The Tourism Brief

On today's podcast we look at how Social Media Marketing is changing rapidly and now there is a cost to engage future clients. We also look at why I wouldn't be a CEO of a DMO or RTO for all the tea in China. Finally if you are a tourism business we look at what you should know about DMO's and RTO's. I have worked in the tourism industry all of my life in many organisations mainly dealing with destination marketing in some form or another. I have worked with DMO's STO's and was chair of ACC an RTO. I’ve worked with more than 50 DMOs from all around the world. And a big challenge for every DMO is managing their industry stakeholders. The politics. Proving value and relevancy. Even if well-intended, I don’t think industry stakeholders truly understand how their actions can impact the efficiency and effectiveness of their DMO/RTO. As a Tourism business how do you get the best out of your RTO?

Today you can hear Tourism Tim Warren discuss three different strategies that you can use to increase the sales from your tourism website by 100%. This is a short 10 minute message from one of the foremost digital tourism marketing experts from the US. At Icon Tourism Consulting we call him the website whisper. He just has the knack of being able to lift sales for tourism business by doing nothing else than adjusting the web page. Listen to the three most important strategies you should be doing on your webpage. Also we look at the difficulty of being a CEO of a Local Tourism or Regional Tourism organisation.

At Icon Tourism over the years we have worked with a number of different destinations. We have found that if a destination is not working it is either due to 1) Local Politics 2) Lack of Champions or leadership 3) Lack of Money 4) Parochialism. One of more of these factors present will kill a destination. Today we will dive back into the Icon Tourism Webcast vault to hear from Leslie McLellan: A Small Town Girl and hear her solutions for destinations using a Plan, Passion and Partnerships. She will also discuss how you can market very successfully in tourism with little or no budget. We have had many people request a replay of this webcast so here it is.

Tourism Marketing,destination marketing,use to be easy....or easier!.You would spend a whole heap of cash on providing a service,printing a brochure,working the distribution chain (trade shows,consumer shows,agents inbound operators and wholesalers) and hey presto you would watch the bookings roll in. Now potential travellers,your future clients are hit with a ton of messages every day. The web has transformed how the modern tourist shop and buy. How do you deal with this? What medias should you be using in your tourism or destination business. Manny Papadoulis explores the concepts of Earned, Owned and Paid media and how and when do you use them in your business for ultimate succes. Tourism Tim Warren speaks about social proof on your website and other tips to make your tourism business grow.

Ever wondered why some tourism business are featured in the media and on travel blogs more than others. It is no accident. You'll find these organisations large or small are media and online savvy. They know how to work with media and bloggers. On this weeks episode we will learn how to work and host media and run a effective media or bloggers famil that will generate thousands of dollars of free publicity. Also Tourism Tim Warren will talk about Tripadvisor and how to work with them whether you like it or not. Finally we will discuss how you can use podcasting to promote your tourism business or destination. Make sure you listen to the end to find out how to receive your free copy of Tourism Marketing Essentials valued at $49 dollars. This 186 page book will put you on the road to success as the essential guide to improving marketing and increasing your profits.

It is the school holiday time in Australia. Families are travelling all over Australia and one thing has become obvious to me while I was on holidays was the missed opportunity by not offering free wifi to visitors at venues, wineries, attractions, and even key natural iconic attractions. It seems like a no brainer-free, fast internet access would increase the number of real time photos, posts, check in etc about their venues on social platforms. On this episode we see the advantages and what to do if you are not offering this service already. Our regular contributor Tourism Tim Warren will give you some great tips on digital tourism marketing.

In this episode part 3 of our discussion on Google Semantic Search for the travel and tourism industry, we take you through the practical steps to help create your content marketing plan and be well on the way to being presented in a user search for travel inspiration during the dreaming, planning and booking stages of travel planning. It is important to understand that 60% of leisure travel begins with a search on the internet by people looking for ideas and inspiration. A content marketing plan is an efficient way of getting to your potential customers. Tourism Tim Warren speaks on good old fashion customer service. What tourism business should be doing to ensure their customer service works for them.

On this episode we hear more tactics and strategies for tourism business to ensure they take advantage of semantic search. Our special guest from the USA Tourism Tim Warren the foremost consultant on webpage and digital marketing for tourism talks about the importance of social proof for travel and tourism industry marketing.

The way we all work with Google both as a business and a user changed forever toward the end of 2013 with the introduction of Google Semantic Search. It is not an algorithm update, but an entire overhaul. The most important take out in all of this is that page 1 of Google is different for every search query, every device and desktop. There is no longer the single holy grail metric of page 1 of Google for a keyword. Listen to Manny Papadoulis as he does a quick interview with Bronwyn White on Semantic search and its impact on tourism. Tourism Tim Warren also gives some great tips on how to make a website to sell more tourism and travel