partnership with NewcastleGateshead initiative, we'll discuss the importance of data with Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums, and Milano & Partners. Data is clearly of great value to all companies in the travel sector; from specific attractions, right up to the destination level.
You can listen to the episode here 👇
Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums represents a collection of nine museums across Tyneside showcasing the region's history. Their attractions include a steam railway, two Roman forts, a museum displaying Egyptian and Roman artefacts as well as museums for natural history and industrial history, along with three art galleries. These locations combined receive approximately one million visitors annually.
The visitors are comprised of both local and regional family groups and also international tourists - who are particularly keen on seeing the two sites controlled by the Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums along the Hadrian's Wall World Heritage Site. The collection of museums conducts regular surveys of its visitors and identified that families look for activities and interactive facilities as well as special events. These data points help to identify how to reduce seasonality and attract visitors all year round.
COVID-19 had a massive impact on Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums, with the museums being closed for longer than other public facilities. During this shutdown period, the group lost visitors, and they were slow to return upon reopening. As a result, greater insights were needed into past visitors to better determine how they can be encouraged to visit again and Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums worked with the NewcastleGateshead Initiative to commission comprehensive research. Through this partnership, the research was widened to include other cultural partners, such as theatres and concert halls. The research process included both online and face-to-face surveys as well as focus groups and social listening techniques.
Based on the data points generated, six interlinked reasons explaining why visitors weren't returning were identified, with only 1 being directly related to COVID.
On their own, each factor is understandable and generally well-known, but the surprising finding from the research was the interrelationships between the factors. People will only visit if there is low or no cost, they've heard of the attraction, it fits with their new lifestyle and they decide it's worth the risk. Consequently, the data shows that the response to information needs to be nuanced and involve different partners.
Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums saw the research as an interesting learning experience. At its core is data, which can help to replay the right messages back to consumers. This data showed how the solutions to the challenges faced by Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums are not only within the power of the organisation to implement and that there is a need to work with partners, such as the local council, NewcastleGateshead Initiative, the local Business Improvement District and transport companies. With a low awareness for the museum group, the Make your Moment campaign helped to promote cultural venues and the experiences and moments that can be enjoyed at these locations.
In addition, Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums formed a close partnership with Nexus - which provides the local metropolitan transport - to alleviate concerns related to high transport costs and the uncertainty related to transport networks. This was achieved through a campaign called Ways to Play highlighting relatively risk-free, low-cost family days out, with free transport and activities for children. The award-winning campaign was so successful that it will be repeated again. Data really does generate valuable insights for developing creative and effective campaigns.
Finally, the Warm Welcome programme was an awareness campaign giving open and easy access to most free attractions, offering many types of different activities. By undertaking comprehensive research, it's possible to understand how to take consumer concerns and turn them into a virtue.
Social listening shows how the initial reactions to COVID had a negative impact on visitors:
This social listening research shows that while Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums thought people will be pleased to come back, in actual fact they weren't happy. In this regard, social listening helped to inform the museums about things that people weren't willing to communicate through surveys and visitor feedback.
Social listening helped to show the interrelationships between the museums and the rest of the city. It shed a light on the importance of other factors, such as parking and local restaurant availability for people's propensity to visit. Therefore, it became clear to identify how the museums fit into the wider ecosystem of the city and that any solution needs to look beyond just the venue. Collaboration is key and needs to inform visitors about changes within the destination and on transport routes to make it as easy as possible to visit. It's extremely important to highlight that even free venues still have many barriers; both intellectual, cultural and physical.
Milano & Partners don't only work in the tourism sphere, but also with attracting investments into Milan through a focus on innovation. They have a broad scope to focus on the brand of the city.
There is a strong need to focus on organisational culture. There is plenty of value in telling yourself to look into data. Data is important for marketing and creative branding! People have a tendency to have strong opinions based on their own feelings about a city and are not objective, since there is love and passion around your local area. Instead, data is a matter of listening to what people are saying about your city and gives a much clearer idea of its strengths and weaknesses. There's a lot of development about different types of data that can be used. Social media led to lots of social sentiment being easily accessible, but other new interesting sources of information are emerging to be an eye for the city and the organisations based there.
Organisations need to capitalise on their own internal data. This can be done by growing their website and social media followings. Such an approach helps them to understand the audience they are talking with and their general appeal to different demographic groups and interest communities.
Instead of just focusing on obtaining data from prospective travellers in the hopes of driving conversion, it's also extremely useful to focus on local data points and the behaviour of people within the city. In 2019, Milano & Partners launched a pilot project with city officials to create a dashboard, with visuals based on telecommunications and credit card data. Such displays were aggregated and displayed clear insights. It's important to think about different ways to use data and the two-fold solutions from using data:
In the case of Milan, the policy was to encourage spending outside of the city centre. The branding approach switched from being just about the city of Milan and events to focusing on specific narratives for individual neighbourhoods to tell the full story of a city. The project used clear data sources, with data seen as providing stronger insights for marketing activities. A data marketing hub shared credit card spending data with partners along with different sources of open and private data sources. The data was connected to a platform to create marketing campaigns. Crucially, all data was anonymised due to privacy concerns (in compliance with GDPR requirements). It was also highlighted how AI could utilise these anonymised data sources to design future marketing campaigns.
Organisations want to know as much as possible about their audiences and to actually understand the type of people they are attracting to their venue or arriving at their destination. Paradoxically, destinations currently aren't good enough at obtaining this information and need to constantly innovate to find new ways to generate and leverage valuable data sources for their operational processes. Of course, respect still needs to be placed on ensuring the right limits in terms of privacy, but aggregated data is fundamental to decision-making as otherwise strategists are just making assumptions and showing potential bias.
There is no perfect solution, it's important to keep connected to see how the ecosystem is being shaped. In Milan (and Italy in general) there is a big movement around open data sources. There is a lot of data available that can potentially be very valuable for companies. It's beneficial to work with open data and open-source platforms to obtain different and varied sources of data.
However, without a commercial approach, it's hard for these projects to thrive, with platforms becoming outdated fairly quickly. Marketeers tend to buy data, so it's important to find a partner that will commercialise dashboards and marketing solutions. For this, collaboration is key, but there is also a need for private companies to be in the market to sell their products and services. This is the main way to change organisational cultures within the tourism and hospitality industry and use data to drive campaigns. Platforms with public-driven purposes tend to get old too soon due to a lack of frequent investment, so it's hard to be flexible with new data. Nevertheless, people must always keep up to date with the changing political landscape in terms of usage rules and privacy issues.
Data can be considered as being quantitative and qualitative. In terms of qualitative data, these insights can only be generated by the person who experiences the city. Marketeers tend to have a high-level data approach and not focus on the fine details. There is a general direction for annual marketing activities to target based on the city's insights and identified perceptions of the city. Destinations should be attentive to how the city itself perceives marketing activities. In this regard, Milano & Partners run their campaigns both internationally, but also actually within the city. Therefore, to be successful, you need to not only start with data analysis but also listen to residents a lot.
Milano & Partners have worked on projects creating platforms for improving the impact of investment within the city. These initiatives are focused on using open data sources and curating data and information. There is no need to reinvent the wheel since most content is already available and just needs to be packaged together. A key aspect of Milano & Partners' work is promoting the startup ecosystem in Milan to drive new investment towards innovation; a central pillar for attracting talent to a city. While big data is considered as being a high-priority project, sometimes simple data sources can be equally important.
AI is getting better at predicting influxes of people and also improving the understanding of the impact tourism has on a city. It can provide a game-changing approach since a lot of money is invested in curating content that is already available. Therefore, technology can help improve organisational efficiency and free up resources for making destinations better places to live, work and travel.
The use of data is not without its pitfalls. The two biggest challenges are skills and culture. Don't forget to think internally when planning data needs and usage, and not just rely on external input. It is a matter of thought and taking the right approach.
Don't be afraid to try new things. While you may be tempted to use insights from your own thought, there is also a need to step back and make informed decisions. Don't let data kill creativity, but creativity should not be afraid of data.
Data can come from many different sources, including surveys, social listening and other digital tools. To successfully use data to enhance organisational efficiency, data-based decision-making should be central to company culture. Employees should not only rely on their personal (or group) assumptions as otherwise, these can induce bias within strategy making. Instead, all stakeholders - including locals and tourists - should be consulted to obtain input on the desired outcomes and the most effective targeting of key audiences.
It is important to not only see the broad picture but also to identify granular data to fine-tune approaches. Interlinkages between different factors should be identified and use creativity to mitigate concerns of tourists and locals and transform these into positive and inspirational campaigns. To do this, it is essential to work with both local and international partners to develop solutions to the challenges identified so that the whole tourism industry in a region can benefit from the enhanced experiences and economic benefits derived from this sector.
Organisations should not only purchase external data but also make use of their own internal data sources to understand their current reach and the demographics of their audience base. Companies should continue to search for new insights and identify new data sources as part of the continuous strive to innovate. Utilising big data provides an opportunity to obtain a more comprehensive aggregated overview of trends, while also respecting consumer privacy. Finally, open data and AI offer efficient and cost-effective tools to maximise publicly available information and curate information. However, it's important to ensure that systems do not become outdated and constantly keep up to date with the latest tech improvements.
Data doesn't have to be complex; even simple tools can be useful for organisations. Do not become too reliant on external experts and ensure that your employees have the required skillsets and are adequately trained in data analysis and interpretation. It's important not to become overwhelmed by data and to keep some leeway for experimentation and creativity.
The podcast is part of the Hospitality Innovation Tourism Supply (HITS) programme which provides targeted support, learning resources and grant funding to businesses in Northumberland, Newcastle and North Tyneside to help make their ideas a reality. The programme is funded by North of Tyne Combined Authority and delivered by NewcastleGateshead Initiative, Food and Drink North East and NBSL.
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