E-Tourism Frontiers is proud to announce a new initiative in partnership with TripAdvisor, the world’s largest travel site, and the Pacific Asia Travel Association to improve the way destinations use content created by travellers.
DATA (Destination Academy with TripAdvisor) consists of regional events that are by invitation only, bringing together destinations to discuss the growing importance of user-generated content in travel planning. With more and more consumers relying on content from ‘fellow travellers’ to plan their trips, it is vital for destinations to understand how this can be incorporated into their marketing strategies. DATA events will include training sessions, guided discussions, best practices, as well as analysis and trends from TripAdvisor.
The inaugural DATA event will be held in Singapore on the 27th and 28th of November, 2014, and TripAdvisor will be partnering with PATA and hosting up to 20 regional Destination Managers.
Sarah Mathews, Destination Marketing Senior Manager, APAC,TripAdvisor, said, “We are delighted to partner with PATA to launch DATA, a highly innovative and dynamic programme specially designed for destinations. As the world’s largest travel site with nearly 280 million unique monthly visitors we see that engagement with destinations is key, so that they can leverage the positive power of travellers reviews, opinions, and content in their marketing strategies. Travellers today want to hear from other travellers and see genuine, experience-driven content, and we can help destinations achieve this.”
Damian Cook, the CEO of E-Tourism Frontiers, said, “ While many regard online as impersonal, the human face of travel is really becoming more important online. We’ll be looking at the evolution of destination management in a user controlled market. The value of local, real time content is now hugely important and sites such as TripAdvisor are seeing this change and ensuring that travel content has a genuine human presence. We want to show destinations how to connect and leverage user-generated content but also to build more adaptive destination strategies for the future.”
PATA COO Mario Hardy said he was delighted that Singapore would host the first DATA event: “We know that travel to Asia has increased significantly in the last few years. According to PATAmPOWER, the Association’s next generation business decision-making tool, international visitor arrivals (IVAs) to Asia grew at an annual growth rate of around 6.9% between 2009 and 2013, with Southeast Asia and South Asia leading the pack with double-digit growth. Therefore, we want to equip destinations in the region with the most up-to-date knowledge, trends and research so they can incorporate the best use of social media into not only their marketing campaigns but in how they connect with travellers on a daily basis”.
More information can be found here.
The events will also offer destinations the opportunity to hold DATA events in their home countries to educate and empower their travel trade. Further regional DATA events in other emerging markets will be announced soon.
