Since its founding in 1978, Longwoods International has been creating groundbreaking research for its clients. Built on the company’s experience in a wide range of industries, the Longwoods International team applied their knowledge and expertise to revolutionize destination marketing analysis and accountability.
Taking the travel and tourism industry from measuring success by counting the number of visitor guides distributed and phone calls received, Longwoods International created the innovative Advertising Effectiveness and Return on Investment (ROI) methodology that is the industry standard today.
Building on this foundation, Longwoods expanded its research into areas that reveal deeper consumer motivations with an award-winning methodology rooted in the science of experimental psychology. Longwoods International’s Brand Health & Image Assessment (Image Research) uncovers the hot buttons – often subconscious and usually emotional – that are the true drivers of consumer preferences and purchase behavior. Our research has demonstrated that advertising which pushes the right emotional hot buttons can be over 100 times more effective in terms of ROI than creative which misses the emotional mark.
As destinations are shifting more of their attention to the impact of tourism on residents, Longwoods International developed our Resident Sentiment research to equip DMOs with insights into how their local community perceives the benefits and challenges provided by the tourism economy.
Additionally, our thought-provoking “Halo Effect” studies finally measured the impact of tourism advertising and visitation on a destination’s image across all other economic development indicators.
And last but not least, Longwoods International’s Travel USA® syndicated study is the largest and longest ongoing study of American travelers. With the largest sample size of any study of this kind, Travel USA® provides accurate overnight and day trip visitor profiles for mid-size and many smaller destinations for the first time ever and allows larger destinations to do more in-depth analysis.
The impact of Longwoods research has helped shape the destination marketing world. In the 1990s, the state of Colorado abolished its tourism office and all tourism marketing spending. It was a now-legendary Longwoods study that quantified what that decision cost the state in lost tourism market share and revenue, causing a reversal and the re-establishment of Colorado tourism marketing.
In 2005, it was a Longwoods International Advertising Effectiveness and ROI study that demonstrated the return on investment – in incremental state tax collections – that the State of Michigan earned with their tourism advertising. Based on these results, Travel Michigan’s budget was increased from $5.7 million per year to $13 million, resulting in new image research, the hiring of a new advertising agency, and the creation of a new brand for the state, “Pure Michigan.” Ongoing ROI research detailing the effectiveness of this award-winning campaign boosted the Pure Michigan budget over time to $35 million per year.
There are countless examples of how research from Longwoods International has provided the data and insights to help destinations achieve great benefits for their communities.