Case Studies and Templates

Measuring Performance

The importance of measuring performance for DMOs

It can’t be argued that knowing how your DMO is performing is valuable information to assess where the organisation’s strengths lay, where it is falling behind and factors to improve upon. But what about measuring that performance? And in particular, understanding the need to break down the organisation into different sections in order to assess each individually for a more in-depth analysis.

This is where a good performance measurement system comes into play. These systems provide a basis for target-setting to implement strategies, and are used by marketing teams to grow efficiently and effectively. Target-setting and performance measurement are necessary for growth in any organisation, and gaining control over the various processes within the organisation can be invaluable. This puts organisations in control to manage performance proactively.

Performance refers to results and the outcomes of strategies, products, services and processes that allow for evaluation with regards to goals. Measurement refers to numerical information detailing input, output and the performance of these products, services and processes. Performance measurement really is one of the cornerstones of a successful organisation.

Big data has been benefitting the travel industry increasingly each year. Each second, travellers are creating chunks of online data, providing organisations and businesses with an edge over their competitors. This data allows DMOs to assess how their visitors are interacting with the outside world, and is currently driving the evolution of the tourism and travel industry. Travel and destination organisations can track the destination preferences of their visitors through the use of big data, and can provide them with suggestions and personalised packages. From automatically suggesting excursions and experiences on travel sites, to suggesting dream holidays fitting budgets, accommodation and flight preferences, big data provides consumers with truly personalised services, assisting not only travellers, but travel agencies and DMOs alike.

DMOs now have the opportunity to use data to improve travel experiences for their visitors, by combining technology and digital trends in the form of tools for data analysis. If DMOs are to remain competitive in a crowded market, they need to utilise their data for analysis and implementation into marketing strategies.

The key challenge in performance management is knowing what to measure, and how to align performance measures with strategies. DMOs must focus on the factors which are linked to the drivers of success within the organisation. These factors are called KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) which we’ll address further in this chapter. KPIs can be both financial and non-financial, such as customer service, and it’s important to measure both as they are equally as important.

Examples of indicators to measure are as follows:

• Visitors - the amount, the frequency of visitations, and the comparison between visitors not returning and new visitors.
• Customer service - visitor centre and attraction waiting times, feedback, reasons behind the feedback.
• Market share - how is your destination performing against competitors?
• Employees - levels of satisfaction of DMO employees, quality of work and attendance.

If your DMO has already ascertained the key areas driving your organisation’s performance and discovered ways to measure this, then it should look naturally towards setting performance targets. These targets should help clarify the goals and values of the organisation, so everyone is on the same page, and by breaking them down, these key targets become easier to manage, and subsequently easier to achieve. Most importantly, these targets will form a link between strategies and operations.

Performance measurement really is fundamental to the continued improvement and sustainable growth of any organisation. With this realisation, comes the understanding that in order for a DMO to be successful in the long-term, there is a requirement for it to meet the needs of all stakeholders, including visitors, partners, the community and employees, for example. Evidently, in all research, case studies and other resources regarding the improvement of organisations, performance measurement plays a key role. It is also a central requirement for benchmarking against competitors.

Measuring the development and performance of destinations

There is a difference in the measurement of performance related to the DMO’s activity or related to the impact and performance of tourism in the destination. First of all, destinations need reporting frameworks in place in order to set and measure the right KPIs for the range of digital and non-digital marketing activities. A clear defined set of KPIs and a vision on where the destination is standing can help destinations to succeed in the complex destination landscape. Rather than measuring so-called vanity KPIs, looking at pure web traffic, fans, likes and shares, digital-first destinations are shifting towards exploring the destination’s reach and engagement and measuring the impact of its overall digital marketing activities.

KPIs and measurement are certainly one of the areas that destinations are now investing in, ensuring that teams can demonstrate tangible results and measure activities online and offline. There are, however, differences between the KPIs of different destinations, based on the remit of the individual tourist boards as well as marketing goals. DMOs should firstly decide on the factors of which they wish to measure, and define these. True management and understanding cannot take place without a form of quantitative measurement in a performance-oriented industry such as tourism. There is a clear need for data-driven foundations laying the groundwork for true sustainable tourism progression based on accurate facts and figures; data of which will permit DMOs to make decisions and strategies.

With regards to measuring the performance of the destination in tourism, there exist many techniques to assess and measure tourism at destinations, and also to understand tourism’s direct and indirect effects upon the environment, the economy and upon society. In 2015, the UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) partnered with the UN Statistics Division (UNSD) to create the initiative of measuring sustainable tourism (MST). In essence, the aim of this initiative was to connect the various frameworks for tourism, and to capture the benefits of accounting approaches. This was achieved by ensuring internal understanding with regards to reading and comprehending data gaps, bringing about the potential to extract vital indicators based on environmental and economic information. From this, DMOs can create their own unique environmental, economic and also socio-cultural indicators in order to measure their destination’s performance, and benchmark it against competitors.

Through utilising tools such as national tourism statistics, alongside cutting-edge technology such as artificial intelligence through advances in data science, supply and demand evaluations can be implemented into marketing strategies for DMOs regarding destination performance measurement and evaluation. DMOs can make accurate estimates of the impacts of their tourism-related activities and initiatives by using a variety of tools such as IPK’s World Travel Monitor Data Inquiry and Google Digital Unlocked courses and tools. In addition, more and more companies are now taking advantage of technological advances by using computerised numerical simulation techniques which provide valuable insights amongst uncertain situations, typical of the tourism sector.

IPK World Travel Monitor Data Inquiry

This tool, created by IPK International, enables DMOs to select specific variables in order to receive desired data to analyse and use to implement into their marketing strategies. This, in due course, should improve performance as adjustments will be taken based on this accurate, reliable and relevant data. The Data Inquiry asks the user to select the countries, years and items of interest that they wish to extract data from. Once these variables have been selected, the IPK will then contact the user and assist them in finding the ideal data bundle for them to meet their data requirements, enabling DMOs to meet goals.

Google Digital Unlocked

Google’s Digital Garage and Digital Unlocked allows users to access a huge variety of online courses, helping individuals and organisations with their skills in data, tech and digital marketing. This tool can help DMOs learn how to analyse data, and use it to implement into their strategies. Moreover, gaining certification from Google Academy is a great way for employees and organisations to further their skills and gain more knowledge of the marketing industry.

Utilising performance data and implementing it into strategies

As previously mentioned, data is becoming more and more crucial in creating and instating effective marketing strategies, especially for the travel and tourism industry. There are many ways in which DMOs can harness performance data and use it in specific ways to implement into strategies and make sound business decisions based on solid facts and research.

At present, many companies in the tourism sector, such as airlines, hotel chains, cruise companies and travel agencies, have a wealth of access to big data and the smart ones are already utilising this data to improve the overall visitor experience and become more efficient as a brand. Combine this data with the various tools previously discussed, such as Google Digital Garage, and you’re on to a winner with regards to stepping up your game digitally-speaking and overtaking the competition.

Here are a few vital ways in which we here, at DTTT, feel could seriously help DMOs in utilising data for various marketing strategies:

1. Customising the user experience

Data from visitors, such as demographic and psychographic data, can be used to personalise the user experience with regards to suggested products and services. These days, the customer experience can be personalised to such a huge extent with the aid of big data, and brands are able to predict the choice and preferences of their consumers and automatically suggest options for them based on this data.

2. Creating appropriate pricing strategies

The right price is a key aspect to a booking for any traveller, which can really impact upon destination choices. The price of flights, the exchange rate, the cost of accommodation – these are all key aspects when planning a trip. The analysis of big data allows brands to track and assess competitor prices and spot trends and, alongside smart automation, DMOs can track every small change in prices and build relevant pricing strategies according to these results to further improve the visitor experience.

The travel and tourism industry is very sensitive to price, and most importantly, inflation and price increase, therefore pricing strategies need to be spot on to achieve those key goals. By analysing the historical data of fares, the prices of your competitors and the demand, DMOs can create the perfect pricing strategy to benefit not only the organisation, but also the visitors for higher levels of visitor satisfaction and a greater chance for a return visit or recommendation.

3. Gaining an insight into visitor needs

Gathering and utilising data allows DMOs to discover patterns in tourist behaviour and helps them understand the current and future needs of their consumers.

One example of doing this is through the travel booking startup Hipmunk. Hipmunk analyses data from online reviews, social media, airlines and customer profiles, in order to personalise the search results to meet the individual needs of the consumer. This, in turn, speeds up the time it takes to confirm a booking, therefore meeting KPI goals of sales conversions a lot quicker meet the individual needs of the consumer. This, in turn, speeds up the time it takes to confirm a booking, therefore meeting KPI goals of sales conversions a lot quicker.

4. Achieving competitive differentiation

Through using big data, brands can make adjustments and improvements to their product as a destination, making them stand apart from the crowd and overtake competitors with regards to what they can offer as a destination and the quality of the visit.

British Airways, for example, has a ‘Know Me’ feature. This feature analyses data from all of their customers in order to provide customised results and suggestions. In turn, this provides an overall better visitor experience and higher levels of customer satisfaction, alongside a boost in their revenue and booking conversion rates.

5. Instating loyalty programmes and improving marketing strategies overall

Loyalty programmes enable brands to collect super useful information about their consumers and target audience. This information, of course, relies on solid data. Travel and tourism organisations can use these valuable insights extracted from the data to optimise on sales and personalised campaigns to increase and drive loyalty. From doing this, there is a much greater chance of leading to customer retention generating greater profits, and of course, recommendations either by word of mouth or via online review sites; the latter which we shall discuss further in the section ‘Measuring tourist satisfaction’.

Tourists produce vast amounts of data each day, whether at the destination or by searching and booking online. The data they produce enables travel brands to optimise their marketing strategies and efforts and target their specific audience more effectively. This big data will also aid DMOs in maximising their ROI through better-optimised marketing messages, curated around online research and data patterns regarding visitor behaviour. All in all, if all aspects of travel and the visitor journey were to become more affordable, customised for individuals and convenient, visitors are far more likely to convert for bookings, remain loyal to the destination and the brand, and recommend the destination and brand to others, whether online or offline.

Measuring the success of content

With tight budgets and limited time frames, measuring the success of your content has never been more important. Marketers need to understand how many people are seeing their content, what kind of collateral consumers best respond to and how they are discovering it in the first place so they can adapt and improve their efforts. As a result, measurement is a vital final step in the production process.

Whether your target is to increase sales or just awareness of your destination, if you don’t monitor your progress against your goals it’s hard to understand if the content you are producing and sharing is correct.

As already mentioned before, all your goals should be measurable and trackable, and this works both for your general goals as an organisation and for the content you share through your channels as a DMO. Fortunately, online platforms provide a plethora of analytics to help inform this. Data-driven marketing is a big buzz term in media today, and for a good reason: never before have marketers had such rich sources of insight at their fingertips. Here are 6 tips to help you measure the success of your content.

1. Define what success means to your brand

Content marketing doesn't exist in a vacuum. The metrics you choose to measure your performance should always align with wider business objectives. Translate these objectives into metrics and cluster them by social channel. These can be as broad or nuanced as you like: measuring an increase in brand awareness, for example, can be as simple as noting month-on-month differences in reach or impressions on social platforms. More complex goals around promoting specific facets of your destination - such as a city or messaging - can be addressed via tagging content in the publishing module of platforms and collating these stats.

If engagement and advocacy are key to your marketing plan (and they certainly should be for destinations hoping to convert wannabe travellers into passionate paid-up visitors), social shares, follows and subscriptions will reveal the most effective activity. Successful content answers brand objectives, reaches an appropriate audience and initiates a long-term relationship with a consumer.

2. Choose metrics that best illuminate the performance of your specific activity

Is video content a key part of your social strategy? Integrating video analytics into your measurement framework will help optimise future content.

Analysing audience retention (e.g. Facebook's 'Avg % of videos viewed') - the proportion of your videos viewed by people - can highlight the moment viewers tune out, providing clues on how to structure a narrative and the optimal length of content. On Facebook's Business Manager, the number of video views to 95% is a better indication of a video's effectiveness than total video views. Equivalent metrics are available on YouTube under 'Absolute Audience Retention', while 'Relation Audience Retention' benchmarks the performance of your videos against content of similar length.

3. Make reach and engagement central to your measurement programme

Reach and engagement are the fundamentals of social media measurement. The former reveals how your content has contributed to greater brand awareness, with engagement measuring advocacy and loyalty via the number of interactions content has received.

On Facebook, 'Lifetime Post Total Reach' (or organic/paid if you want a more nuanced breakdown) will tell you the total number of individuals exposed to content. 'Lifetime Post Total Impressions', on the other hand, indicates the number of times your content has been displayed. This is also the primary method used to measure awareness on Twitter.Engagement shouldn't be dismissed. After all, you don't just want consumers to see content around a destination, you want them to like it too and tell their friends. The metric can be roughly divided between public and private interactions. These include:

Public interactions

• Reactions, comments & shares (Facebook)
• Retweets, replies & Likes, Hashtag uses (Twitter)
• Likes, Dislikes & comments (YouTube)
• Likes & comments (Instagram)
• Repins & Likes (Pinterest)
• Account subscriptions and follows can also be included in this category.

Private interactions

They don't have quite the same obvious impact as a share, but clicks - whether offsite to a link or to expand views of content - are also a valuable sign that consumers want to learn more about your destination. This kind of engagement encompasses metrics like:

• Clicks to play, link clicks, other clicks & photo views (Facebook: accessed via the 'Lifetime PostConsumptions by type' tab on the post level data export)
• Engagements (Twitter) - both public and private forms of engagement are combined here

4. Check that the right people are seeing your content

Growth in reach and engagement loses its impact if audiences exposed to your content are off-target. The major social media platforms offer basic audience segmentation metrics, revealing the gender, age and regional makeup of new followers.

For DMOs, the distribution of reach by country will be particularly important for Facebook marketing. This data can be compared against the equivalent community growth metric to see which audiences are being converted into brand advocates.

5. Benchmark against past performance

Creating benchmarks lends context to performance and gives your content a standard to aim for each month. By collecting stats in a master document, you can cross-reference these to compare performance with the equivalent period last year (useful given the seasonal nature of the industry) or with a previous campaign.

For regular reporting, examining a 6-month or year's worth of results, and identifying a monthly average figure across the various metrics can pinpoint what this standard should be. Similarly, tracking how other organisations are faring provides insight into the activity that generates engagement and awareness. Take note, however: many social analytics metrics are available only to account admins, so there's a limit on the kinds of insights that can be drawn. Benchmarking against public engagement measures like Reactions, Likes and retweets, community growth and post counts (split out also by content format) is a good solution.

6. Draw up a measurement framework

Measurement frameworks sort metrics into different easy to understand 'buckets'. These are often aligned to the overall marketing funnel, helping elucidate the impact of online content to non-digital professionals in your organisation.

According to a Brand USA research, the success of content has different forms, so it has destination storytelling. If the ultimate objective of any destination’s marketing activity is to drive visitation, measuring the success of content means evaluating the overall impact of a campaign, of course through different KPIs. In USA, the research suggested a series of KPIs as useful to determine the success of content campaigns. Some of them are easier to analyse such as views/impressions or audience engagement, other ones require a longer-term measurement such as the increase in arrivals/intent to visit or the increase in awareness of the destination’s offerings.

Campaigns versus 365 marketing

In Chapter 6 and 7 of the Transformation Series we talked about the creation and distribution of content to target visitors and we underlined how important it is for DMOs nowadays to be ‘Always On’, which means constantly creating content to actively keep up with changes in consumer trends and to take advantage of real-time situations to get closer to consumers in a fast-paced social world. DMOs should ensure that the content is relevant to the target audience and distributed on the right channels at the right time while demonstrating a diversity of interests and experiences.

Being ‘Always On’ is more beneficial for DMOs - especially smaller ones - to focus the efforts on the frequent distribution of content rather than creating few high-budget campaigns. The quantity of content that needs to be produced to keep-up with he daily distribution, though, can be a limitation more than a facilitation in this process, but it is also true that the possibilities for the creation of serialised content for a constant distribution are far more beneficial for the always on DMO and are cheaper than it looks, especially if content is distributed on social media. For example, you could use a budget of 1 million for two big campaigns throughout the year, one for a winter event in your destination and one to promote the summer season at your destination, implying a PR agency for the distribution on several online channels through advertisement, or you could use the same budget to hire a small team of content creators, send them outdoors and film the destination on an almost daily basis and use the same content in a serialised form. This enables your DMO to cover the destination throughout the year and possibly attract multiple different target audiences, depending on the content used, as well as working with different external ambassadors with millions of followers, which help you target your audience but also try to discover and attract new consumers, different niches. All with the same budget.

On the other hand, with few specific campaigns during the year, great results can be achieved as well. What is important, is to have clear and specific goals and stick to them in the creation of KPIs to measure the success of these campaigns. Whether it is serialised content throughout the year or a few campaigns, performance has to be measured during and after their launch. Serialised content launched on social media, especially, is the type of content of which the performance can be measured the easiest. Social media provide many analytics tools that offer insights which can be analysed immediately after the launch of content. On the other hand, big campaigns require more time to be measured and, especially if they have an offline part, they can be trickier to analyse.

We think that there is no correct or wrong way to distribute content to promote your destination but having a combination of both, which are effective in their own way, can represent the correct answer since the two compliment each other in maintaining audience engagement. With a combination of the two is also good to analyse the performance both in short and long term perspective.

Measuring tourist satisfaction

Another way of measuring performance of the destination is by measuring tourists’ satisfaction during or after their experience, most of the time, through online review platforms or through questionnaires. Many of these platforms are public; therefore, any bad review will be seen by a lot of potential customers, even those who may not be even researching the destination. However, negative feedback is not necessarily bad because it shows where and how you can improve the visitor experience as a DMO. The public nature of these review platforms is also positive because any good feedback will concurrently act as authentic marketing for your destination. The following ways describe the platforms that DMOs can use to gauge tourist’s satisfaction and analyse the performance of their destination.

1. Customer Satisfaction Surveys

Customer satisfaction surveys are multifaceted and take many different forms. Each form of survey is pertinent to a different stage of the customer’s visit. Some of the surveys will simply discover whether the customer was satisfied or not. Others, will enable the tourist to explain why they were satisfied or not. Therefore, the DMO will be able to discern where they are performing well and identify areas of improvement.

In-App surveys is where a subtle feedback bar is embedded within the DMO’s website. This survey should only contain one or two questions. This type of survey has a high return rate as the customer is already engaged with the destination and the short style questions do not appear to take up too much of the consumer’s time. In-App surveys tend to be used when the consumer has just booked their trip or activity within the destination. Therefore, these surveys should measure your destination’s performance in terms of the ease of use of your website and how easily the customer was able to plan their trip. However, due to the brevity of the survey the customer cannot express why they are happy or unhappy with the service they have received.

Post-service surveys are filled out after the customer has experienced the service. To exhibit, this would be an iPad placed at the end of an activity, such as, a museum. A DMO place these post-service surveys in tourist information centres, where the consumer can complete the survey whilst visiting the destination. The experience is still fresh in the mind of the customer, thus there is a high return rate. However, as this is right after the experience, they may be uneasy with sharing their un-filtered opinion. Particularly, if the survey is an oral one.

Email surveys are for when the customer has already left the destination. Email surveys tend to be longer and the questions enable the customer to write their own opinion, rather than selecting an option. The response rate, though, is generally quite low. Visit Scotland’s visitor feedback campaign, from 2015/16, found that they were able to get 11,743 people to conduct face to face surveys. However, in comparison, only 2,999 people filled out the email questionnaire.

Yet, the quality of data is a lot higher, the customer can express what difficulties they had and why they arose. Hence, the DMO can analyse each areas of their performance. For example, DMOs can also monitor the performance of their advertisement campaigns, by looking at why customers came to their destination. Visit Scotland were were able to see that long-haul customers came to Scotland due to the Scenery & landscape (53%) and their Scottish ancestry (23%). Thus the DMO is able to gain a fresh perspective on their destination and adapt their destination according to the feedback. Email surveys are also private. So, if there is a serious issue for one customer, those researching the destination would not be deterred from booking a trip, due to one person’s opinion. The DMO can see the expectations and the reality of the guest’s visit and see how they can improve the reality of the trip.

Google Surveys is a highly valuable tool. They cover all three types of survey. For instance, The Google Survey can be linked with your Google Analytics, Google Ads and Youtube account.5 Therefore, Google can supply the consumer with a question before they watch a youtube video and these questions usually relate to brand awareness. A DMO would be able to measure knowledge about their destination, in comparison to competitor destinations. However, you can create an email survey, without asking the customer to fill out all of their details, reducing the time spend on the survey and the likelihood of the customer getting frustrated and abandoning it. Once the data has been collected, Google Surveys will then display the data for you, easing the analysis of the data. Furthermore, these surveys can be quite cost- effective because you are charged per completed survey, between £0.08-£1.10.

2. Social Media Response

Of course, DMOs can generally gauge tourist satisfaction from the posts about their destination on social media. They can look at the tone of the posts, under the geotag of the destination’s location. Checking posts under the geotag about the destination enable you to gauge the performance of various activities in their destination by the popularity and quality of the experience, postulated by these posts. Twitter is a particularly effective platform for consumers and brands to interact. For instance, if a user tweets feedback about the destination, due to Twitter’s public nature, the brand can have a conversation with the user and others regarding the destination. Therefore, engagement with past and potential customers is cultivated and the destination’s desire to perfect the guest’s experience becomes apparent to the consumer. Furthermore, if guest satisfaction is high then this can simultaneously act as authentic advertisement, for the destination.

Social media can be utilised in a more specific manner for customer feedback. For instance, customers will voice their concerns or questions through the direct messages or their social media pages. This sort of feedback is usually provided before the trip takes place. For example, through the questions that a DMO receives about their destination they can assess how easy it is to access their destination and how they can improve upon this. Customers tend to prefer to use these as it is a very quick method of engaging with brands. Facebook’s message window can be set to pop up as soon as the customer opens the page, therefore encouraging them to write to the DMO directly rather than through public comments. This helps to keep negative comments shielded from view, even though obscuring parameters for negative sentiment phrases and words can be set beforehand.

3. Review sites

Review sites are a key place to gain feedback from previous customers and, then, ascertain the level of tourist satisfaction. One of the key places is TripAdvisor. TripAdvisor, like most review sites, enables the user to leave a rating and a comment on their experience. However, there are no guiding questions to prompt different perspectives about different areas. Hence, a few of the most prominent opinions are discussed by customers. There are pages for specific locations but no reviews for the destination as whole. TripAdvisor divides everything into three categories: 'Things to do’, ‘Places to eat’ and ‘Places to stay’. DMOs should evaluate customer satisfaction from the points raised by customers in these categories and see where access can be improved.

Google Reviews provides not only an insight to the most prevalent issues to your customers, enabling a DMO to measure satisfaction with the destination, but they also have an elaborate system of Google Local Guides, in which they encourage people to leave informative reviews of the places listed on Google Maps. Hence, synchronously, they also incentivise customers to leave their opinions about your destination. The more the customer writes, in quality and in number, the higher up the local guide level they get. Becoming a Local Guide is incentivised by gaining early access to Google products and features. Google Maps will also locate where the user has been and after their visit they will send them a push notification to remind the user to leave a review and enjoy the benefits of the Local Guide system. Google reviews can be highly influential for consumers, as they can be seen as the first thing while researching the destination and the opinion of one person might impact the decisions of others to come your destination.

Facebook has also branched out into ‘recommendations’. Customers can recommend destinations and give them a star rating, as well, based on their experience. The recommendations are then posted publicly to their followers. Thus, it will not only be people who are researching the destination who see the feedback but those who are unaware of the destination. Facebook recommendations is a great way to simultaneously gain customer feedback and raise awareness about your destination.

In conclusion, DMOs can estimate tourist satisfaction via surveys, social media responses and review websites. In-App and Post Service surveys have high return rates. However, they just specify whether the consumer enjoyed their stay in the destination, not why. Email surveys are more detailed and elaborate on what the consumer experience was and why. Yet, they do not have high return rates, because it requires the customer to invest more time. Social media and review websites allow the customer to discuss a few issues that they felt were more important to them at various activities, places to stay and places to eat, within the destination. Thus, a DMO can see how each part of the tourist experience is rated and where the destination keeps tourists satisfied.

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