To provide clarity for a rapidly-changing market, KPI's for tourism marketers have evolved. Three areas of research which all DMOs should focus are: resident sentiment, traveler intelligence and return on investment.

The market for the near future will look different, making it important the tourism marketers have a strong foundation of insights and integrate data to provide clarity into the evolution of the marketplace, and to guide marketing and community alignment with diversified market intelligence.
 

Sentiment research allows destinations to discover how the local community perceives tourism and its impacts, as well as emerging concerns that are relevant to today. The current pandemic and social distancing restrictions has caused disruption across all communities for which travel is a part of their local economy throughout the country, which require a deeper understanding by tourism marketers. Longwoods works closely with its clients to configure resident sentiment studies that are tailored to address topics unique to their organization.

Each study will include the national survey questions including a COVID-19 module, with regional level benchmarking. Beyond national sentiment toward tourism and its impacts, Longwoods Resident and Traveler sentiment research covers timely topics, including:

• Sentiment toward welcoming visitors into the destination
• Comfort and interest in engaging with the local community
• Sentiment toward (resident) travel in destination/region (spending money in destination)
• Perception of DMO marketing initiatives
• Differences in welcoming various visitor types (friends/relatives, state residents, out-of-state, international, etc.)
• Sentiment toward opening various places in destination to visitors (attractions, restaurants, retail, parks)

The majority of American travelers have changed their plans due to the coronavirus, changed to a destination they can drive as opposed to fly, or reduced travel plans. Undoubtedly, travel patterns and key origin markets for destinations will look different in 2020 and will continue to evolve throughout the pandemic and beyond.

Using geolocation data in tandem with Longwoods Travel USA® enables destinations to:

• Have a timely view of travel recovery to their market and characteristics that make the market unique from prior periods
• Be a proactive destination marketers and create promotions that appeal to and target their current markets

Destinations will receive a report on the tracked visitor mobile devices on a monthly or quarterly cadence, to provide timely indicators of the health of a destination’s travel industry and a view of their market which is fully informed with Longwoods Travel USA®, providing a comprehensive view of their market using the largest US syndicated annual study of American domestic travel.

The majority of American travelers have changed their plans due to the coronavirus, and undoubtedly travel patterns and key origin markets for destinations will look different in 2020 and will continually evolve. Advertising Effectiveness and Image research allow DMOs to demonstrate their value by showing: incrementality, contribution to a diverse base of tax revenue, and evolving image of their destination. By conducting this research for DMOs can:

• Demonstrate and elevate the success of their initiatives 
• Adapt ongoing programs to attract travel and improve the image of the destination which are drivers of consumer preferences and purchase behavior
• Evaluate position with competition to determine the destination strengths for attracting travel

Longwoods works in tandem with clients to identify those data points for analysis in ROI and Image research which are meaningful to show their organizational value as well as to drive effective advertising programs.