The power of the platforms
The increasing dominance and power of online platforms has led to the declining relevance of destinations' branded communication channels. A limited number of top dogs have come to dominate the Internet over the years when it comes to booking travel, flights, car rentals and hotels. In tourism services, where purchases tend to be of greater monetary value and thus provide better commission models, the likes of Booking.com, Expedia, AirBnB, TripAdvisor, Trips.com have been dominant for some time - and have seen huge investment.
Wherever gaps in tourism services remain, such as arranging guided tours, making table reservations, and organizing vacation rentals, additional platforms continue to emerge.
Consumer products continue to be dominated by Amazon, followed by many other giants like Zalando, and when it comes to digital communication, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and TikTok currently lead the pack.
Platforms that host content, news, or relate to the outdoors have seen business models move to favor subscriptions.
Of course, much of what is seen at all is largely dictated and influenced by those willing to spend their advertising budget on Google.
The challenge for destinations
The result of all of this is that destinations now face the massive challenge of getting their content, product, and message noticed. Users have less and less desire to try and navigate un-intuitive websites created by agencies, where confusing menu structures and large, slow-loading images no longer meet standard UX (user experience) expectations. Today's users want to be able to access information with ease and in the shortest possible time using their smartphone.
Destinations are therefore missing out on the most important part of their communication: interaction with people. Standard destination websites have no sign-up function and no community. If something is ever sold or booked, the user's data cannot be properly utilized due to GDPR regulations. When destinations turn to social media platforms to reach people, they are not the ones benefiting from the user's data and, as a result, they will continue not to know their guests digitally. It is only by building their customer databases in CRM systems that destinations can access official reporting data and analog surveys and, in doing so, they can learn much more about their guests.
This is where we can help
This is where we can help
Outdooractive is not only the leading platform for outdoor tourism, but also the only platform that allows destinations to take sovereignty over all communication themselves.
- The Business Account database allows all types of tourism content to be centrally managed.
- Connectors to tourism platforms ensure a smooth data exchange across booking systems and channels.
- The Travel Guide structure is automatically populated with both content from the database and additional services such as weather, webcams and climbing areas. A standardized information structure spread across landing pages forms the focal point for digital guest information, SEO, and marketing campaigns.
- Destination data is distributed to 2,500 digital channels for maximum visibility.
- As a content hub, the platform is the central point for all social media posts and facilitates free content widgets for bloggers and influencers.
- The platform brings together all relevant “business types“ including, protected areas, trail managers, search and rescue services, and guides.
- A destination can create all front-end output channels as full-service white-label SaaS products for web and app.
- The full-service community is fully integrated, is GDPR-compliant under its own and allows the destination to create fully branded community.
- The platform offers tools and incentives for generating leads and guest profiles with content management. This data can be further enriched in the destination CRM (Zoho) with data from other systems, e.g. guest cards or booking systems.
- Guests can be given personalized content based on their preferences.
The list goes on, but if you were keen to discover more about what Outdooractive can do for you, why not arrange an appointment with one of our consultants.
