At PCMA’s 2011 Convening Leaders last month, Convene talked with DMAI’s Michael Gehrisch about the hot-button issues forDMOsof all levels.(Watch an excerpt fromthe video interviewat http://bit.ly/hvLujW.)Here’s what he had to say:
I think the whole idea of how people search for the content for a destination is really beginning to change, and I think that’s an opportunity for theDMOs. Recently, Google purchased ITA [Software], so now you go
into Google Maps—it’s still in the beta [phase], but it’s going to be rolled out—and you type in “hotels inWashington,D.C.,” and up on theleft-hand sidepops up all thehotels. Now, you can’t book a hotel there, but you can search for one. Those are opportunities for content and, I think, collabo-
ration between DMOs. Because now the consumer expects, wherever they go, to have rich content.And I think the oppor- tunity for DMOs is that they’ve been in the content business since their inception. People can go to get any kind of infor- mation they want, at their fingertips, within 30 seconds. Before, DMOsprovided unbiased information to travelers. I think that’s changed now, and what the consumer wants is biased infor- mation from a trusted source.So they go on the web,and they type in a destination they’ve never been to before,and up pops five reviews from bloggers.Well,whoare they going to believe?
AmI going to believe the person who might look likeme,who might bemy age, or am I going to go to theofficial destina- tion marketing organization of that destination that gives a sense of an official, trusted source? I think you’re going to see more collaboration with the des-
tinations in thesearch on theleisure sideof thebusiness. On the meetings side, people have become used to having con- tent at their fingertips, whether it’s a cell phone, iPad, or lap- top. That’s a primary responsibility of a destination,and I don’t think that will change. But I do think the relationship piece is key. I think that we’ve
tried to humanize [technology]—particularly on the meetings side—with our empowerMINT project (formerly called our MINT database that had all the meetings history) that bureaus subscribeto; they provideinformation on thehistories of all the meetings that take place within their destinations.We put a front end (figuratively speaking) on that that gives planners information about the destination.And they can put in search criteria. So if their search criteria is that they need a thou- sand sleeping rooms, 30,000 square feet of meeting space, in the southwest part of the country, they can search multi- ple destinations, and then it will set them up with an expert in specific areas. With all the contact information, they get a picture of theliveperson. That’s important.