For the second consecutive year MMGY Global has prepared the Destination Marketing Technology Report and this year the findings are publicly available. With over 100 destination marketers surveyed, this report compiles their insights on the current status of marketing technology in the tourism industry.
Below are insights gleaned from the survey.
The report is now available to download here.
Website
Overall website satisfaction is down year over year, with the leading cause for a second year in a row being poor user experience. The number of destinations that will be investing more in their websites has increased by about a third year over year. Although less than half of respondents use website personalization, almost 90% of those that do believe that this technology is effective. Website monetization reveals fragmentation in the industry; about half of respondents are monetizing their websites, just over half of whom were satisfied with the revenue their website generated.
- 90% of respondents who indicated that they were “not satisfied” or “not at all satisfied” reported user experience as the leading reason why
- 42% of respondents said they were using website personalization, and 88% of those respondents believe it is effective
- 51% of respondents are monetizing their website in a number of different ways; 55% of those respondents stated they were satisfied with the revenue generated
Email Marketing & Automation
Overall email marketing satisfaction is down year over year, and more respondents reported being “not satisfied” with their email marketing. Just over a quarter of respondents stated they use marketing automation software for email marketing, and 83% of those who are not using it don’t plan to this year.
Emerging Technology
- Recent years have seen the rise of technology such as augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), chatbots, voice search and smart speakers. In general, the majority of destination respondents did not see these technologies as investment opportunities or as impactful to their business, although chatbots and smart speakers seem the most promising in the eyes of marketers.
- Nearly three-fourths of respondents are unlikely to invest in AR, while just over a quarter thought that it would be somewhat impactful to travel planning.
- Two-thirds of respondents are unlikely to invest in VR; in fact, no one thought it would be extremely impactful.
- Chatbots are slightly more enticing, as just under half of respondents are likely to use them and roughly 60% think they would be impactful.
- Voice search or smart speakers are generating the most interest overall. Although only a third of respondents are likely to invest in this technology, about 65% think that it will be impactful. In fact, nearly half of respondents said that this technology was the first thing on their wish list if budget, resources and the ability to successfully implement the technology were not issues.
