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This activity will allow you to focus on the types of data that exist within your destination and that you can employ to develop sustainably, but will also help you identify knowledge gaps and reflect on how you could gather alternative data to cover these gaps.

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The activity is intended to be completed with your team within the DMO in order to understand how the organisation can find ways in which data can help us lead the sustainable transformation of the destination.

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‍1. Intent

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The first part of the activity aims to help you reflect on how your team can align on the uses that can be given to data in order to tackle sustainability issues within the destination. Furthermore, you will have the opportunity to reflect on why data should be used in order to solve the existing problems.

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Together with your team, focus on those "big ideas" that you would like to implement within the destination and that data could aid you to achieve them. This part of the activity will allow you to enrich your interactions, anticipate and avoid disruptions, scale your learnings and detect liabilities within your strategy.

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2. Data Wall

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This activity will allow you to document all the data you can use in order to solve sustainability issues in order to lead your destination towards a more sustainable future for all.

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After having gathered your ideas on how data can be used to your advantage, it is now time to reflect on all the data that you have, want and that would be a bonus to have. Below you can find a few definitions of the types of data that you should focus on in this part of the activity:

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• Public data: Available to the wider public, can be free or have a price.
• Private data: All data that your DMO owns.
• User data: Owned or generated by the visitors and stakeholders of the destination.

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When you think about the data that you don't currently own but want, keep in mind that data that will be necessary in order to have an overall understanding of the destination and that can help you in transforming it. On the other hand, when you think of the data that would be nice to have, think of sources and types of data that are not a reality today but that might be in the future as this will help you keep them in mind in case they arise.

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Lastly, together with the whole team discuss which of the data sources you have written on the table are most critical to guarantee the success of your destination's sustainability journey.

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3. Understanding

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Through this part of the activity, you and your team should try to deconstruct your data sources in order to determine what you'll need in order to teach stakeholders how sustainability can be achieved and implemented through their daily operations.

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By having identified your critical data sources beforehand, you should now focus on five of them. These critical data sources will become your departure point and are the ones you need to deconstruct. How can you do that?

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1. Start by writing down on a sticky note an individual data component that comprises that data source.
2. Think of all the individual components that make up that data source.

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Once you have gathered this information for each of the five data sources, reflect on the following questions:

• Do the data components need to be defined in order to better take advantage of them?
• Who will be curating the data and communicating results to the destination's stakeholders?

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By focusing on these questions you will be able to have a more comprehensive understanding of the most important types of data that will play a key role in aiding the sustainable transformation of the destination.

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4. Data Toolkit

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The aim of this part of the activity is to help you take stock and classify all the data sources and individual data components that you have previously identified.

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By doing this, you will be able to know which information is most relevant within your destination, and thus should be prioritised. Nonetheless, it will also allow you to identify whether some of these data present potential to be further exploited and, thus, allow you to refocus on their uses.

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5. Reasoning

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This exercise is about hypothesising what our destination could achieve based on the understanding that data will provide. The aim of this part of the activity is to revisit your "big ideas" from the intent exercise and transform them into achievable goals by considering what's feasible.

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Gather your team and transform three of those "big ideas" into three achievable goals. Once you have brainstormed on how these could be achieved and help move forward the sustainable transformation of the destination, try to fill in the reasoning statements by rewriting the text in the sticky notes.

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By writing down reasoning statements, you will be able to gather a better understanding of how that goal will help the different stakeholders of your destination to move forward while including data in their strategies.

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6. Knowledge

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With this part of the activity, you will be able to brainstorm with your team on the direct and indirect effects that the gathered data will have on your destination's journey towards sustainability.

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In addition, in this part of the activity you should focus on brainstorming whether, based on all the previous insights, you are able to benefit from collaborating with data experts and explore who would be best for this role.

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Keep in mind that this is the first step of a process that never ends, which will require you to come back to it from time to time to improve the data gathered and help you better achieve your goals.

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Are you ready to get started? You can complete this activity by downloading the template below.