The Impact of Geolocation Data on Tourism Strategies

The times are a’changing, and destination marketing organizations (DMOs) are increasingly recognizing the need for data-driven decision-making and the advanced technologies required to gain a deeper understanding of their visitors. Geolocation data has emerged as one of the most useful tools for DMOs to learn more about their visitors and their behaviors, preferences, and patterns. Interested in learning more about what makes this such a strong resource for destination marketers and how it empowers DMOs to make strategic decisions to drive tourism and economic growth? Let us break it down for you:  

• Understanding Visitor Behavior: Geolocation data gives DMOs insights into visitor behavior such as: Where do their tourists come from? What areas are they visiting while in-market? How long are they staying for? Analyzing these behaviors and patterns allow DMOs to identify the different demographics and markets with the highest likelihood of converting - Not to mention, great insights into which regions, activities and points of interest bring in the most visitors. This understanding will help identify the high-value regions and audiences to focus efforts towards, ultimately leading to a more efficient allocation of resources. 
• Personalization and Customization: Another advantage of geolocation data? It allows DMOs to deliver hyper-personalized marketing campaigns with targeted messages, recommendations and offers based on a visitor’s location and past behavior. Looking to drive visitation during your destination's big wellness event or food festival? Target yoga aficionados or foodies that live 50+ miles away. Our research consistently shows that the tailoring of marketing efforts to individual preferences creates a more engaging experience, fosters loyalty to the brand, and increases a consumer’s likelihood of visiting the destination.
• Optimizing Visitor Experiences: Geolocation data gives DMOs real-time insights into crowd density and movement within a destination, enabling organizations to anticipate peak times and manage visitor flow more effectively. For some destinations it could be limiting visitation to national parks that have seen an increase in traffic and people, for others it could be looking for ways to highlight the less traveled areas within their destination. 
• Strategic Decision-Making: The ability to analyze visitor data over time enables DMOs to identify emerging trends and changing preferences, and then quickly adapt their marketing strategies and product offerings accordingly. What might this look like? Imagine geolocation data revealing the emergence of a strong new feeder market that had not previously been targeted with proactive marketing before. Datafy’s capabilities make it easy to quickly identify and then begin targeting this new market to capture a group with a high likelihood of conversion that had previously been flying under the radar. 
• Tracking Marketing Campaign Effectiveness: Geolocation data can also help DMOs measure the success of their marketing campaigns and give DMOs the ability to report to their stakeholders with verifiable impacts of their marketing efforts. For example, DMOs can use the data to compare visitation before and after a campaign to determine if the campaign led to a verifiable increase. Then, tracking this over time means that DMOs can assess and identify which initiatives resonate best with their target audiences. 

Geolocation data enables DMOs to better understand visitor behavior, optimize the visitor experience, and to make more strategic decisions about the resource allocation that will best drive tourism growth - all essential elements for DMOs to remain competitive and achieve their destination’s full potential. 

Interested in learning about how your destination can leverage geolocation data to help shape your marketing strategies? Reach out to Datafy today.